Pope Francis Encourages the Virtue of Fortitude Among the Faithful

“A Christian without courage, who does not bend his own strength to good, who does not bother anyone, is a useless Christian.” Pope Francis addresses the faithful, encouraging them to practice more the virtue of fortitude, leaving their comfort zones. Cultivating fortitude, he explains at Wednesday's audience, means “overcoming the obstacles of moral life”, cultivating passions according to the spirit of the Gospel. Jesus himself was certainly not “diaphanous and aseptic, but had a passionate soul”. So much so that he said: “I have come to bring fire on the earth”. An intervention, that of the Pope which seems to follow the spirit of the encyclical of Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam and, in particular, a passage contained in it: “the Christian is not soft and vile, but strong and faithful.” Pope Francis: “Surrogate motherhood to become a universal crime. Respect gays, but gender theory very dangerous” Fortitude, he insists with the faithful, is considered a fundamental virtue “because it takes seriously the challenge of evil in the world. Some pretend it does not exist, that everything is fine, that human will is not sometimes blind, that in history there are no dark forces carrying death. But it is enough to flip through a history book, or unfortunately also the newspapers, to discover the atrocities of which we are a bit victims and a bit protagonists: wars, violence, slavery, oppression of the poor, wounds never healed that still bleed. The virtue of fortitude makes us react and shout a firm “no” to all this. While a gust of wind blew away the Pope's skullcap, the crowd waved flags and shouted slogans in support of Bergoglio. Vatican: “Decriminalize crimes on homosexuality”. Then Fernandez reveals polls favorable to the blessing for gay couples Francis then complained about how everything has become “watered down” in the West, given the general apathy, as if there was “no need for struggles because everything appears the same, and so we sometimes feel a healthy nostalgia for the prophets. But very rare are the uncomfortable and visionary people. We need someone to shake us from the soft place where we have settled.” Finally, at the end of the audience, there was a thought for Ukraine, Myanmar, Palestine, and Israel. “May God give us peace.” The Wednesday morning appointment in St. Peter's Square began with a ride on the jeep along with four children, and ended with greetings to two cardinals and a dozen bishops. To each he dispensed greetings and phrases for the occasion, with some he stopped to look at photographic material, to others he signed mementos.