John Paul II and CL Christ’s Liberation in the Communion of the Church March 31, 1979, Paul VI Hall. Pope John Paul II’s first audience with ten thousand CL university students. (In La Traccia, 1978-1979, pp. 334-336) Dear young people, you are welcome. This spontaneous and festive enthusiasm with which you have welcomed my arrival in this hall witnesses to your sincere affection and expresses clearly the deep faith that you have in the ecclesial ministry that Christ has entrusted to me. Your presence today is a great joy for me, and I cannot say that we are meeting for the first time; I don’t know how many times we have already met. I remember all those meetings in Poland, and I must say that those encounters produced their fruit because today, as I entered, I didn’t know who was here in this hall–I was asking myself, “Are they Italian youth or Polish youth?” So many meetings: I well remember the meeting in Kroscienko, and then once in Krakow. But now we have to speak of your pilgrimage. I always thought I was quite a faithful pilgrim, faithful to Czestochowa and to Jasna Gora, but I met people here who have twice made the pilgrimage from Warsaw to Czestochowa, on foot, whereas I made it only once, and not from Warsaw, but only from Krakow, which is much closer. So you have been pilgrims many times in Poland. You come to Kroscienko, you come from all over during the summer when they hold those so-called oases, assemblies, spiritual exercises for young Poles. You come willingly and spend those days with them. Then you come to take part in the pilgrimage from Warsaw to Czestochowa, one hundred and fifty miles if I am not mistaken, on a road that is not an easy one. Last year, the number of Italian participants was the highest and I think that those pilgrims were for the greater part made up of people from your Movement. I remember once, perhaps it’s as well that I remember, I am not reading, once, but it will be the only memory for now, I remember at Krakow, after that pilgrimage from Warsaw to Czestochowa an Italian group came, they came to my chapel in Krakow in the archbishop’s house and sang in Polish. I couldn’t make out the difference: “Are they people of CL or are they people of our Movement for the Living Church?” So we are not meeting for the first time. I tell you that this meeting today for me is above all a great joy, and I hope such a joy will go on for ever. Trust in the youth of the whole world I wish to show you the comfort and the satisfaction that this encounter with you brings me. I have had numerous occasions for witnessing the trust that I nourish in the youth and everywhere: in Poland, in Mexico, in Italy. This trust I nourish in their enthusiasm for all noble and great causes, in their prompt and disinterested readiness for sacrifice for the ideals they believe in. I renew the affirmation in this trust in you this morning, to you who believe in Christ, in whom lies the true hope of the world, because He is “the true light that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). You have offered yourselves to take into every environment in which Providence has placed you to live, to serve, to love, the renovating message of the faith, because you are convinced that in the Gospel it is possible to find the answers that satisfy everyone as regards the questions that assail man. Your proposal has collected assent, albeit through contrasts and opposition and I know that you have suffered for it. So amongst the contrasts and oppositions you have seen converging on you, you have seen young people joining you, those to whom your example has opened up new horizons of giving, of self-realization, and of joy. So you have been able to touch with your hands how our world needs Christ. It is important for you to go ahead announcing His saving word with humble courage. Only from this can come man’s true liberation. St. John wrote with a striking expression, “The Word gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). In Christ, in other words, is placed the source of the power that transforms man from inside, the principle of that new life that does not fade and does not pass away for eternal life (cf., Jn 4:14). Only in the encounter with Him can that disquiet in which–as I pointed out in my recent encyclical–beats and pulsates what is most deeply human–the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience. Seeking to see man as it were with “the eyes of Christ Himself,” the Church becomes more and more aware that she is the guardian of a great treasure, which she may not waste but must continually increase. In this awareness and in the commitments that follow from it, every Christian is called to share. You, too, then, young people, my dear young people, who in the very name chosen to describe your Movement, “Communion and Liberation” (I must say that I like this name very much, for many reasons, for a theological reason and for–I would say–an ecclesiological reason. This name is so tied up with the ecclesiology of Vatican II. I like it for the perspective it opens to us: the personal, interior perspective and the social perspective–Communion and Liberation. For its relevance today, this is the Church’s task now, a task that is all expressed in the name “Communion and Liberation”), with this name, you have shown you are very much aware of the deepest expectations of modern man. Liberation, which the world is longing for–you have reasoned–is Christ; Christ lives in the Church. Man’s true liberation therefore happens in the experience of ecclesial communion, so building this communion is the essential contribution that Christians can give to the liberation of everyone. It is a profoundly true intuition. I cannot but exhort you to be consistent in drawing all the consequences. The Church is essentially a mystery of communion. I would say that it is an invitation to communion, to the life of communion–in vertical communion, we say, and in horizontal communion; in communion with God Himself, with Christ, and in communion with others. Communion is what explains full person-to-person relationships. The Church is essentially a mystery of communion, intimate and continually renewed communion with the source of life which is the Holy Trinity; communion of life, of living, of imitation, of sequelae of Christ, the Redeemer of Man, which inserts us closely with God. From here springs the operative authentic communion of love amongst us, in virtue of our ontological assimilation with Him. Invitation to communion. Live the needs that spring from this reality with generous energy. Seek to be of one mind and heart in the initiatives around your parish priests and with those around you, especially the Bishop, who is the “visible principle and foundation of unity in the particular Church” (cf., Lumen Gentium, 23). Through communion with your Bishop you can reach the certainty of being in communion with the Pope, with the whole Church; of being in communion with the Pope who loves you, who trusts you and expects a lot from your actions and in service of the Church and of many brothers who Christ has not yet reached with the light of His message. Among the criteria of authenticity that my great predecessor Paul VI applied to the ecclesial movements in the Apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, there is one that deserves attentive meditation: the “basic communities,” Paul VI said, will be “places of evangelization” and “hope for the Church” if they remain “firmly attached to the particular Church in which they are inserted and the universal Church, thus avoiding the danger of closing up in themselves, believing themselves the only authentic Church of Christ, and therefore anathematizing other ecclesial communities” (no. 58). These are words dictated by a broad pastoral experience, and you are able to appreciate all their wisdom. Get used to comparing all your concrete initiatives with this; from this constant commitment of verification depends the apostolic effectiveness of your activity, which will be then the authentic expression of the salvific mission of the Church in the world. An interior and social perspective I said that that name, Communion and Liberation, opens us up to an interior and, at the same time, social perspective. Interior because it makes us live communion with others, with those who are nearest; it makes us seek this communion on our personal path, in our friendships, in our love, in our marriage, in our family. Then, in the various environments, it is most important to keep the inter-human, interpersonal relationships, at that level of communion in relationship between men, between persons. This enables us to create a genuine liberation, because man frees himself in communion with others, not in isolation; not individually, but with others, through others, and for others. This is the full sense of communion from which liberation springs. And liberation, as I said in my address in this Hall on Wednesday, liberation brings with it various meanings. Much depends on the social and cultural environment; liberation has various meanings. It means one thing in Latin America, another in Italy, another in Europe, and another in Western Europe or in Eastern Europe; something else in African countries, etc. We have to seek that incarnation of freedom that is right in the particular context in which we are living. But liberation is reached always in communion and through communion. Dear young people, concluding this meeting and these words–I know that they haven’t touched all the possible arguments, but I would say only the more essential points: the meaning of your name; but let’s hope there will be other occasions to go ahead and deepen; we can’t finish everything in one go; it’s better that the hearers remain a bit hungry–well, in concluding this meeting I wish to leave you a job to get on with: with the Church go trustfully toward man. In the encyclical, I indicated man himself as the main way the Church has to travel, “because man–every and without exception–has been redeemed by Christ, freed by Christ, so that Christ has in some way united Himself with man–every man with no exception–even when that man does not realize it” (Redemptor Hominis, 14). Our Christian witness feeds itself on this certainty, and draws from it new energy and new freshness. Now we shall have a short interval, to give the blessing. I am sure that we don’t need to say more, but only accept this blessing and let ourselves hear it in our hearts. But, before the blessing, I want to speak to your spiritual Father. And then I want to speak to your President who spoke to me at the beginning, who introduced me and presented me with that Brazilian painting. I am grateful for your gift, I thank the artist, the painter; I am very grateful to the painter who painted it. And now we can pray, and give the blessing. Afterwards, some other ideas and words will come to us. Now some words that came to me during the prayer. The first is: I want to thank you for the fact that you have introduced me to the Pontificate. You came on the first day with an inscription in Polish. And I thought at once, “They are not Polish.” You know why? Because there was a mistake, a spelling mistake. The first word that came to me during the prayer. The second was: if things are as they are, we have to sing Oto Jes Gen. We have to sing it together because what that song says is true. [This is the day…the Lord has made…let us be glad and rejoice in Him] [ Sung together] There is still one idea, one word. Why do I leave you a bit hungry, not touching all the questions? Because I foresee in the coming week, on Thursday, that I will meet the students of Rome for an Easter Audience, for a Eucharistic celebration in St. Peter’s, an Easter celebration. The Cardinal Vicar said: Easter with the students. So I mustn’t say too much today; I have to leave something to say next week. That’s enough now.