God Is Always Near. Pope Francis

ago—in order to counter a throwaway culture, according to which everything is disposable, a culture that always leaves people out of the equation. It leaves children out, it leaves young people out, it leaves the elderly out, and it leaves out all who are of no use, who do not produce. But this must not be! On the contrary, solidarity includes everyone. You must continue to work for this culture of solidarity and for the Gospel.

      Question on the importance of the family:

      Not only would I say that the family is important for the evangelization of the new world. The family is important and it is necessary for the survival of humanity. Without the family, the cultural survival of the human race would be at risk. The family, whether we like it or not, is the foundation.

      Chapter Four

       The Flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome

       Pope Francis’s Meeting with Journalists

      Sunday, July 28, 2013

      The in-flight press conference from Rio de Janeiro back to Rome was both a surprise to the journalists on board and to the wider world. Having declared initially his reluctance to grant interviews, Pope Francis dedicated ninety minutes to answering questions on a wide-ranging set of topics, including the reform of the Roman Curia, the role of women in the Church, mercy, and even what his biggest surprise had been so far as pope.

      The encounter with the journalists became the first major press event of the pontificate as the world’s media focused heavily on the pope’s comments regarding the need to reform the central government of the Church and the presence of a supposed “gay lobby” in the Vatican. One line, above all, caused an international sensation: “Who am I to judge?” The context of Pope Francis’s full meaning, of course, shows something very different from the assumptions of the secular press, but it was a taste of controversies to come.

      Note, too, the way that Pope Francis anticipated the key issues facing the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (to be held in 2014), with its sometime volcanic discussions of Communion for the divorced and remarried.

       Father Federico Lombardi

      My dear friends, we are delighted to have the Holy Father, Pope Francis, with us on this return flight. He has been gracious enough to allow plenty of time to assess his visit with us and to respond in complete freedom to your questions. I shall ask him to give us a brief introduction, and then we will begin with the list of those who have asked to speak and whom we have chosen from various nationalities and languages. So, we turn the microphone over to you, Your Holiness, for your words of introduction.

       Pope Francis

      Good evening, and thank you very much. I am pleased. It has been a good trip. It has been good for me spiritually. I am quite tired, but my heart is full of joy. I am well, really well. Indeed, it has been good for me spiritually. Meeting people is good for me because the Lord works in each one of us, he works in our hearts. The Lord’s riches are so great that we can always receive many wonderful things from others. And this does me a lot of good. This is my first assessment.

      Second, I would say that the goodness, the hearts of the Brazilian people are big, very big. They are a very loving people, a people who like to celebrate, who always find a way to seek out the good somewhere, even amidst suffering. This, too, is good: They are a joyful people, and they have suffered a lot. The joy of the Brazilian people is contagious. It really is! And these people have big hearts.

      As regards the organizers, both on our end and on the Brazilian end, I would have to say that I really felt like I was sitting in front of a computer, a computer that had become incarnate! Really! Everything was so well timed, wasn’t it? It was wonderful. We had some problems with the plans for security: security here, security there. Yet, there wasn’t a single accident in the whole of Rio de Janeiro throughout these days, and everything was spontaneous.

      With less security, I could have been with the people. I could have embraced them and greeted them without armored cars. There is a certain security in trusting people. It’s true that there is always the danger of some madman, the danger that some mad person will do something, but then, too, there is the Lord! But to make an armed space between a bishop and his people is madness. I prefer the other madness—to be out there and run the risk of the other madness. I prefer the madness of being out there! Closeness is good for us all.

      As regards the overall organization of World Youth Day—the artistic element, the religious element, the catechetical element, and the liturgical element—all of it was wonderful! They have an ability to express themselves in art. Yesterday, for example, they did some very lovely things, truly lovely. Then, there is Aparecida. For me, Aparecida was a powerful religious experience. It reminded me of the Fifth Conference [the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops’ Conferences, CELAM, in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007]. I went there to pray, to intercede. I wanted to go alone, somewhat hidden, but there was an impressive crowd! So this wouldn’t be possible: I knew this was the case before I arrived. Yet we prayed.

      As regards your work, I’ve been told—I haven’t read the newspapers for the past few days because I didn’t have time, nor did I see any television, nothing—but they tell me that you did a really fine job, that your work was really good. Thank you! Thank you for your collaboration; thank you for doing all this.

      Then, too, there was the number of young people. Today—I hardly believe it—but today the governor spoke of three million. I cannot believe it. But from the altar—it’s true! I don’t know whether you, or some of you, were up at the altar. From the altar, at the end of Mass, the whole beach was full, as far as the curve—more than four kilometers! There were so many young people. I was told—Archbishop [Orani João] Tempesta [of Rio de Janeiro] told me—that they came from 178 countries! The vice-president gave me the same figure, so it must be true. This is important! It’s amazing!

       Father Lombardi

      Thank you. Now we invite Juan de Lara to speak first, who is from Efe. He is Spanish, and it is the last journey he will make with us. So we are happy to offer him this opportunity.

       Juan de Lara

      Your Holiness, good evening. Along with all my colleagues, we would like to thank you for these days that you have given us in Rio de Janeiro, for all the work that you have done and all the effort you have put into them. Furthermore, on behalf of all the journalists from Spain, we want to thank you for your prayers for the victims of the train accident in Santiago de Compostela. Thank you very much.

      The first question does not have much to do with the trip, but I would like to take the opportunity that this occasion offers to ask you: Your Holiness, in these four months of your pontificate, we see that you have created various commissions to reform the Curia. I want to ask you: What kind of reform do you have in mind? Do you foresee the possibility of suppressing the Institute for Works of Religion, the so-called Vatican Bank? Thank you.

       Pope Francis

      The steps I have taken during these four and a half months come from two sources. The content of what needed to be done—all of it—comes from the general congregations of the cardinals. There were certain things that we, cardinals, asked of whoever was to be the new pope. I remember that I asked for many things, thinking that it would be someone else! We asked, for example, for a commission of eight cardinals. We knew that it was important to have an outside body of consultants, not the consultation groups that already exist, but one from the outside.

      This is entirely in keeping—and here I am making a mental abstraction, but it’s the way I try to explain it—with the maturing relationship between synodality and primacy. In other words, having these eight cardinals will work in favor of synodality. They will help the various episcopates of the world to express themselves in the government of the Church. There were many proposals that