With François takes place a notable displacement: if he does not break with his predecessors, he refocuses the gaze on Reading as personal experiencetool for emancipation and openness to the world, far from any normative prescription.
On November 21, 2024, François published for example a letter stressing the importance of studying the history of the Church – especially for priests, in order to better understand the world in which they live. For the Pope:
Study and tell the story helps keep the flame of collective consciousness lit
François pleads for a Study of ecclesial history without filterauthentic, including in its faults. He insists on primary sources and encourages students to ask questions. François criticizes the idea that history is reduced to a chronology – a heart learning without analysis of events. In 2024, the Pope asked historians to free himself from any ideology.
In 2019, François renamed the Vatican secret archives in Vatican apostolic archives. Although open to researchers since 1881, the term “secret“evoke something”Reserved for a few“He wrote.
Under his pontificate, The Vatican opens the archives of Pius XIIallowing to study his action during the Second World War, his knowledge of the Holocaust and his response to Nazi Germany.
In addition to his respect for history, the Pope underlines his love of reading. In a letter to the future priests, published on July 17, 2024, he wrote:
-In reading, the reader is enriched by what he receives from the author, but it allows him at the same time to bloom the richness of his own person, so that each new work he reads renews and widens his personal universe
He continues his point by explaining that the “obsession“screens, with their”false news poisoned, superficial and violent“, Diverts us from literature. He shares his experience as a young professor of Jesuit literature in Santa Fe, before adding a sentence that would have amazed the” index fictions “:
Of course, I do not ask you to do the same readings as me. Everyone will find books that speak to their own life and which will become real companions of route
Quoting his compatriot, the novelist Jorge Luis BorgesFrançois reminds Catholics that reading is:
listen to another’s voice. […] We must never forget how dangerous it is to stop listening to the voices that challenge us!
With the disappearance of François, the Vatican remains deeply divided between progressives and conservatives. While many modern democracies lean towards nationalism, fascism and censorship, one of the great achievements of Pope Francis will have been, in my eyes, his commitment to humanities, with a deep understanding of the challenges it faces.
