Pope Leo XIV today exhorted Catholics to embrace the commitment to forgiveness and to reject calumnies through the practice of community fraternal correction. The appeal was made from the window of the Apostolic Palace, in the Vatican, before the Angelus prayer, before the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.
The pontiff warned that complaints and calumnies are easier, but produce nothing and paralyze many situations, emphasizing that the Gospel educates for freedom in charity. Leo XIV highlighted that the Gospel teaches the practice of remission of debts, speaking of a debt of mutual love and the importance of fraternal correction.
The Pope outlined a gradual process to exercise fraternal correction: first speak privately with the person, then, if necessary, with two or three more people, and finally, when needed, with the whole community. This approach allows, according to the pontiff, for confronting reality and transforming problems and conflicts into opportunities for growth.
Leo XIV also mentioned a second form of exercising discernment: the effort to reach an agreement to tune in common desires, common pains, and common hopes, growing in unity through prayer. The Sunday reflection concluded with an invocation to the Virgin Mary to teach the joyful debt of fraternal love, recalling Mary's attitude of hurrying to visit her cousin Elizabeth to share the joy and weariness of pregnancy.
