We publish below the text of the Videomessage that the Holy Father Francis sent to the participants of the International Meeting “HECHOS 29” (Monterrey, 5-6 August 2022):
Text of the Holy Father’s Videomessage
To all you evangelizers participating in “HECHOS 29”, which is an important initiative for “missioning” in digital environments, I send an affectionate greeting.
May this meeting help you to feel you are a community, as a part of the missionary life of the Church, which has never been afraid to go towards new horizons and frontiers and, with creativity and courage, announce the mercy and tenderness of God.
As I said during my recent journey in Canada: “We must find new ways to proclaim the heart of the Gospel to those who have not yet encountered Christ. This calls for a pastoral creativity capable of reaching people where they are living – not waiting for them to come – find opportunities for listening, dialogue and encounter”.
Do not be afraid, do not be afraid of making mistakes: I never tire of repeating that I prefer a Church that is wounded because it ventures out to the existential peripheries of the world, to a Church that is sick because it remains closed up in its petty securities. The Lord knocks on the door to enter within us, but how many times he knocks on the door inside for us to let him out!
May the mission you carry out in digital spaces be full of humanity. Go and “Samaritanize” these environments, so that contemporary culture may know God by feeling him in you; go and take the hope of Jesus, especially to those who are most distant, giving them reasons for the hope that is in them. May words be accompanied by charity, and may virtuality strengthen presence, so that the web may
generate communion that makes Jesus present in its own culture.
Dear missionaries, I send you my blessing, and do not forget to pray for me! Thank you
