MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE MEETING
OF THE PRESIDENTS OF DOCTRINAL COMMISSIONS
OF THE EPISCOPAL CONFERENCES OF EUROPE

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,

On the occasion of the meeting of the Presidents of Doctrinal Commissions of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Esztergom, in the religious heart of Hungary on 13-15 January 2015, I would like to send you my cordial greeting.

I thank Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for this opportune initiative, which aims to improve local Episcopates, and in particular the Doctrinal Commission, who have the responsibility for the unity and integrity of the faith, as well as the transmission of the faith to younger generations. As I wrote in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, taking up the teaching of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council, “episcopal conferences are in a position ‘to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit’” (n. 32). I hope that your encounter will contribute to addressing, in a spirit of collegiality, the several doctrinal and pastoral difficulties which the European continent is facing, with the aim of arousing in the faithful missionary zeal and greater openness to the transcendent dimension of life, without which Europe risks losing the “humanistic spirit” which it loves and defends (cf. Address to the European Parliament, 25 November 2014).

In entrusting your work to the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary, the model for all believers, I give you my heartfelt blessing.

From the Vatican, 9 January 2015.

FRANCIS