WYD Panama: Pope Francis, Youth,
and “listening therapy”
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| Pope Francis and young people at lunch during WYD in Panama City on Jan. 26, 2019.(Vatican Media) |
The ad interim Director of the Vatican Press Office comments
on the private lunch with Pope Francis and a group of young people representing
World Youth Day.
By Seàn-Patrick Lovett
It was lunchtime when Pope Francis finished celebrating Mass
with priests, religious and members of lay movements in the Cathedral of Santa
Maria La Antigua. Anxiously waiting to join him at table , in
the nearby Major Seminary of San José, were ten young people of different
nationalities, representing the many thousands who are here in Panama to
participate in the 34th World Youth Day.
The lunch with the young people was a private occasion. But
it was followed later in the day by a press conference, led by the ad interim
Director of the Vatican Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti. Speaking
to Vatican News, Gisotti describes the new kind of listening between young
people and the Church.
Listening therapy
“The message the young people are delivering to Pope
Francis”, says Gisotti, “is that we need to be listened to. The theme of
listening is very present in this pontificate”, he says.
In Spanish they call it “la terapia de
la escucha ”, listening therapy.
“Young people are saying every day with their every gesture,
in every important moment of this World Youth Day, that they want to be
listened to”, he says. “They want adults to take them seriously”. Gisotti is
convinced young people have found “an incredible ally” in Pope Francis,
precisely because he takes them so seriously.
The private lunch is a traditional element in the WYD
tradition. What struck Alessandro Gisotti ,is the attentive way the Holy
Father listened to his young guests around the table, even trying to speak to
them in English and French, and making sure everyone understood what everyone
else was saying.
“I spoke with him after the lunch”, says Gisotti, “and he
told me how important it was for him to listen to these young people, even when
it wasn’t easy to answer their questions”. “Listening is a gift”, he continues,
“not only for the youth, but for us adults, us parents, for
people of the Church”.
A common dynamic
The ad interim Director of the Vatican Press Office sees
this World Youth Day as a natural continuation of last year’s Synod of Bishops
on Youth. He describes it as being like “the second half of a match”. Gisotti
says there’s a common ”dynamic” between the two. Young people, he says, “are
changing the way we go forward”. The Holy Father recognizes the contribution
young people can make to the Church. In fact, he always underlines how it was
“not only a Synod of Bishops about youth…but with youth.”
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