Pope Leo XIV Tells 160 Religious Superiors "to safeguard fraternity and communion" while Integrating Technology - FULL TEXT

Pope Leo XIV on the afternoon of November 26 in the Vatican’s Synod Hall, addressed about 160 participants in the 104th Assembly of the Union of Superiors General (USG).The gathering, entitled “Connected Faith: Living Prayer in the Digital Age,” is being held outside Rome from November 26 to 28.
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE 104th GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE UNION OF SUPERIORS GENERAL (USG)

Synod Hall
Wednesday, November 26, 2024
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Muchas gracias, Father Arturo [Sosa, President of the Union of Superiors General], for your words.

Dear brothers ,

I am pleased to meet you on the occasion of your one hundred and fourth General Assembly. As you know, I too have carried out the ministry entrusted to you, and I know the importance of coming together to listen and discern, in the light of the Holy Spirit, what the Lord asks of you and your Orders and Congregations for the good of the Church.

For this assembly, you have chosen the theme "Connected Faith: Living Prayer in the Digital Age." It touches on three areas that are very important for religious life today: the relationship with God , encounters with brothers and sisters , and engagement with the digital world .

Let us begin by considering the first: the relationship with God . In the Bull of Indiction of the current Jubilee, Pope Francis , inviting us to be “pilgrims of hope,” wrote: “The history of humanity and that of each of us does not rush towards a blind spot or a dark abyss, but is oriented towards the encounter with the Lord of glory […]: it is in this spirit that we make our own the moving invocation of the first Christians, with which the whole of Scripture ends: ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ ( Rev 22:20)” ( Spes non confundit , 19).

Our hope is founded on the awareness of walking toward the encounter and full communion with God, who first offered us his friendship (cf. St. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata , 27). For this reason, prayer is fundamental to the existence of every consecrated person: a relational space within which the heart opens to the Lord, learning to ask for and receive with trust and gratitude his love that heals, transforms, and ignites the mission (cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Perfectae Caritatis , 6). Thus we bear witness to what we truly are: creatures in need of everything, abandoned into the provident and good hands of the Creator.

And it is important, for our life and our apostolate, that we cultivate this faith so that it does not weaken, perhaps due to flight or defense, or suffocated by anxiety or the presumption of feeling like "managers of many services" (cf. Luke 10:40). Then, dazzled by the spotlight of efficiency, numbed by the fumes of compromise, or blocked by the paralysis of fear, we risk stopping, or transforming our pilgrim journey into a disorderly and exhausting race, forgetful of its source and its destination. To this end, the Jubilee offers us a precious opportunity to return to what matters, clinging to the fiery heart of God, so that his light and warmth may guide and nourish our personal progress and our community journeys!

This brings us to the second value we should reflect on: encountering our brothers and sisters . In this regard, Pope Francis has invited us to "meet as a 'we' that is stronger than the sum of small individualities" (Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti , 78), to "discover and transmit the 'mystique' of living together" (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , 87). In this dynamic, the Institutes, Orders, and Congregations you represent are, so to speak, charismatic bodies, in which all are profoundly connected by the same humanity, by the same faith, by belonging to Christ, and by the calling that unites in fraternity. Thus in the Church, "a communitarian and historical subject of synodality and mission" ( Final Document of the Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops , 17), bonds are transfigured into sacred bonds, into channels of grace, into living veins and arteries that irrigate a single body with the same blood.

And this brings us to the third aspect: the engagement with the digital world . Information technology represents a challenge for consecrated persons as well. On the one hand, it offers immense possibilities for good, both for community life and for the apostolate. It would be shortsighted to ignore the extraordinary opportunities it provides for communion and mission, allowing us to reach distant people, to share the faith through new languages, to reach even those who, through ordinary means, struggle to approach our communities. At the same time, however, these resources can strongly influence, and not always for the better, our way of building and maintaining relationships. It is easy, for example, to be tempted by the idea of ​​replacing mere virtual connection with real relationships between people, where presence, prolonged and patient listening, and a profound sharing of ideas and feelings are indispensable (cf. Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit , 88).

As Superiors, you have the responsibility to safeguard fraternity and communion in this area too, ensuring that technical means do not compromise the authenticity of relationships or reduce the space needed to cultivate them. In particular, I would like to emphasize that traditional instruments of communion such as Chapters, Councils, Canonical Visitations, and formative moments cannot be relegated to the realm of "remote" connections. The effort of coming together to dialogue and exchange ideas is an integral part of our evangelical identity. In this landscape of light and shadow, a challenge awaits us: that of integrating nova et vetera (cf. Mt 13:52) with balance, preserving and cultivating relationships with God and with our brothers and sisters, without neglecting or burying, out of laziness or fear, the new talents the Lord places in our hands (cf. Mt 25:14-30).

Dearest ones, I thank you for the difficult and delicate task you carry out. I bless you from the bottom of my heart and pray for all of you and your communities. Thank you!
Translated from Source: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2025/11/26/0912/01654.html