How Pope Francis changed their lives
“François contributed to my ecological conversion”
Pierre-Louis Bévillard, 40, young organic market gardener next to the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes (Sarthe). He became aware of the ecological urgency thanks to Laudato if ‘.
The Pope’s encyclical published in 2015 played a big role in our awareness of environmental issues. One of her sentences sums up our family approach – Cécile and I have seven children – and professional, as organic market gardeners: “Happiness requires knowing how to limit certain needs that abrupt us by thus making us available to the multiple possibilities offered by life. (1)
With my new job, I gained consistency: I am finally in a concrete activity, which makes sense. What motivates me is to put my hands in the ground, to take root. Our choice is that of sobriety, with its renunciations: financially, we tighten the belt and the holidays only happen with grandparents. I like the notion of integral ecology: it is a question of taking time for others, for the family while in our world, by dint of consuming, the relational dimension often passes in the background. François really instilled this ecological dynamic in the church.
(1) paragraph 223 of Laudato if ‘.
“With gays, the pope returned to the spirit of the Gospels”
Nicolas Morin, 63, as a homosexual couple.
“The sentence pronounced by the pope in July 2013 on the plane, on the return from Rio:” Who am I to judge? ” Where he explicitly referred to gays, moved me. In a way, he put himself in the place of Christ, by cutting short that a number of people seek to transmit: guilt. With Bernard, this confirmed to us that we were on the right track and encouraged us to request a public blessing, in 2020, in a Catholic community that welcomed our project. In general, François was for me the pope of the margins: the prisoners, the poor, the migrants … He returned to the spirit of the Gospel. »»
Collected by Romain Mazenod
“François illuminated my professional life”
Geoffroy d’Aillières, trainer in Christian social thinking and former teacher at the Catholic University of the West, returns to the momentum that François’s pontificate gave to his professional commitment.
“The last part of my professional life happened entirely” in the Light “of Pope Francis. For 12 years I followed his life, his actions, his words and his writings. For 12 years, I ruminated his texts to share them with my students and my trainees. I saw how all this was talking to all, Christians, Muslims or atheists, and how much his pontificate was influential, even if everything was not perfect. From Vatican II and of Christian social thinking that he has enriched and updated, with 3 major texts: the joy of the Gospel, Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti. Revelations on the abuses jostled me.
“To me who suffered a divorce, François did good”
Céline T., divorced remarried
“With his sparkling eye, Pope Francis put us in front of the demands of the Gospel: poverty, without judgment of people on the sidelines … And he did me good, to me who suffered a non -chosen divorce, with three young children. I remained invested in Christian movements (catechesis, prayer groups) but did not feel called to celibacy. I quickly dismissed the idea of a request for recognition of nullity of my marriage: “You don’t do that!” launched my elder, shocked. I ended up stopping to commune when I had a relationship with a man, for years. And then, Pope Francis opened the possibility of communing to divorced people who chose to rebuild a faithful union. A month after our civil marriage, I resumed communion to mass. My journey opened me a lot to understanding others. I would not understand a church which would fold in on the rites rather than to shed light on speech, charity and hope. »»
Collected by Christophe Chaland
