Pope Francis Addresses Members of the Italian Biblical Association

On the occasion of the 47th National Bible Week last Sept. 7,  Pope Francis received the participants in audience stressing the importance of serving the Word. Commenting on the theme placed at the center of the week (covenant and election), the Holy Father stressed how “God never chooses someone to exclude others, but always to include everyone. God’s election always has this social and missionary dimension. This is an important warning for our times, in which ever-increasing drifts of separation dig ditches and erect fences between persons and between peoples, to the detriment of the unity of the human race, which suffers as a result, and of the Body of Christ itself, according to God’s plan.” He then expressed a wish and a wish: “Dear friends, go forth in your mission of helping God’s people to feed on the Word, so that the Bible may be increasingly the heritage of all: ‘the book of the Lord’s people, which in its listening passes from dispersion and division to unity’ (Lett. Ap. Aperuit illis, 4). This is somewhat ‘the dynamic of the Lord’: he sends and so he seems to disperse, but then he gathers in unity.” Read the entire talk at this link.