Italian
“Hope as Historical Responsibility”
President, Pope Leo XIV is emphasizing the relationship between peace, social justice, and human dignity. What responsibility does a Catholic foundation feel today in the face of the world’s great crises?
A Catholic foundation cannot limit itself to episodic charity. Today we are called to a historical responsibility: to build permanent safeguards of human dignity. Peace is born when a person is not humiliated, abandoned, or considered waste. Every authentically Christian social work must become a bulwark against the culture of indifference.
The Holy Father recently spoke about the risks of a “humanity governed by algorithms.” What is his opinion on artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is an extraordinary tool, but it cannot replace moral discernment. Technology without ethics risks producing new forms of spiritual poverty and social manipulation. The centrality of the person must remain inviolable. The machine calculates; the conscience judges.
Many young people experience confusion, emotional instability, and a lack of references. What is the greatest contemporary educational emergency?
The most serious emergency is the loss of meaning. Young people are not just looking for work or success: they are searching for reasons to make life worth living. When a society stops transmitting ideals, it generates existential loneliness. It is necessary to rebuild educating communities based on truth, responsibility, and transcendence.
SPE SALVI also operates in the field of hospitality. How to distinguish between evangelical hospitality and social disorder?
Christian hospitality does not coincide with improvisation. Charity must be accompanied by legality, integration, and education. To welcome means to restore dignity and future, not to create dependency or permanent marginality. Europe must regain balance between security, solidarity, and cultural identity.
The Pope often calls for the “diplomacy of peace.” Does he believe that the world is losing its ability to engage in dialogue today?
Yes. We live in a time where polarization, propaganda, and verbal aggression prevail. Authentic diplomacy requires listening, patience, and historical culture. When public language degrades, international politics also suffers. Dialogue is not weakness: it is civilization.
What is the role of spirituality in the management of social works?
Without spirituality, the social becomes cold administration. Prayer does not distance us from concrete problems: it allows us to look at them with greater depth. The works born from the Gospel must preserve a soul, otherwise they risk turning into structures devoid of identity.
Pope Leo XIV spoke about the need to “humanize the economy.” Is it really possible?
It is necessary. An economy that produces wealth but destroys families, youth, and territories cannot be defined as progress. The economy must return to having a human face, oriented towards the common good. Profit and solidarity are not incompatible, as long as man remains the end and not the means.
How do you assess the relationship between the Church and new generations?
The new generations do not reject God; they often reject incoherent testimonies. When they encounter authenticity, listening, and truth, young people respond with great depth. The Church must continue to speak the eternal language of the Gospel, but in ways that are understandable to contemporary man.
In a time dominated by images, what is the greatest risk for institutions?
The spectacularization of reality. Today, many institutions communicate a lot but testify little. Credibility does not come from media visibility, but from moral coherence. People immediately perceive what is authentic and what is constructed.
What is the greatest poverty you have encountered?
Loneliness. There are people who are economically stable but internally devastated by abandonment. Contemporary society suffers from a dramatic relational crisis. For this reason, every act of charity must also rebuild human connections.
Pope Leo XIV insists on the “culture of care.” What does it mean in concrete terms?
It means considering every person worthy of attention regardless of their social utility. Caring means stopping, listening, accompanying. It is the opposite of the culture of waste that selects human beings based on productivity.
How important is legal and ethical training today in the realities of the Third Sector?
It matters greatly. Goodwill is no longer enough. Legal expertise, administrative transparency, and ethical responsibility are needed. Catholic works must be an example of institutional correctness as well as of evangelical testimony.
What do you think about the growing spiritual distress in the West?
The West has developed enormous technical capabilities but has impoverished the sense of limits and the sacred. When a civilization loses its transcendent reference, it risks also losing the value of the human person. The spiritual crisis always precedes the social one.
The Mediterranean continues to be a place of suffering and migration. What vision do you propose?
The Mediterranean should return to being a bridge of civilization and not a frontier of despair. Serious international policies are needed, cooperation with countries of origin, and real protection of human dignity. No ideology can ignore the drama of broken lives.
What is the most authentic meaning of the word “hope”?
Christian hope is not naive optimism. It is the certainty that good still has historical power. It means continuing to build even when the world seems dominated by disorder.
How can faith engage with the contemporary world without losing its identity?
Through the truth lived with charity. Faith should not chase cultural trends, nor should it close itself off in self-referential attitudes. Authentic dialogue arises from solid and respectful identities.
Pope Leo XIV emphasized the value of historical memory. Why is it so important?
Because a society without memory becomes manipulable. Memory preserves the moral and cultural roots of peoples. Forgetting the past means exposing oneself to the same mistakes in new forms.
What should Europe recover today?
The sense of one’s soul. Europe is not just an economic or bureaucratic project: it arises from a synthesis of Roman law, Greek thought, and Christianity. If it forgets these roots, it loses cohesion and direction.
What message would you like to leave for young people who feel discouraged?
Don’t let cynicism steal your ability to believe in good. The world needs prepared young people, spiritually deep and morally free. Hope is not passivity: it is organized courage.
President, what is the deepest mission of the SPE SALVI FACTI SUMUS Foundation?
Remember that no man is definitively lost. Every person holds a dignity that precedes any social, economic, or existential fragility. Our mission is to transform hope into concrete actions, always keeping our gaze directed towards the human being.
