Pope encourages religious orders to perfect safeguarding systems

ROME (CNS) -- Religious orders of men and women must continue perfecting their efforts to ensure the safety and integrity of every child, every person they meet and every member of their order, Pope Leo XIV said.

The pope prayed that the church's religious communities would "increasingly become examples of trust and dialogue, where every person is respected, listened to and valued."

"Where justice is lived with mercy, wounds are transformed into openings for grace," the pope said in a message Nov. 17 to participants in an international workshop organized by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The three-day workshop, "Building Communities that Safeguard Dignity," gathered representatives of national and regional conferences of religious superiors and of religious orders at the pontifical commission's office in Rome to learn, share best practices and meet with Vatican officials.

The commission said the workshop was designed to address the protection of minors, but also to "consider how safeguarding structures and practices can help address situations of vulnerability in adult life within the church, recognizing that adults in consecrated life can experience dynamics of dependence, isolation or imbalance of authority that require attention, accompaniment and preventive systems."

In his message, Pope Leo -- the former superior general of the Augustinians -- told the religious that building communities "where the dignity of every person, especially minors and the most vulnerable, is protected and promoted" is an issue "very close to my heart."

"Dignity is a gift from God, who created the human being in his own image and semblance," the pope's message said. "It is not something that is obtained by merit or effort, nor does it depend on what we possess or achieve."

Dignity is "born of the look of love with which God wanted us, one by one, and continues to want us," he wrote. "On every human face, even when it is marked by fatigue or pain, there is the reflection of the Creator's goodness, a light that no darkness can erase."

Believing that, he said, must lead to care and respect for every person.

But those who have responded to the vocation of consecrated life with a "total self-giving to Christ," he said, have an even greater obligation to create communities of "encounter and grace."

"Those who follow the Lord in the way of chastity, poverty and obedience discover that authentic love is born of recognition of one's own limits, of knowing that one is loved even in weakness, and it is precisely this that makes one capable of loving others with respect, gentleness and a free heart," Pope Leo wrote.

Recognizing the dignity of each person, Christians are called "to approach with respect and tenderness, to share the other's burdens and hopes," he said. "It is in taking responsibility for the life of our neighbor that we learn true freedom, which does not dominate but serves, does not possess but accompanies."