The best way of life is to serve others, and those in political power must also see themselves as servants, Pope Francis said.
“However, we well know how difficult this is, and how the commonest temptation, in all ages and even in the best political systems, is to serve authority” rather than to use one’s own authority to serve those others, he said.
“How easy it is to rise to a pedestal and how difficult it is to descend to the service of others!” the pope said during a ceremony at the Vatican on May 29 to award the Paul VI Prize to Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
The international award was established in 1979 by the Paul VI Institute in Brescia, Italy, named in honor of Saint Paul VI, whose feast day is May 29, the date of his priestly ordination in 1920.
The award, which includes a large cash donation to a charity of the recipient’s choice, was presented to Mattarella, 81, who was elected president of the Italian Republic in 2015 and re-elected in 2022. He said he would give prize money to help people. affected by the floods in the Emilia-Romagna region and, in particular, in the Pope John XXIII community there, which serves the homeless and other marginalized groups.
Addressing those present at the award ceremony in the Sala Clementina of the Vatican, the Pope reiterated the belief of Saint Paul VI that “those who exercise public power must be considered ‘as the servants of their compatriots, with the selflessness and integrity that befits his high office.” ‘”
The way to make political activity a form of charity and to live charity, which is love, within the political world is through this sense of service, Francis said.
Conferring the Pau VI Prize on Mattarella, he said, was “a good occasion to celebrate the value and dignity of service, the highest lifestyle, which puts others ahead of one’s own expectations.”
The service, however, is always tied to responsibility, especially understanding that everyone shares the responsibility to provide answers and be committed to ending injustices, he said.
“It’s almost automatic to blame others,” he said, “in a climate of uncertainty, mistrust easily turns into indifference.”
Responsibility demands that everyone “go against the grain of the climate of defeatism and complaint, that they feel the needs of others as their own and that they rediscover themselves as irreplaceable parts of the unique social and human fabric to which we all belong.” he said
