“I urge you not to be ashamed of the flesh of your Churches”. This is what the Pope asks of the new bishops, whom he gave audience to today and whom Francis asked to enter into “a dialogue with their demands”; then, he urged “to watch over priests and seminaries with great care”. “We cannot respond to the challenges that we have with them without updating our selection, support and assessment processes”, it’s Francis’s assumption: “But our answers will have no future – he added, indirectly hinting at the problem of abuse –, if they do not reach the spiritual abyss that, in quite a few cases, has paved the way to outrageous weaknesses, if they do not expose the existential vacuum they have fed, if they do not reveal why God has been silenced like this, hushed like this, removed from a certain way of living like this, as if He were not there”. “All of us must humbly get deep into oneself and ask oneself what they can do to improve the holiness of the face of the Church that we rule on behalf of the Supreme Shepherd”, urged the Pope, who thinks “just pointing the fingers at others, making up scapegoats, tearing one’s clothes, digging into other people’s weaknesses, as the children who have lived at home as if they were servants like to do, is no use”: “Here, we need to work together and in communion, confident, though, that the true holiness is the one God achieves in us, when, obedient to His Spirit, we go back to the simple joy of the Gospel, so that His beatitude becomes flesh for others, in our choices and in our lives”. “Therefore, I call you – it’s his final demand – to go on, cheerful not embittered, peaceful not distressed, comforted not despondent – look for the Lord’s comfort –, while retaining the heart of a lamb that, even if surrounded by wolves, knows it will win, because it relies on its shepherd’s help”.