To the Superiors of the Religious Orders
To legal representatives of ecclesiastical bodies
To parish priest
To the clergy

Saint John Lateran, 8 November 2024

Dear friends,

The Church is about to celebrate the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, which will be dedicated to hope. In the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee, I invoked hope for all and I asked everyone to be “tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships” (no. 10). Indeed, hope is born of love and of feeling loved. It is God’s love that generates hope and God’s love passes through out love, as Blessed Don Pino Puglisi affirmed: “God always loves through someone”.

The Church of Rome, through the parishes, religious communities, associations, ecclesial movements and families does a great deal to transmit God’s love, through these concrete gestures of charity (often in silence), and fosters hope in the life of the people: I reiterate my deepest thanks to everyone.

In this way, the common good, at the root of the social thought of the Church, summarizes all the conditions that guarantee the human dignity that, as I have clarified several times, is made manifest in three inviolable rights: land, home, and work.

In view of the Jubilee, I asked my diocese to give a tangible sign of attention to housing problems so that, alongside the welcome addressed to all the pilgrims who will flock here, forms of protection will be activated for those who do not have a home or who are in danger of losing it. With this in mind, I would like all the diocesan realities that own property to offer their contribution to stem the housing emergency with signs of charity and solidarity to generate hope in the thousands of people in the city of Rome who are in a precarious housing situation.

The institutions and the administrations at various levels, together with associations and popular movements, are getting organized to strengthen the response of welcome and solidarity towards these brothers and sisters, working in collaboration with institutions and civil society, and the Church is called to contribute.

For this reason, I ask all the ecclesial entities to make a courageous gesture of love for their neighbour, offering the spaces they have at their disposal, especially those who possess available accommodation or apartments. The people to be welcomed will be looked after by the institutions and the social services, while the associations and popular movements will provide services to the person, activities of care and the relational goods that make a fundamental contribution to making the reception worthwhile and to building fraternity.

Those of you who are willing to respond to this appeal may refer to the vicar general of the diocese of Rome, Cardinal Baldassare Reina.

Thank you for your generosity and for all that you are already doing to transmit God's love and generate hope in the lives of all and, in particular, those most in need.

From my heart I bless you, asking you to pray for me.

Fraternally,

FRANCIS