The following is the text of the Message sent by the Holy Father Leo XIV to the participants in the Theological Pastoral Congress on the Guadalupe event, in Mexico:
Message
Dear brothers and sisters,
I cordially greet you and thank you for your reflection on the sign of perfect inculturation that, in Santa María de Guadalupe, the Lord wished to give to his people. When reflecting on the inculturation of the Gospel, it is important to recognize the way in which God himself has manifested himself and offered us salvation.
He has chosen to reveal himself not as an abstract entity or as a truth imposed from outside, but by gradually entering into history and entering into dialogue with human freedom. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1), before revealing himself fully in Jesus Christ, in whom he not only communicates a message, but communicates himself; Therefore, as Saint John of the Cross teaches, after Christ there is no other word to wait for, there is nothing more to say, for everything has been said in him (cf. Ascent of Mount Carmel, II, 22, 3-5). Evangelization consists, above all, in making Jesus Christ present and accessible. Every action of the Church must seek to introduce human beings into a living relationship with Him, which illuminates existence, challenges freedom and opens up a path of conversion, disposing them to welcome the gift of faith as a response to the Love that gives meaning and sustains life in all its dimensions.
However, the proclamation of the Good News always takes place within a concrete experience. To bear this in mind is to recognise and imitate the logic of the mystery of the Incarnation, whereby Christ “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14), taking on our human condition, with all that it entails in its temporal configuration. It follows, then, that the cultural reality of those who receive the proclamation cannot be ignored, and it is understood that inculturation is not a secondary concession or a mere pastoral strategy, but an intrinsic requirement of the Church’s mission. As Saint Paul VI pointed out, the Gospel—and therefore evangelization—is not identified with any particular culture, but is capable of permeating all cultures without submitting to any of them (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, 20).
Inculturating the Gospel, based on this conviction, means following the same path that God has travelled: entering with respect and love into the concrete history of peoples so that Christ can be truly known, loved and welcomed from within their own human and cultural experience. This implies embracing the languages, symbols, ways of thinking, feeling and expressing oneself of each people, not only as external vehicles of proclamation, but as real places where grace desires to dwell and act.
However, it is necessary to clarify that inculturation does not equate to a sacralization of cultures or their adoption as a decisive interpretative framework for the Gospel message, nor can it be reduced to a relativistic accommodation or a superficial adaptation of the Christian message, since no culture, however valuable it may be, can simply be identified with Revelation or become the ultimate criterion of faith. To legitimize everything that is culturally given or to justify practices, worldviews or structures that contradict the Gospel and the dignity of the person would be to ignore that every culture — like every human reality — must be enlightened and transformed by the grace that flows from the Paschal mystery of Christ.
Inculturation is, rather, a demanding and purifying process, through which the Gospel, while remaining intact in its truth, recognises, discerns and assumes the semina Verbi present in cultures, and at the same time purifies and elevates their authentic values, freeing them from that which obscures or disfigures them. These seeds of the Word, as traces of the Spirit’s prior action, find in Jesus Christ their criterion of authenticity and their fulfilment.
From this perspective, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a lesson in divine pedagogy on the inculturation of saving truth. In her, a culture is not canonized nor are its categories rendered absolute, but neither are they ignored or despised: they are assumed, purified and transfigured to become a place of encounter with Christ. La Morenita manifests God’s way of drawing close to his people: respectful in his starting point, intelligible in his language, and firm and delicate in his guidance towards the encounter with the full Truth, with the blessed Fruit of his womb. In the tilma, among painted roses, the Good News enters the symbolic world of a people and makes its closeness visible, offering its newness without violence or coercion. Thus, what happened at Tepeyac is not presented as a theory or a tactic, but as a permanent criterion for discerning the evangelizing mission of the Church, called to proclaim the True God for whom we live, without imposing him, but also without diluting the radical newness of his salvific presence.
Today, in many regions of the American continent and the world, the transmission of the faith can no longer be taken for granted, particularly in large urban centres and pluralistic societies marked by visions of man and life that tend to relegate God to the private sphere or to dispense with Him altogether. In this context, strengthening pastoral processes requires an inculturation capable of dialogue with these complex cultural and anthropological realities, without accepting them uncritically, so as to foster a mature faith, sustained in demanding and often adverse contexts. This implies conceiving of the transmission of faith not as a fragmentary repetition of content, nor as a merely functional preparation for the sacraments, but rather as a true path of discipleship, in which the living relationship with Christ forms believers capable of discerning, of giving a reason for their hope and of living the Gospel with freedom and consistency.
For this reason, catechesis becomes an indispensable priority for all pastors (cf. CELAM, Aparecida Document, 295-300). It is called to occupy a central place in the Church’s action, to accompany in a continuous and profound way the process of maturation that leads to a faith that is truly understood, assumed and lived in a personal and conscious way, even when this is counter to the dominant cultural discourse.
At this Congress, you have sought to rediscover and understand how to adequately spread the theological content of the Guadalupan event and, therefore, of the Gospel itself. May the example and intercession of so many holy evangelizers and pastors who faced that same challenge in their time — Toribio de Mogrovejo, Junípero Serra, Sebastián de Aparicio, Mamá Antula, José de Anchieta, Juan de Palafox, Pedro de San José de Betancur, Roque González, Mariana de Jesús, and Francisco Solano, among so many others— grant you light and strength to continue the proclamation today. And may Saint Mary of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelization, accompany and inspire every initiative leading up to the five-hundredth anniversary of her apparition. I impart my heartfelt blessing to you.
Vatican, 5 February 2026. Memorial of Saint Philip of Jesus, Mexican protomartyr.
LEO PP. XIV
