Here’s why Pope Francis is warning against the ‘temptation of activism’

By Hannah Brockhaus

Vatican City, Mar 14, 2022 / 10:30 am

Pope Francis on Monday said it is important to combat the “temptation of activism” with time for reflection and contemplation.

Speaking to an association of Italian entrepreneurs at the Vatican on March 14, he said: “Allow me, finally, the advice ‘of a bishop’: If you want to be a ‘soul’ in the world of business, do not neglect to take care of your own soul, the one that comes to us from God.”

“And for this, we need to resist the temptation of activism and find time to reflect, to think, to contemplate,” he told the non-profit that promotes social responsibility in business.

The association Anima per il Sociale nei Valori d’Impresa, whose name means “Soul for Social Responsibility in Corporate Values,” met Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace.

The pope said that sometimes activism could destroy interior life.

“I’m not speaking of religiosity,” he explained, “but of human interiority.”

An interior life is necessary both for the religious and the non-religious, he said.

“This is also why an association can be useful, with proposals,” the pope said. “But it is above all a personal need: each one, if he wants to enliven, must allow himself to be enlivened inwardly by the good, by beauty and truth.”

Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.