On March 24, Pope Francis received participants in the General Conference of the Marist Brothers, a religious institute founded by St. Marcellin Champagnat (1789-1840).

Taking up the conference’s theme (“Looking Beyond”), the Pope said that the institute’s founder “knew how to teach the young to ‘look beyond,’ to open themselves to God, to the prospects of love according to the Gospel. He was led by the example of the Virgin Mary.”

Pope Francis also encouraged the Marist Brothers to educate the young in an integral human ecology that combines care for creation and care of the poor, and entails “a way of life requiring patience, fortitude, temperance, and justice.” On the other hand, a “worldly mentality” also “pollutes ecology,” “ making it ideological and superficial,” and reducing it to slogans and denunciations.