Editorial, Fides 1/2025. February 14, 2025.
As this issue goes to print, more than a thousand pilgrims, accompanied by their bishops, are preparing to return home from the joint Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome of the five Nordic countries. While larger groups may visit Rome from other nations and continents during the Jubilee Year, this number is still a significant sign of the times. The Church in all the Nordic countries is growing—it is young, multicultural, and vibrant. Its challenge is not aging or fatigue but rather a lack of space and resources. Its life is not marked by a shortage of enthusiasm or active participants, but rather by the need for all of us to engage more people in the activities of the Church, the parishes, and the communities operating within the Church—including financially—so that our Church, our own parish, increasingly becomes a second home, one that the whole family cares for together.
The diocese has adopted its first-ever pastoral plan for the next three years. Its main theme is the new evangelization, bringing together goals and ideas on how to achieve them. Every community within the Church—on the level of the diocese, parishes, and various groups—is called to explore ways to advance the objectives outlined in the pastoral plan, each in its own way. This pastoral plan can easily be seen as part of Pope Francis’ broader vision for developing the Church toward synodality—a goal that the last two Synods of Bishops have addressed through a multi-stage process, ultimately also at the universal level from 2021 to 2024.
Dominican Father Morris, my metaphysics professor in Rome, often hammered into his students’ minds the phrase Agere sequitur esse—action follows being; we act according to what we are. This is precisely our moment: the Jubilee Year opens us to see God’s call and promise; we have become, or hopefully will become, “pilgrims of hope”—not only those who identify as Catholics but those who actively do something with the gift of faith they have received. Whether by words or actions, we are called to witness God’s mercy—to reflect it in our attitude toward our neighbors and fellow human beings, by loving, caring, and taking responsibility, and at times, by standing up against injustice and wrongdoing. By building, not tearing down. By walking alongside others.
If one thing can be hoped for from this Jubilee Year, it is that each of us may experience a spark of hope in our hearts—one that leads to deeper faith, stronger hope, and more fervent love. The opportunities for this are certainly present.
Marko Tervaportti