Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization: To Be Missionaries Need Gratuity in the Heart
At the concluding Mass of the U.S. National Eucharistic Congress: if our horizon is only that of success and profit, we risk preferring relationships “with ‘friends’ or ‘dates’ generated by artificial intelligence” and not seeing “gifts in flesh-and-blood people”
With the first point, which he calls “Mission and Gift,” the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization dwells on the pages of the Gospel in which Jesus speaks of his mission. Christ, he says, “has a profound awareness of being sent” by the Father, “sent to be given.”
The missionary, Cardinal Tagle points out, “is a gift,” and perhaps, he observes, “where missionary zeal is lacking, perhaps it is partly due to a weakening of appreciation for gifts and for gratuitousness.” If this horizon is disappearing, he continues, “if our horizon is only that of success and profit, there is no room to see and receive free gifts.”
Some people, the cardinal notes, “prefer to relate to ‘friends’ or ‘dates’ generated by artificial intelligence because they do not see gifts in flesh-and-blood people.” And this emphasis is followed by a series of questions addressed to the conscience of men, women, priests and laity, bishops and fathers and mothers of families, urging them to give themselves as Jesus did
Vatican News