We can know what is right, what is good, but not have the courage, the strength to say it, to do it, for fear of persecution, for example. That's why we also need the virtue of strength, which was precisely the subject of Pope Francis'catechesis on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. Like Louis Even, we need to have the courage to say to Financiers: "No, you don't have the right to steal from us! And to governments: "No, you do not have the right to be the accomplices of these Financiers!"
Today's catechesis is dedicated to the third of the cardinal virtues, namely fortitude. Let us begin with the description given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions" (1808). This is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about the virtue of fortitude.
Here, then, is the most "combative" of the virtues. If the first of the cardinal virtues, that is, prudence, was primarily associated with man's reason; and while justice found its in the will, this third virtue, fortitude, is often linked by scholastic authors to what the ancients called the "irascible appetite". Ancient thought did not imagine a man without passions: he would be a stone. And passions...must be educated, they must be channelled, they must be purified with the water of Baptism, or better with the fire of the Holy Spirit. A Christian without courage, who does not turn his own strength to good, who does not bother anyone, is a useless Christian. Let us think about this! (...)
There are internal enemies we must defeat, which go by the name of anxiety, anguish, fear, guilt: all forces that stir in our innermost selves and in some situations paralyse us. How many fighters succumb before they even begin the challenge! (...)
In addition to internal trials, there are external enemies, which are life's trials, persecutions, difficulties that we did not expect and that surprise us. Indeed, we can try to predict what will happen to us, but to a large extent reality, is made up of imponderable events, and in this sea sometimes our boat is tossed about by the waves. Fortitude, then, makes us resilient sailors, who are not frightened or discouraged.
Fortitude is a fundamental virtue because it takes the challenge of evil in the world seriously. Some pretend it does not exist, that everything is going fine, that human will is not sometimes blind, that dark forces that bring death do not lurk in history. But it suffices to leaf through a history book, or unfortunately even the newspapers, to discover the nefarious deeds of which we are partly victims and partly perpetrators: wars, violence, slavery, oppression of the poor, wounds that have never healed and continue to bleed.
The virtue of fortitude makes us react and cry out "no", an emphatic "no" to all of this. In our comfortable Western world, which has watered everything down somewhat, which has transformed the pursuit of perfection into a simple organic development, which has no need for struggle because everything looks the same, we sometimes feel a healthy nostalgia for prophets. But disruptive, visionary people are very rare. There is a need for someone who can rouse us from the soft place in which we have lain down and make us resolutely repeat our "no" to evil and to everything that leads to indifference. "No" to evil and "no" to indifference; "yes" to progress, to the path that moves us forward, and for this we must fight.
Let us therefore rediscover in the Gospel Jesus' fortitude, and learn it from the witness of the saints. Thank you!