by Marco Luppi
He was present on May 10, 2018 when Pope Francis arrived in Loppiano. Marco Luppi, professor and researcher in Contemporary History at the Sophia University Institute, explores in this article an aspect of the speech that the pontiff, the first to visit a Focolare town, addressed to those present.
The pontificate of Pope Francis, which began on March 13, 2013, came to an end with his funeral on the morning of Saturday, April 26, 2025. A little over twelve years. A historic period marked by momentous events such as the pandemic; by growing political, military, and social instability; by the advent of artificial intelligence, with all its exciting innovations and ethical questions. It was also a period characterized by the charisma and strong pastoral imprint of a pope who wanted to open the Church to dialogue with the world, beginning with himself: simple but incisive language, a preferential option for the poor and marginalized, a renewed openness to issues closest to people’s problems, through a synodal impulse that, in these times, has found new impetus and new implementation on many levels.
A pope who saw education as a formidable means “to bring about a new universal solidarity and a more welcoming society.” So much so that on September 12, 2019, he proposed a Global Educational Pact, so that education might generate peace, justice, and sharing among peoples: “Never as now do we need to join forces in a broad educational alliance to form people who are mature, capable of overcoming fragmentation and opposition and rebuilding the fabric of relationships for a more fraternal humanity.”
This is a theme that he also touched on, on May 10, 2018, in the little town of Loppiano. The first pope to venture up into the hills of Valdarno, he responded to a question from a student at the Sophia University Institute by emphasizing the value of the “educational pact” that makes Loppiano a “city-school.”
In his address to us, he suggested giving new impetus to the centres and training courses here, “opening them up to broader horizons and projecting them to the frontiers.” To do this, Loppiano’s educational pact was essential. That is, an educational alliance between all those involved: educators, families, students, the community; not based on abstract rules but on relationships, trust, dialogue, and, above all, closeness: “The basis and key to everything is the ‘educational pact’, which is at the heart of each of these paths and which has closeness and dialogue as its preferred method.”
This sentence was the culmination of some simple and profound concepts, in which Pope Francis recognized and valued important educational tools implemented or implementable in Loppiano. For example, synodality as a community and educational style, where education is not unidirectional but arises from a shared journey in which everyone listens to one another, at the school of Jesus, the only Teacher. Or the fact that “the educational mission, to be authentic, must include and start from the least among us,” giving centrality to the peripheries: educating means not closing oneself off but taking risks, opening oneself to the “frontiers,” facing the cultural, social, and spiritual challenges of our time. Because education is mission, not conservation; it is dialogue at 360 degrees, without fear.
Then came the suggestion to “educate ourselves to exercise the three languages together: those of the head, the heart, and the hands.” Integral education, summarized in a very effective formula, capable of explaining the needs inherent in the educational systems (and not only) of today’s world and that of tomorrow. He explained: “Education must touch the head, the heart, and the hands. Educate to think well, not just to learn concepts, but to think well; educate to feel well; educate to do well. So that these three languages are interconnected: that you think what you feel and do, you feel what you think and do, you do what you feel and think, in unity. This is education.” The proposed triad (head, heart, hands) recalled the need to consider the dignity of the human person according to a protagonism capable of critical thinking, empathy, and concrete action. It is, therefore, a multifaceted and embodied education that involves the whole of life: Pope Bergoglio always insisted that education cannot be reduced to a purely technical or utilitarian fact (i.e., the formation of “good workers” or “good professionals”), but must be the impulse to help each person discover and develop their profound human vocation: to be builders of fraternity, custodians of creation, artisans of peace. These are some of the legacies of a pontificate that also experienced one of its many luminous moments in Loppiano.
