“To hope is not to know.” This was the refrain of the catechesis delivered by Leo XIV on October 25, 2025, echoing what St. Paul explained: “Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees?”
In this Jubilee Audience, the Holy Father took inspiration from the thinking of German Cardinal Nicolas de Cues (1401-1464), a theologian, mathematician, and papal diplomat who worked for the unity of the Church.
From St. Peter’s Square, before thousands of pilgrims in Rome for the Holy Year, the Pope invited Catholics to allow themselves to be “challenged” by the questions of their contemporaries.
In his meditation, the Pope paid tribute to Nicholas of Cusa, who was “a great thinker and servant of unity” at a time “tormented” by divisions. While in the 15th century many “lived in fear” or “prepared new crusades,” Nicholas “believed in humanity,” he emphasized.
Among the German cardinal’s “writings full of light,” the pontiff cited his work on “learned ignorance.”
“Nicholas knew that he did not know, and that is how he understood reality better and better,” he explained.
Here are his teachings: make space, hold opposites together, hope for what is not yet seen.
Leo XIV then pointed out that in today’s Church, many questions “are challenging our teaching.” He cited the issues of young people, the poor, women, and “those who have been silenced or condemned because they are different from the majority.”
“So many questions!” he exclaimed, seeing this as “a blessed time.”
For the 267th pope, the Church “becomes an expert in humanity if it walks with humanity and carries in its heart the echo of its questions.”
“We do not yet have the answers to all the questions. But we have Jesus,” assured the Pontiff, declaring that “God is a mystery in which what is in tension finds its unity.”
