Pope Francis has said that reading novels and poems is valuable in “one’s path to personal maturity” and should be encouraged in the training of future priests, according to an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
The article explains that, when Francis was 28, he taught literature at a Jesuit school in Santa Fe, Argentina. “I taught the last two years of high school and had to ensure that my pupils studied El Cid,” he wrote. “The students were not happy; they used to ask if they could read García Lorca instead. So I decided that they could read El Cid at home, and during the lessons I would discuss the authors the students liked best”.
Trainee priests have a considerable amount of theology to read and absorb in the course of their study. But the Pope writes that there is “nothing more counterproductive” than reading something out of a “sense of duty”. So perhaps the priests of the future will have a greater maturity and a fuller understanding of the human condition, if they can find time for a few novels as well!
Read the full article here.