Hope, momentum of freedom

by Chiara Giaccardi

In the messages sent from all over the world to Leo XIV immediately after his election, one of the most frequently heard words was “hope”. The peace that the new pontiff repeatedly evoked in his first message was, for the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, “the hope of all humanity”. The Holy Door opened at the end of 2024 by Pope Francis to inaugurate the Jubilee, encourages us all to become “pilgrims of hope”.

But what does it really mean to hope today, in a world that oscilitates between cynicism, resignation, and at times, frivolous optimism?

Hope is not an escape from the present or from the real world; instead, it is an “intense yearning for the future”, as Jürgen Moltmann writes in his Theology of Hope.

Nor does it coincide with expectations, which are really just projections of our own ambitions and aspirations that often end in disappointment.

With the word “hope”, etymology comes to our aid. The Sanskrit root spa means “to move toward a goal”, to reach out, to lean forward, to stretch beyond oneself and the contingencies of the moment. It is to go beyond.

Hope is a movement undertaken without certainties, sustained by trust and by the resonance that goodness produces within us. We are able to hope because we have already experienced something good, because we sense that good within us and it resounds more strongly than evil.

Hope is not rational; it does not depend on cost-benefit calculations or external supports.

It is an impulse born from within, from trust in the possibility of good. Pope Francis, in his encyclical Fratelli tutti, describes it as something rooted deep in every human being, “a longing for a life of fulfillment, a desire to achieve great things, things that fill our heart and lift our spirit”.

“Hope is bold; it knows how to look beyond personal comfort…to open up to great ideals that make life more beautiful and dignified”.

Without hope, there is no freedom. Its absence narrows our horizons, delivers us into the hands of prejudice, closes off the future, and extinguishes solidarity. Not by chance, the sowing of distrust is a strategy of domination that is all too often employed. The contemporary obsession with “security” suffocates hope, which reduced life to mere biological survival and shrinks our horizons until they coincide with our protective bubbles. But in doing so, we suffocate!

Let us not give in to the temptation of mistrust, disillusionment, and disenchantment, even when everything seems impossible. As the poet Margherita Guidacci writes, “Do not obey those who tell you to give up on the impossible! Only the impossible makes human life possible”.

We do not hope only for ourselves. As the Italian psychiatrist Eugenio Borgna reminds us, “We have the moral obligation not to let hope die within us, so that it may be reborn in those who have lost it”. Giving voice to paths of hope opens us beyond ourselves, toward the recognition of solidarity with others and with future generations. Indeed, without hope, why sow? Why commit ourselves? As Pope John XXIII once said, “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do”.

Hope is a “passion for the possible”, wrote the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard—a passion that sets the power of imagination against the tyranny of necessity. If we do not learn the art of looking beyond what is already present, or what can be predicted based on what is given, we will never be free. The American poet Emily Dickinson expressed it tenderly when she wrote, “I do not know when dawn will come, so I keep every door open”.

Then one can breathe, with the trust in a fullness that awaits us. This is called “salvation” and it concerns our wholeness, not just our biological survival, but dignity, freedom, the spirit that animates us, the meaning of our existence.

Those who give their life for others are not “safe”, but they are “saved”.

Hope is a desire for salvation, not for security. Seeking security means chasing the myth of “zero risk”. Nevertheless, without risk, there is no life, and without hope, there is no risk. Only those who hope can face death for the sake of life. As Georges Bernanos wrote, “Hope is a risk that must be run. It is even the risk of all risks”.

Hope is a revolutionary force that springs from the deep desire of the human being not to be passive or manipulated. It is a desire that is continually suffocated by manufactured fears.

It is a virtue, not an emotional commodity.

It requires the courage to face challenges rather than merely defend oneself. To change the status quo, to fight injustice, and to tear down walls. These are complex movements that flourish and endure only through this virtue.

Hope is not a collection of good feelings, nor is it the privilege of idealistic souls. It does not shy away from the test of reality, but demands the cultivation of practical wisdom, a way of living, a way of thinking. Hope is profoundly different from optimism. As Thomas Merton, the writer and Christian monk, wrote, “Perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair”. It is not the belief that everything will turn out well, but the conviction that what we do has meaning, regardless of the final outcome, as Vaclav Havel affirmed. Optimism eliminates all negativity, while knowing neither doubt nor anguish; hope does not eliminate them, but it is not crushed by them.

Hope is a movement of seeking an openness toward what has not yet come into the world, beyond the prison of a closed time.

Those who lose hope come to hate life, and this is tragically evident in the destructive tendencies afflicting today’s social life. “Hope is an essential condition of being human; if a person gives up all hope, they have left their own humanity behind”, writes Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han.

A world without hope becomes cynical and inhumane. “Man has fought for freedom and happiness, but an era is beginning in which man ceases to be human and becomes a machine that neither thinks nor feels”, warns Erich Fromm.

Hope is the antidote to us becoming like the machines and devices we have built. Hope fuels initiative and activation rather than passivity.

Those moved by hope know that the true reward lies not in the completion of the work, but in the process that begins, in the path that opens as one walks. The future is not already written. For Jürgen Moltmann, hope does not aim “to shed light on present reality, but on what is to come”, and “does not lead man to conform to the given reality, but involves him in the conflict between experience and hope”. Those who cultivate hope do not adapt or resign themselves “to the fact that evil always breeds more evil”.

Hope is paradoxical. It requires humility and listening, but also the ability to engage and take initiative. Hope is neither passive nor active; instead, it is “deponent”. “It is neither passive waiting nor unrealistic forcing of circumstances that cannot yet come to pass. To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born”, writes Fromm.

In a fragmented world, where exaggerated individualism becomes “egocracy”, the lack of hope fuels selfishness, and at worst, justifies hatred. Conversely, hope reconnects and reconciles. “The subject of hope is a ‘we,’” affirms Byung-Chul Han.

Without hope, living becomes mere survival, in an adaptaton to what already exists, which at best seeks small islands of comfort that reproduce sameness, which will ultimately extinguish us.

Hope rescues us from mere becoming and gives us a future. It enables us to escape the tyranny of closed time and transform predictable becoming into an unheard-of future. “Those who hope become receptive to the new”, because “hope is the midwife of the new”, writes Byung-Chul Han.

In the end, to live is to hope.

Let us then walk in hope, along the path that Pope Francis entrusted to us. Let us “Continue to cultivate dreams of fraternity and be signs of hope!”