I sin första påvliga encyklika, Lumen Fidei, i stort baserad på Benedictus XVI (numera påve emeritus) arbete, noterar påve Fransiskus följande i det första kapitlet ”We Have Believed in Love”, angående Israels tro som kollektiv:

”14. In the faith of Israel we also encounter the figure of Moses, the mediator. The people may not see the face of God; it is Moses who speaks to YHWH on the mountain and then tells the others of the Lord’s will. With this presence of a mediator in its midst, Israel learns to journey together in unity. The individual’s act of faith finds its place within a community, within the common ”we” of the people who, in faith, are like a single person — ”my first-born son”, as God would describe all of Israel (cf. Ex 4:22). Here mediation is not an obstacle, but an opening: through our encounter with others, our gaze rises to a truth greater than ourselves. Rousseau once lamented that he could not see God for himself: ”How many people stand between God and me!”[11] … ”Is it really so simple and natural that God would have sought out Moses in order to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?”[12] On the basis of an individualistic and narrow conception of conscience one cannot appreciate the significance of mediation, this capacity to participate in the vision of another, this shared knowledge which is the knowledge proper to love. Faith is God’s free gift, which calls for humility and the courage to trust and to entrust; it enables us to see the luminous path leading to the encounter of God and humanity: the history of salvation.”

Guds ord verkar i världen genom förmedling och att denna form av förmedling står i kontrast med den moderna människans hopplösa tro på sin individualistiska autonomi.

Vi har en medfödd längtan efter det transcendenta. Denna längtan kan vi placera i och hos Gud, som verkligen är transcendent, eller i falska gudar (avgudar) som endast är produkter av vårt eget begär. I idoler och förebilder som vi tror är något mer än vad vi är, endast på grundval av att andra också inbillar sig samma sak. Men vi är alla, till syvende och sist, helt vanliga dödliga människor med samma svagheter, fel och brister.

I en passage i samma encyklika strax ovanför (men som för vårt ändamål här och nu passar bättre att placera här under) det vi själva just citerat bekräftas att:

”Those who choose not to put their trust in God must hear the din of countless idols crying out: ”Put your trust in me!” Faith, tied as it is to conversion, is the opposite of idolatry; it breaks with idols to turn to the living God in a personal encounter. Believing means entrusting oneself to a merciful love which always accepts and pardons, which sustains and directs our lives, and which shows its power by its ability to make straight the crooked lines of our history. Faith consists in the willingness to let ourselves be constantly transformed and renewed by God’s call. Herein lies the paradox: by constantly turning towards the Lord, we discover a sure path which liberates us from the dissolution imposed upon us by idols.”