By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christians must never give in to fear when evangelizing, especially when reaching out to those in need in the digital space, Pope Francis said.
“Do not be afraid to make mistakes,” the pope said in a video message sent Aug. 6 to participants of Hechos 29, a youth conference in Monterrey, Mexico, on evangelization in the digital age.
“I never tire of repeating that I prefer a church that is wounded because it goes out to the existential peripheries of the world, rather than a church that is sick because it remains closed up in its own little securities,” Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis addresses participants of Hechos 29, a youth conference held in Monterrey, Mexico on evangelization in the digital age, in a video released Aug. 6, 2022. The pope encouraged young men and women to carry out their mission in the digital space “so that contemporary culture can know God by feeling him within you.” (CNS screen grab/Vatican Media)
According to its website, the Aug. 5-6 conference is “an international meeting of digital evangelizers that seeks to awaken in all participants (the desire) to become and to build up the church.”
In his message, the pope greeted the young men and women attending Hechos 29 and said the meeting was “an important initiative for missionary work in digital environments.”
“May this meeting help you to feel like a community, as part of the missionary life of the church, which has never been afraid to go out to meet new horizons and frontiers. And, with creativity and courage, announce the mercy and tenderness of God,” he said.
Recalling his address to church leaders during his July 24-30 visit to Canada, the pope emphasized the need to “find new ways to proclaim the heart of the Gospel to those who have not yet encountered Christ.”
Modern-day evangelizers, he said, must use “pastoral creativity to reach people where they live, not waiting for them to come, but where they live, discovering opportunities for listening, dialogue and encounter.”
“The Lord knocks on the door to enter within us, but how often does he knock on the door from the inside, so that we may let him out,” the pope said.
Pope Francis encouraged the young evangelizers to carry out their mission and to be good Samaritans in the digital space, “so that contemporary culture can know God by feeling him within you.
“Go and bring the hope of Jesus, especially to those who are farthest away, giving them reasons for their hope,” the pope said. “May your words be accompanied by charity, and may your virtual presence strengthen your physical presence, so that the network may generate communion, which makes Jesus present in your culture.”
CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (CNS) – Diez días después de decir que nombraría a dos mujeres para el grupo que lo ayuda a elegir obispos, el papa Francisco nombró a tres mujeres para el cargo.
Por primera vez, los miembros incluyen mujeres: Hermana Raffaella Petrini, miembro de las Hermanas Franciscanas de la Eucaristía, quien es secretaria general de la oficina que gobierna el Estado de la Ciudad del Vaticano; la hermana salesiana francesa Yvonne Reungoat, ex superiora general de la orden; y Maria Lia Zervino, argentina, presidenta de la Unión Mundial de Organizaciones Femeninas Católicas.
Pope Francis greets Sister Raffaella Petrini, an Italian member of the U.S.-based Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist who is secretary-general of the office governing Vatican City State, at the Vatican Dec. 3, 2015. (CNS photo/Vatican Media via Reuters)
El dicasterio está dirigido por el cardenal canadiense Marc Ouellet y es responsable de ayudar al papa a elegir obispos para las diócesis de rito latino fuera de los territorios de misión de la iglesia. Antes de que la reforma de la Curia romana del papa Francisco entrara en vigor en junio, los miembros del dicasterio eran solo cardenales y algunos obispos.
Los otros nuevos miembros del dicasterio incluyen: Cardenales Anders Arborelius de Estocolmo; José F. Advincula de Manila, Filipinas; José Tolentino de Mendonca, archivero del Vaticano; y Mario Grech, secretario general del Sínodo de los Obispos.
El papa Francisco también nombró como miembros a varios obispos que se convertirán en cardenales en agosto: Cardenales-designan a Arthur Roche, prefecto del Dicasterio para el Culto Divino y la Disciplina de los Sacramentos; Lázaro You Heung-sik, prefecto del Dicasterio para el Clero; Jean-Marc Aveline de Marsella, Francia; y Oscar Cantoni de Como, Italia.
Los otros nuevos miembros son: el arzobispo Drazen Kutlesa de Split-Makarska, Croacia; el obispo Paul Tighe, secretario del antiguo Consejo Pontificio para la Cultura; y el abad benedictino Donato Ogliari, abad de San Pablo Extramuros en Roma y administrador apostólico de la Abadía de Montecassino, Italia. Los nuevos miembros se unen a los miembros existentes, incluidos los cardenales estadounidenses Blase J. Cupich de Chicago y Joseph W. Tobin de Newark, Nueva Jersey.
By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The “sense of mystery” and awe Catholics should experience at Mass is not one prompted by Latin or by “creative” elements added to the celebration, but by an awareness of sacrifice of Christ and his real presence in the Eucharist, Pope Francis said.
“Beauty, just like truth, always engenders wonder, and when these are referred to the mystery of God, they lead to adoration,” he wrote in an apostolic letter “on the liturgical formation of the people of God.” Titled “Desiderio Desideravi” (“I have earnestly desired”), the letter was released June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The title comes from Luke 22:15 when, before the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”
In the letter, Pope Francis insisted that Catholics need to better understand the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council and its goal of promoting the “full, conscious, active and fruitful celebration” of the Mass.
Pope Francis elevates the host as he celebrates Mass at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia, Cyprus, Dec. 3, 2021. On June 29, 2022, the pope issued issued an apostolic letter insisting Catholics need to better understand the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council and its goal on promoting the “full, conscious, active and fruitful celebration” of the Mass. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
“With this letter I simply want to invite the whole church to rediscover, to safeguard and to live the truth and power of the Christian celebration,” the pope wrote. “I want the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue.”
While his letter offered what he called a “meditation” on the power and beauty of the Mass, Pope Francis also reiterated his conviction of the need to limit celebrations of the liturgy according to the rite in use before the Second Vatican Council.
“We cannot go back to that ritual form which the council fathers, ‘cum Petro et sub Petro,’ (with and under Peter) felt the need to reform, approving, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and following their conscience as pastors, the principles from which was born the reform.”
The liturgical books approved by “the holy pontiffs St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II,” he said, “have guaranteed the fidelity of the reform of the council.”
Although the post-Vatican II Mass is celebrated in Latin and dozens of vernacular languages, he said, it is “one and the same prayer capable of expressing her (the church’s) unity.”
“As I have already written, I intend that this unity be reestablished in the whole church of the Roman rite,” he said, which is why in 2021 he promulgated “Traditionis Custodes” (Guardians of the Tradition), limiting celebrations of the Mass according to the rite used before the Second Vatican Council.
The bulk of the pope’s new letter focused on helping Catholics learn to recognize and be astounded by the great gift of the Mass and the Eucharist and how it is not simply a weekly “staging” or “representation” of the Last Supper but truly allows people of all times and all places to encounter the crucified and risen Lord and to eat his body and drink his blood.
And, the pope wrote, it is essential to recognize that the Mass does not belong to the priest or to any individual worshipper, but to Christ and his church.
Pope Francis said “the non-acceptance of the liturgical reform” of Vatican II, as well as “a superficial understanding of it, distracts us from the obligation of finding responses to the question that I come back to repeating: How can we grow in our capacity to live in full the liturgical action? How do we continue to let ourselves be amazed at what happens in the celebration under our very eyes?”
“We are in need of a serious and dynamic liturgical formation,” he said.
CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (CNS) — En una amplia entrevista con la agencia de noticias Reuters, el papa Francisco condenó el aborto, descartó la idea de que se está preparando para renunciar y dijo que todavía espera poder visitar Rusia y Ucrania en el otoño.
El papa Francisco también le dijo a Philip Pullella, corresponsal de Reuters en el Vaticano, que si bien el acuerdo del Vaticano con China en 2018 sobre la nominación de obispos no fue ideal, fue posible, y espera que se renueve nuevamente en octubre.
El papa habló con Pullella el 2 de julio y partes de la entrevista se publicaron el 4 y 5 de julio, incluso en los propios medios de comunicación del Vaticano.
Consultado sobre el controvertido y aún inédito acuerdo del Vaticano con China sobre el nombramiento de obispos, el papa Francisco dijo: “El acuerdo avanza bien y espero que en octubre pueda ser renovado”.
El Papa Francisco sostiene su crucifijo durante una entrevista exclusiva con Reuters en el Vaticano el 2 de julio de 2022. (Foto CNS/Remo Casilli, Reuters)
Originalmente firmado en 2018 y renovado en 2020, el acuerdo supuestamente permite al papa aprobar o vetar a los obispos nominados por el Partido Comunista Chino. Hasta ahora, solo seis obispos han sido nombrados, ordenados e instalados en virtud del acuerdo; el último fue anunciado en septiembre de 2021.
El acuerdo ha sido criticado por el cardenal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, obispo jubilado de Hong Kong, así como por defensores de la libertad religiosa y la administración del expresidente estadounidense Donald Trump.
Pero el papa Francisco dijo a Reuters que el acuerdo era lo mejor que la iglesia podía esperar en la actualidad.
“La diplomacia es así. Cuando te enfrentas a una situación bloqueada, tienes que encontrar la salida posible, no la ideal”, dijo el papa. “La diplomacia es el arte de lo posible y de hacer cosas para que lo posible se haga realidad”.
Cuando se le preguntó sobre el fallo de la Corte Suprema de EE. UU. en Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization el 24 de junio, una decisión que establece que no existe un derecho constitucional al aborto en los Estados Unidos, el papa Francisco dijo que no podía comentar sobre los aspectos técnicos de la decisión ni sobre Roe. v. Wade, que anuló.
“Realmente no entiendo (los detalles de) el fallo de hace 50 años, y ahora no puedo decir si estuvo bien o mal desde el punto de vista judicial. Respeto las decisiones”, dijo.
Sin embargo, dijo, el aborto en sí mismo “es un problema”.
“Yo pregunto: ‘¿Es lícito, es correcto, eliminar una vida humana para resolver un problema?’ Es una vida humana, eso es ciencia”, dijo el papa. “La pregunta moral es si es correcto quitarle la vida a un ser humano para resolver un problema. De hecho, ¿es correcto contratar a un asesino a sueldo para resolver un problema?”
Cuando se le preguntó sobre los obispos que niegan la Comunión a los políticos católicos que apoyan públicamente el aborto, el papa Francisco no entró en grandes detalles.
En cambio, repitió lo que dijo en el pasado cuando se le preguntó. “Cuando la iglesia pierde su naturaleza pastoral, cuando un obispo pierde su naturaleza pastoral, genera un problema político. Eso es todo lo que puedo decir”, dijo.
Pullella también le preguntó al papa Francisco sobre rumores de que estaba a punto de anunciar su renuncia, rumores que encontraron combustible adicional cuando el papa anunció que crearía nuevos cardenales a fines de agosto, un momento en que muchos funcionarios romanos y del Vaticano toman sus vacaciones de verano, y también cuando dijo que viajaría el 28 de agosto a la ciudad italiana de L’Aquila, el lugar de sepultura de San Celestino V, un papa del siglo XIII que abdicó apenas unos meses después de su elección.
Antes de renunciar, el papa Benedicto había visitado la tumba de San Celestino.
“Todas estas coincidencias hicieron que algunos pensaran que sucedería la misma ‘liturgia’, pero no se me pasó por la cabeza, nunca se me pasó por la cabeza”, dijo el papa Francisco a Reuters. “Por el momento no, de verdad. Pero cuando llegue el momento que vea que no puedo (dirigir la iglesia, por mala salud) lo haré”, dijo, refiriéndose a renunciar.
“Ese fue el gran ejemplo del papa Benedicto. Fue algo muy bueno para la iglesia. Les dijo a los papas que se detuvieran a tiempo”, dijo el papa. “Es uno de los grandes, Benedicto”.
Cuando se le preguntó sobre los rumores de que los médicos encontraron cáncer hace un año cuando el papa se sometió a una cirugía de colon, el papa Francisco se rió y dijo: “No me lo dijeron. No me lo dijeron”.
Pero, en realidad, dijo, “me explicaron todo bien, punto”.
El rumor del cáncer, dijo, “son chismes de la corte. El espíritu de la corte todavía está presente en el Vaticano. Y si lo piensas bien, el Vaticano es la última corte europea de una monarquía absoluta”.
El papa Francisco dijo que fue una decisión “dolorosa” posponer su viaje al Congo y Sudán del Sur, previsto del 2 al 7 de julio, “pero el médico me dijo que no lo hiciera porque todavía no puedo hacerlo. Lo haré”. el de Canadá porque el doctor me dijo: ‘Con 20 días más te vas a recuperar'”.
Dijo que se le inflamó un ligamento de la rodilla derecha, “y como caminaba mal y este caminar mal movía un hueso, (esto causó) una fractura allí, y ese es el problema”.
Sin embargo, dijo, “estoy mejorando poco a poco y, técnicamente, la calcificación ya se produjo, gracias a todo el trabajo realizado con el láser… y la magnetoterapia. Y ahora tengo que empezar a moverme porque hay peligro de perder el tono muscular si uno no se mueve”.
En cuanto a otros viajes, el papa Francisco dijo que le gustaría ir a Kyiv, Ucrania, y que podría ir después de su viaje a Canadá a fines de julio, pero que le gustaría “ir primero a Moscú. Intercambiamos mensajes sobre esto porque pensé que si el presidente de Rusia me diera una pequeña ventana, iría allí para servir a la causa de la paz”.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – People have high expectations for priests to be good spiritual and moral guides, to be active in helping the community and families, and to be someone young people can look up to, Pope Francis told bishops and priests from Sicily.
“To be supportive, close by, this is how we are called to live; out of God’s faithfulness, out of his love, we are there for others to the end, up to extreme consequences,” which lead to “justice, reconciliation, honesty and forgiveness,” he said.
“Closeness, compassion and tenderness: this is God’s style, and it is also the style of a priest,” the pope said during an audience at the Vatican June 9 with priests and bishops from the Italian island of Sicily.
The audience was part of the commemorations of the island’s patroness, Our Lady of the Way, whose feast is the Tuesday after Pentecost, as well as the lives of their compatriots, Blesseds Pino Puglisi and Rosario Livatino, two so-called “Mafia martyrs.”
Father Puglisi, Palermo’s most outspoken anti-Mafia priest, was assassinated in 1993, and Livatino, an anti-Mafia judge, was murdered by Mafia hitmen in 1990 when he was 37.
During the audience, the pope brought to light some issues that “worry me quite a bit,” particularly whether priests and bishops in Sicily were implementing the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Popular piety needs to be safeguarded, but also informed and guided so that it is free from all “superstitious gestures,” he said.
The liturgy, too, needs attention starting with the homily, which should be under eight minutes and leave people with “a thought, a feeling and an image” that will stick with them “all week,” he said. He asked the priests to consider whether “they preach in such a way that people go out for a cigarette and then come back” because the homily talks “about everything and nothing.”
Liturgical vestments were another issue, he said, particularly the abundance of lace and birettas.
“Where are we? Sixty years after the council! Some updating even in liturgical art, in liturgical ‘fashion'” is needed, he said. “Yes, sometimes wearing some of grandma’s lace works, but only sometimes.”
“It’s nice to pay homage to grandma, but it’s better to celebrate the mother, the holy mother church and in the way the mother church wants to be celebrated,” he said.
Do not let “insularity prevent the true liturgical reform that the council sent forward” and do not be passive, he told his audience.
Pope Francis highlighted the extraordinary beauty, culture and history of the island, as well as its extreme insularity and contradictions, which mean “we witness in Sicily behaviors and gestures marked by great virtues as well as vicious brutality.”
“It is no accident that so much blood has been shed thanks to the hands of the violent,” he said, but it also is no accident that there have been many cases of “the humble and heroic resistance of the saints and the righteous, servants of the church and the state.”
The many challenges in Sicily require the help of everyone, but priests and bishops are especially called to offer their “full, total and exclusive service,” he said. The church, too, faces its own challenges such as the decline in vocations and the increased detachment of young people from the church, he added.
“Young people are finding it hard to see parishes and ecclesial movements as helpful in their search for the meaning of life, and they do not always see any clear distancing from old, erroneous and even immoral ways of behaving that would be decisively taking the path of justice and honesty,” he said.
The pope added that he was “saddened” after receiving “some files” sent to Vatican offices and requiring “some judgment on priests and people of the church. But why? Why did it go along this road of injustice and dishonesty?” he asked without elaborating any further.
Pope Francis praised the numerous priests and lay people who have fully dedicated themselves to others, being faithful to Christ and the people. “How can we ignore the silent, tenacious and loving work of so many priests in the midst of people who are disheartened or jobless, in the midst of children or the increasingly lonely elderly?”
Priests who are good and close to their people are important, he said, “because in Sicily, people still look to priests as spiritual and moral guides, people who can also help improve the civil and social life on the island, support families and be a point of reference for growing young people,” he said.
“Sicilians have high and demanding expectations of priests,” he said, urging them not to be stuck “in the middle of the road!”
“Faced with the awareness of our weaknesses, we know that Christ’s will places us at the heart of this challenge. The key to everything is in his call, upon which we lean to set out to sea and cast our nets again,” the pope said.
Reminding them of the passage in Deuteronomy (4:7), which asks, “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us,” the pope said their ministry must be one of “closeness, which is compassionate, forgives everything, is tender. It embraces, it caresses.”
Pope Francis waves as he arrives for an audience with bishops and priests from Sicily June 9, 2022, in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. The pope told them that Catholics expect their priests to be spiritual and moral guides, advocates for a better world and a reference point for young people. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Health care is a fundamental right for all and not a privilege for the rich while the poor and disadvantaged are left to the wayside, Pope Francis said.
“When a country loses this wealth that is public health care, it begins to make distinctions within the population between those who have access, who can have paid health care, and those who are left without health care services,” the pope said June 4 to representatives of the Italian health care association, Federsanità.
According to its website, Federsanità is a confederation of local health care facilities and hospitals that seek to promote policies “strongly oriented toward a new concept of ‘taking care’ of patients based on proximity, proactivity, personalization and participation.”
In his address, the pope said closeness to patients is “the antidote to self-referentiality” that “breaks the chains of selfishness” and allows health care professionals to view patients “as brothers and sisters, regardless of language, geographical origin, social status or health condition.”
“Being close to others also means breaking down distances, making sure that there are no first- and second-class patients, and committing energies and resources so that no one is excluded from receiving health care,” he said.
Medical professionals, he said, should adopt a more holistic approach to health care that takes into account not only a patient’s illness but also “his or her psychological, social, cultural and spiritual condition.”
“When Jesus heals someone, he not only eradicates the physical ailment from the body, but also restores dignity, reintroducing him or her into society, giving them a new life. Of course, only he can do this, but the attitude, the approach to the person is a model for us,” he explained.
Placing the dignity of the person at the center, he added, helps to counter the “throwaway culture” that views the sick “as a burden and a cost.”
“Illnesses may mark the body, confuse thoughts and take away strength, but they can never nullify the value of human life, which must always be protected, from conception to its natural end,” he said.
Lastly, Pope Francis said health care professionals must seek the common good to counter “the pursuit of partisan interests” in which “the economic or political interests of one group prevail at the expense of the majority of the population.”
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he said, has proven that “’every man for himself’ translates rapidly into ‘everyone against all,’ thus widening the gap of inequality and increasing conflict.” “It is necessary to work to ensure that everyone has access to care, that the health care system is supported and promoted, and that it continues to be free of charge,” the pope said. “Cutting resources for health care is an outrage to humanity.”
Pope Francis accepts a copy of the children’s book, “La luna di Kiev” (The Moon of Kyiv), during an audience with representatives of the Italian health care association, Federsanità, at the Vatican June 4, 2022. The pope said that health care is a fundamental right for all and not a privilege for the rich while the poor and disadvantaged are left to the wayside. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (CNS) – La gente tiene grandes expectativas de que los sacerdotes sean buenos guías espirituales y morales, que sean activos para ayudar a la comunidad y las familias, y que sean alguien a quien los jóvenes puedan admirar, expresó el papa Francisco a los obispos y sacerdotes de Sicilia.
“Ser solidarios, cercanos, así estamos llamados a vivir; por la fidelidad de Dios, por su amor, estamos ahí para los demás hasta el final, hasta las últimas consecuencias”, que llevan a “la justicia, la reconciliación, la honestidad, y el perdón”, señaló.
“Cercanía, compasión, y ternura: este es el estilo de Dios, y también es el estilo de un sacerdote”, dijo el papa durante una audiencia en el Vaticano con sacerdotes y obispos de la isla italiana de Sicilia el 9 de junio.
(Sofia, Bulgaria – 6 May, 2019 by BigStock)
Esta audiencia fue parte de las conmemoraciones de la patrona de la isla, Nuestra Señora del Camino, cuya festividad es el martes después de Pentecostés, así como de la vida de sus compatriotas, los beatos Pino Puglisi y Rosario Livatino, dos denominados “mártires de la mafia”.
El padre Puglisi, el sacerdote antimafia más abierto de Palermo, fue asesinado en 1993, y Livatino, un juez antimafia, fue asesinado por sicarios de la mafia en 1990, cuando tenía 37 años.
Durante la audiencia, el Santo Padre sacó a la luz algunos temas que “me preocupan bastante”, particularmente con respecto a si los sacerdotes y obispos de Sicilia estaban implementando las reformas litúrgicas del Concilio Vaticano II.
La piedad popular necesita ser protegida, pero también informada y guiada para que esté libre de todo “gesto supersticioso”, acotó.
La liturgia también necesita atención, comenzando con la homilía, que debe durar menos de ocho minutos y dejar a las personas con “un pensamiento, un sentimiento, y una imagen” que permanecerán con ellos “toda la semana”, indicó. Pidió a los sacerdotes que consideraran si “predican de tal manera que la gente sale a fumar un cigarro y luego vuelve” porque la homilía habla “de todo y de nada”.
Las vestiduras litúrgicas son otro problema, dijo, en particular la abundancia de encajes y birretas.
“¿Dónde estamos? ¡Sesenta años después del concilio! Se necesita alguna actualización incluso en el arte litúrgico, en la ‘moda’ litúrgica”, dijo. “Sí, a veces usando algunos de los encajes de la abuela, pero solo a veces”.
“Es lindo rendir homenaje a la abuela, pero es mejor celebrar a la madre, a la santa madre iglesia y de la forma en que la madre iglesia quiere ser celebrada”, manifestó.
No dejen que “la insularidad impida la verdadera reforma litúrgica que el concilio propuso” y no sean pasivos, dijo a su audiencia.
El papa Francisco destacó la extraordinaria belleza, cultura, e historia de la isla, así como su extrema insularidad y contradicciones, lo que hace que “seamos testigos en Sicilia de comportamientos y gestos marcados por grandes virtudes y también por la crueldad”.
“No es casualidad que se haya derramado tanta sangre a manos de los violentos”, dijo, pero tampoco es casualidad que haya casos de “resistencia humilde y heroica de los santos y los justos, servidores de la iglesia y del estado”.
Los numerosos desafíos en Sicilia requieren la ayuda de todos, pero los sacerdotes y obispos están especialmente llamados a ofrecer su “servicio completo, total, y exclusivo”, expresó el Sumo Pontífice. La iglesia también enfrenta sus propios desafíos, como la disminución de vocaciones y el creciente desapego de jóvenes de la iglesia, agregó.
“A los jóvenes les cuesta ver las parroquias y los movimientos eclesiales como una ayuda en su búsqueda del sentido de la vida, y no siempre ven en ellos un claro desprendimiento de viejas formas de actuar, erróneas e incluso inmorales, para emprender con decisión el camino de la justicia y la honestidad”, dijo.
El papa agregó que estaba “triste” después de haber recibido “unos expedientes” enviados a las oficinas del Vaticano, que requerían “algún juicio sobre sacerdotes y gente de la iglesia. ¿Pero por qué? ¿Por qué se fue por este camino de injusticia y deshonestidad?” preguntó sin dar más detalles.
El papa Francisco elogió a los numerosos sacerdotes y laicos que se han dedicado plenamente a los demás, siendo fieles a Cristo y al pueblo. “¿Cómo ignorar el trabajo silencioso, tenaz, y amoroso de tantos sacerdotes en medio de personas desanimadas o desempleadas, en medio de niños o ancianos cada vez más solos?”
Los sacerdotes que son buenos y cercanos a su gente son importantes, dijo, “porque en Sicilia, la gente todavía ven a los sacerdotes como guías espirituales y morales, personas que también pueden ayudar a mejorar la vida civil y social en la isla, apoyar a las familias, y ser un punto de referencia para los jóvenes en crecimiento”.
“Los sicilianos tienen altas y exigentes expectativas de los sacerdotes”, dijo, instándolos a no quedarse atrapados “en medio del camino”.
“Ante la conciencia de nuestras debilidades, sabemos que la voluntad de Cristo nos sitúa en el centro de este desafío. La clave de todo está en su llamada, en la que nos apoyamos para embarcarnos al mar y volver a echar las redes”, indicó el papa. Recordándoles el pasaje de Deuteronomio (4:7), que pregunta: “¿Qué nación grande hay que tenga dioses tan cercanos a ella como el Señor, nuestro Dios, a nosotros?”, el papa dijo que su ministerio debe ser uno de “cercanía, que es compasiva, perdona todo, es tierna. Abraza, acaricia”.
By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) – For politics to be “the highest form of charity,” as Catholic social teaching promotes, it must be exercised with full respect and even love for those who disagree, Pope Francis said.
“We are called to live the political encounter as a fraternal encounter, especially with those who least agree with us; and this means seeing in the one with whom we dialogue a true brother or sister, a beloved child of God,” the pope told an international group of young adults May 16.
The young people, ages 18-35, are part of the lay Chemin Neuf community’s “Politics Fraternity,” which brings together prayer, direct service to the poor and a commitment to the common good and to political activity “according to the heart of God,” the group’s website said.
Pope Francis waves to members of the “Political Fraternity” project of the Chemin Neuf lay movement at the end of an audience May 16, 2022, in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“Encounter, reflection, action: This is a program for politics in the Christian sense,” the pope told them. For a Christian, a political encounter and debate must go beyond “respectful dialogue,” he said. “Since the Gospel asks us to love our enemies, I cannot settle for a superficial and formal dialogue, like those often-hostile negotiations between political parties.”
Instead, the pope said, with mutual respect and a solid commitment to finding common ground, political adversaries must listen to each other and seek the good of all rather than the promotion of their pet project or position.
Virtuous politics also involves “common reflection in search of this general good, and not simply by the confrontation of conflicting and often opposing interests,” the pope said. “In short, ‘the whole is superior to the part,’ and our compass for elaborating this common project is the Gospel, which brings to the world a profoundly positive vision of the human person loved by God.”
Pope Francis praised the Chemin Neuf project and its participants for recognizing that prayer, dialogue and reflection are not enough.
A politics grounded in reality and aiming to make concrete contributions to people’s lives must include the experience of serving the poor, he said, like the group does with its work with migrants, its care of creation and the small community of young adults who have chosen to live in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Paris.
At the end of the audience, Chemin Neuf members gathered around Pope Francis, who was seated in a wheelchair because of ongoing knee pain, and prayed for him while laying hands on him.
“In prayer let us all ask God to bless us,” he said. “Lord Jesus, bless all of us who work close to you. Bless our ideas. Bless our hearts. Bless our hands.”
By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Warning that the Russian Orthodox patriarch should not “turn himself into Putin’s altar boy,” Pope Francis also said he would like to go to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin in an attempt to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The pope reiterated that he would not be going to Kyiv “for now,” but “I first must go to Moscow, I must first meet Putin,” he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, published May 3. Vatican News also published most of the interview.
Pope Francis said he sent a message through Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, “20 days after the war” started, to be delivered to Putin telling him, “I was ready to go to Moscow.”
“We still have not had a response, and we are still being persistent, even though I am afraid Putin may not be able to and may not want to have this meeting right now,” the pope said. “I am doing what I can. If Putin were to open the door. …”
“But so much brutality, how do you not try to stop it? We saw the same thing with Rwanda,” he said, referring to the genocide against members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group in 1994, when at least 500,000 people were killed in about 100 days.
Pope Francis also provided more details about a video call he had with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in mid-March. “I spoke with Kirill for 40 minutes via Zoom. He spent the first 20 minutes holding a piece of paper reading all the reasons for the war.”
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and Pope Francis pose for photos at the beginning of their meeting at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana in this Feb. 12, 2016, file photo. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, published May 3, 2022, Pope Francis warned that the Russian Orthodox patriarch should not “turn himself into Putin’s altar boy.” He also said he would like to go to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin in an attempt to end the conflict in Ukraine. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
“I listened to him, and I told him, ‘I don’t know anything about this. Brother, we are not clerics of the state, we cannot use the language of politics, but of Jesus. We are shepherds of the same holy people of God. That is why we must seek the path of peace, to cease the blast of weapons,’” he said. “The patriarch cannot turn himself into Putin’s altar boy,” he said.
The meeting that had been planned between the pope and patriarch in Jerusalem June 14, and has since been canceled, had nothing to do with the conflict in Ukraine, the pope said. But even the patriarch now sees that any kind of meeting of theirs could send “an ambiguous sign.”
Patriarch Kirill has been an outspoken supporter of Putin’s war on Ukraine, and the Vatican’s diplomatic team believed such a meeting could lead to “much confusion,” Pope Francis had told La Nación, the Argentine newspaper, in an April 21 interview.
When Russia invaded Ukraine Feb. 24, the pope called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he told Corriere della Sera.
“Instead, I didn’t call Putin. I had heard from him in December for my birthday, but this time, no, I didn’t call him,” he said. He explained that he preferred to make a more “clear gesture that the whole world could see and that is why I went to the Russian ambassador” to the Holy See, Aleksandr Avdeyev, Feb. 25.
He said he asked the ambassador “that they explain, (and) I told him, ‘Please, stop this.’” The pope said the conflict is not just affecting the Donbas region, but there is also “Crimea, it is Odesa – it is taking away the port of the Black Sea from Ukraine, it is everything. I am a pessimist, but we must do everything possible so that the war can end.”
“There is not enough will for peace. The war is terrible, and we have to shout out” against it, he said.
By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Young people should not allow the darkness of fear to overwhelm them and instead allow the light of Easter to illuminate their lives and give them courage, Pope Francis said.
Fears “must be brought to light. And when fears, which are in darkness, come into the light, the truth bursts out. Do not be discouraged: If you are afraid, put it to the light and it will do you good!” the pope told thousands of young men and women gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
The April 18 event, titled “Seguimi” (“Follow Me”), was organized by the Italian bishops’ conference and brought young teens from all of Italy for a prayer vigil in Rome. While initial projections expected 57,000 people at the event, the Vatican said an estimated 100,000 young people were present.
It was the first large-scale gathering of its kind in St. Peter’s Square since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered all public events in the country in 2020.
Pope Francis gives the thumbs up as he arrives for a meeting with thousands of young people taking part in a pilgrimage organized by the Italian bishops’ conference in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 18, 2022. (CNS photo/Remo Casilli, Reuters)
After riding around and greeting the crowd on his popemobile, Pope Francis welcomed them and said the “square has long been waiting to be filled with your presence, your faces, and your enthusiasm.”
“Today, all of you are together, coming from Italy, in the embrace of this square and in the joy of the Easter that we have just celebrated,” he said.
However, the pope said that although Jesus’ resurrection “conquered the darkness of death,” there are still dense clouds “that darken our time.”
“In addition to the pandemic, Europe is experiencing a terrible war, while injustices and violence continue in many regions of the earth that destroy humankind and the planet,” he said. “Often it is your peers who pay the highest price: Not only is their existence compromised and made insecure, but their dreams for the future are trampled on. Many brothers and sisters are still waiting for the light of Easter.”
Reflecting on a Gospel reading from St. John, in which the risen Christ appears to his disciples while they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee, the pope said young people, like the disciples, can experience moments in life that “put us to the test” and “make us feel naked, helpless and alone.”
In those times of uncertainty, he continued, young people must not keep to themselves, because “fears must be said, fears must be expressed in order to be able to drive them away.”
“Darkness puts us in crisis; but the problem lies in how we manage this crisis,” the pope explained. “If I keep it only for myself, for my heart, and I don’t talk about it with anyone, it doesn’t work. In times of crisis, you have to talk, talk with the friend who can help, with your dad, your mom, your grandfather, your grandmother, with a person who can help. Crises must be illuminated to overcome them.”
He also encouraged the young men and women present to not be afraid of life and all that it entails but instead to be afraid “of the death of the soul, of the death of the future, of the closure of the heart.”
“Life is beautiful, life is meant to be lived and to give it to others; life is meant to be shared with others, not to close it in on itself,” he said.
Like children who call on their mother when in need, Pope Francis said Christians can call upon Mary who, in her adolescence, “accepted her extraordinary vocation to be the mother of Jesus.”
“May Our Lady – the mother who was almost your age when she received the angel’s announcement and became pregnant with him – teach you to say: ‘Here I am!’” the pope said.
