By Carol Glatz
ROME (CNS) – People need to be passionate about serving others and caring for those who suffer, Pope Francis said.

“Lord, we entrust to your heart the vocation of care – let us make every person who approaches us in need feel special,” he said in a homily to medical and teaching staff, students, patients and others at a Mass held outside the medical school connected to Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was a patient for 10 days in July.

The pope presided over the Mass at Rome’s University of the Sacred Heart, Nov. 5 – the first Friday of the month, which many devote to the sacred heart of Jesus. The university, which was founded in Milan and has four satellite campuses in Italy, is one of the largest Catholic universities in the world and is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

The Mass marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the university’s Agostino Gemelli Department of Medicine and Surgery in Rome, known informally as “the pope’s hospital” as it is where popes typically go for medical treatment. Pope Francis underwent colon surgery there in July.

In his homily, the pope recognized the fatigue and challenges medical staff face, not just in their day-to-day duties, but also when it comes to dealing with rare or undetected diseases and wanting to give everyone the same high-quality health care.

“We might get discouraged. This is why we need comfort,” he said. Comfort can be found in Jesus’ sacred heart, “which beats for us, always to the rhythm of those words, ‘Have courage, do not be afraid, I am here.’”

“Have courage brothers and sisters, do not give up, the Lord, your God, is greater than your ills, he takes you by the hand and caresses you, he is near, compassionate and gentle. He is your comfort,” the pope said.

People, particularly those in the field of health care, also need the strength of memory, he said. Reflecting on the sacred heart of Jesus reminds people of the boundless goodness and love he offers freely and unconditionally.

People are usually so busy each day that they forget to remember this love and to feel the same compassion for others, he said.

During “this time of pandemic, it would be good for us to also remember those more trying times, not to make us sad, but to not forget and to guide us in our choices with the light of a very recent past,” he said.

The “art of remembering” should be practiced by not letting the day end in exhaustion but rather by taking note of and appreciating all the faces, smiles and friendly exchanges that happened throughout the day, he said.

Remembering these small gestures are important for giving meaning to those who are ill, too, he said, explaining that the “therapy of remembering” restores and heals the heart.

Jesus’ sacred heart also reflects how important passion is, the pope said.

“If we want to truly love God, we have to become passionate about humanity, each person,” above all those who live in pain and who are abandoned or discarded, he said.

“Let us ask for the grace to become passionate about people who suffer, about service, so that the church, before saying anything, safeguards a heart that pulsates with love,” he said.

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – With many people around the world facing exclusion and inequality, the social teaching of the Catholic Church can inspire new economic systems that are more “people-centered,” Pope Francis said.

Christians must not “remain indifferent” to those affected by an “economic system that continues to discard people’s lives in the name of the god of money, fostering greed and destructive attitudes toward the resources of the earth and fueling various forms of injustice,” the pope said Oct. 23.

“Our response to injustice and exploitation must be more than mere condemnation,” he said. “First and foremost, it must be the active promotion of good: condemnation of what is wrong, yet promotion of what is good.”

The pope addressed participants of an international conference sponsored by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation. The two-day conference reflected on “Solidarity, Cooperation and Responsibility: The antidotes to fight injustices, inequalities and exclusions.”

Established in 1993, the foundation seeks to promote the teaching of St. John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical on social and economic justice.

Pope Francis praised the foundation for its “commitment to financing study and research by young people on new models of economic and social development inspired by the church’s social doctrine.”

“This is important and greatly needed: in soil contaminated by the predominance of finance, we need to sow many small seeds that can bear fruit in an economy that is equitable and beneficial, humane and people-centered. We need possibilities able to become realities, and realities able to offer hope. This means putting into practice the social teaching of the church,” he said.

Reflecting on the conference’s theme, the pope said that solidarity, cooperation and responsibility represent the “three pillars of the church’s social teaching,” which places the human person at the center of “the social, economic and political order.”

Rather than an individualistic world view, the church’s teaching is based on the word of God that “seeks to promote integral human development on the basis of our faith in the God who became man.”

“In every sphere of life, today more than ever, we are bound to witness our concern for others, to think not only of ourselves, and to commit ourselves freely to the development of a more just and equitable society where forms of selfishness and partisan interests do not prevail,” the pope said.

Pope Francis said Christians must be inspired by the teachings of Jesus and care for others with a “love that transcends borders and limits,” giving witness that “it is possible to pass beyond the walls of selfishness and personal and national interest.”

“We can be ‘brothers and sisters all,’ and so we can and must think and work as ‘brothers and sisters of all,’” he said. “This may seem to be an unrealistic utopia. But we prefer to believe that it is a dream that can come true. For it is the dream of the triune God. With his help, it is a dream that can begin to become reality, also in our world.”

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A synod calls on everyone to become experts in “the art of encounter” in a way that is uplifting and transformative, Pope Francis said, formally opening the process leading up to the assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2023.

“Celebrating a synod means walking on the same road, together” just like Jesus did – encountering, listening and discerning with all who one meets, the pope said in his homily at the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Oct. 10.

“Are we prepared for the adventure of this journey? Or are we fearful of the unknown, preferring to take refuge in the usual excuses: ‘It’s useless’ or ‘We’ve always done it this way?’” he asked.

Some 3,000 people attended the Mass, including the 270 people – cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and laypeople – invited to the day of reflection in the Vatican Synod Hall Oct. 9.

The weekend of events began the “synodal journey,” which will explore the theme, “For a synodal church: communion, participation and mission.” Bishops around the world were to open the process in their dioceses Oct. 17. The diocesan phase, which runs until April, will focus on listening to and consulting the people of God.

In his homily, the pope said they should begin the synodal process “by asking ourselves – all of us, pope, bishops, priests, religious and laity – whether we, the Christian community, embody this ‘style’ of God, who travels the paths of history and shares in the life of humanity.”

The day’s Gospel reading (Mk 10:17-30) of Jesus setting out on a journey and encountering a rich man offers just one example of how Jesus “walks alongside people and listens to the questions and concerns lurking in their hearts,” he said. “He shows us that God is not found in neat and orderly places, distant from reality, but walks ever at our side.”

Celebrating a synod, he said, means walking on the same road as others and living out the “three verbs” that characterize a synod: to encounter, listen and discern.

“We too are called to become experts in the art of encounter. Not so much by organizing events or theorizing about problems as in taking time to encounter the Lord and one another,” to devote time to prayer and adoration, and to listen to what the Holy Spirit wants to say to the church, the pope said.

Jesus shows that an encounter has the power to change someone’s life – “the Gospel is full of such encounters with Christ, encounters that uplift and bring healing,” the pope said. In fact, Jesus was never in a hurry, and he would never have looked at a watch to signal it was time to wrap things up. “He was always at the service of people he met in order to listen to them.”

Each encounter requires “openness, courage and a willingness to let ourselves be challenged by the presence and the stories of others,” the pope said. It means not hiding behind a facade or stiff formalities indicative of a spirit of clericalism or of courtiers, but it means being a father.

To that end, the pope said he would be meeting a group of people who live on the streets later that day. He said they had already started meeting because another group of people had gone to listen to them and from there, “they have been able to begin the journey.”

Sincere listening involves the heart, not just the ears, Pope Francis said. The aim is not to be able to answer people’s questions, especially with pre-packaged or “artificial and shallow responses,” but to provide an opportunity to tell one’s story and speak freely.

“Whenever we listen with the heart, people feel that they are being heard, not judged; they feel free to recount their own experiences and their spiritual journey,” he said.

Listening to one another “is a slow and perhaps tiring exercise” but it must be done, including listening to “the questions, concerns and hopes of every church, people and nation,” and to the “challenges and changes” that world presents, he added.

Encountering and listening “are not ends in themselves” where everything stays the same, but must lead to discernment, he said.

“Whenever we enter into dialogue, we allow ourselves to be challenged, to advance on a journey. And in the end, we are no longer the same; we are changed,” he said.

The synod is “a journey of spiritual discernment that takes place in adoration, in prayer and in dialogue with the word of God,” the pope said.

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The fear, sickness, death, mourning and economic impacts of COVID-19 should make people who are relatively well off and have access to health care think about “what it means to be vulnerable and live in precariousness on a daily basis,” Pope Francis told members of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Acknowledging how people are “worn down” and tired of hearing or thinking about the coronavirus, the pope insisted the challenges and suffering of the past 18 months would make sense only if people learned from them.

Meeting members of the Pontifical Academy for Life Sept. 27, Pope Francis urged them to find new ways to collaborate with other physicians, researchers, scholars and theologians in defending human life at every stage of its development and in every condition of health or frailty.

The Catholic Church cannot “water down” the truth that the defense of life includes opposition to abortion and euthanasia – the clearest signs today of a “throwaway culture,” he said. But it also includes continuing the traditional Catholic advocacy for the right to health care for all people.

While disease is a natural occurrence, it often also is the result of human action or inaction, and responses to it are the result of social and political choices, Pope Francis said.

“Moreover, it is not enough for a problem to be serious for it to attract attention and be addressed” with the same kind of global commitment that is being seen in response to COVID, he said. In fact, “very serious problems are ignored because of a lack of adequate commitment.”

“Think of the devastating impact of certain diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis,” he said. “Every year, millions of avoidable deaths occur in the world. If we compare this reality with the concern that the COVID-19 pandemic has provoked, we see how the perception of the gravity of the problem and the corresponding mobilization of energy and resources is very different.”

And while global measures to stop the spread of COVID and to get people vaccinated are good, he said, one cannot ignore the fact that millions of people do not have access to clean water or adequate food.

“I do not know whether to laugh or cry, sometimes I weep, when we hear government or community leaders advising the inhabitants of the slums to wash several times a day with soap and water. My dear, you have never been in a slum: there is no water there and they don’t have soap,” he said.

Statistically “variables such as salary level, educational qualification and neighborhood of residence, even in the same city,” also make a huge difference, he said.

“We affirm that life and health are equally fundamental values for all, based on the inalienable dignity of the human person, but if this affirmation is not followed by an appropriate commitment to overcome the inequalities,” he said, “we in fact accept the painful reality that not all lives are equal, and health is not protected for all in the same way.”
“Here I would like to reiterate my concern that there will always be a free health care system,” he said. For countries that have a free health care system, “don’t lose it, because otherwise only those who can pay for it will have the right to health care and the others will not.”

Universal health care plans, he said, “help to overcome inequalities.”

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – There is no place for discrimination or divisive distinctions among people who believe in Christ, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.

That everyone is made new and equal in Christ overcomes all ethnic, economic and social differences, even between the two sexes, “establishing an equality between man and woman which was revolutionary at the time and which needs to be reaffirmed even today,” he said Sept. 8 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.
“How many times we hear expressions that denigrate women,” he said, adding that even today women experience a kind of slavery in which “women do not have the same opportunities as men.”

The pope continued his series of talks on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians by looking at what faith in Christ brings.
With faith and baptism, people become new creatures, “clothed” with Christ and children of God in Christ, the apostle writes. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is no male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

The pope said this shows how “baptism, therefore, is not merely an external rite. Those who receive it are transformed deep within, in their inmost being, and possess new life” with an identity that is so new “that it prevails over the differences that exist on the ethnic-religious level” and social and economic levels.

St. Paul’s teaching was “shocking” and “revolutionary” at a time when distinctions, for example, between slaves and free citizens “was vital in ancient society,” the pope said.

“By law, free citizens enjoyed all rights, while the human dignity of slaves was not even recognized,” he said.
The same thing is happening to many people in the world today, “who do not have the right to eat, who do not have the right to education, who do not have the right to work. They are the new slaves. They are the ones who live on the margins, who are exploited by everyone” and whose human dignity is denied, he said.

“Equality in Christ overcomes the social differences between the two sexes, establishing an equality between man and woman,” he said, calling for a reaffirmation of this truth.

St. Paul “confirms the profound unity that exists between all the baptized, in whatever condition they are bound to, because every one of them is a new creature in Christ. Every distinction becomes secondary to the dignity of being children of God.”

Therefore, “it is decisive even for all of us today to rediscover the beauty of being children of God, to be brothers and sisters among ourselves, because we have been united in Christ, who redeemed us,” he said.

Differences and conflicts caused by separation “should not exist among believers in Christ,” he said, cautioning against creating differences between people, “many times unconsciously.”

“Rather, our vocation is that of making concrete and evident the call to unity of the entire human race.”

“Everything that exacerbates the differences between people, often causing discrimination – all of this, before God, no longer has any meaning, thanks to the salvation effected in Christ.”

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Complaining is a poison that causes anger, resentment and sadness, and closes one’s heart to God, Pope Francis said.

“Let us ask in prayer for the grace not to waste time polluting the world with complaints, because this is not Christian,” the pope told those gathered in St. Peter’s Square Aug. 29 during his Sunday Angelus address.

“Jesus instead invites us to look at life and the world starting from our heart” because, by looking inside, people will find “almost all that we despise outside,” he said.

When people sincerely ask God “to purify our heart, that is when we will start making the world cleaner” because the best way to defeat evil is “by starting to conquer it within yourself,” the pope said.

The pope reflected on the Sunday Gospel reading from St. Mark in which Jesus explains why he does not follow some of the rituals of purification, saying God knows when people honor him “with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Jesus told the crowd that the things that defile people do not come from the outside world, but from within themselves, from their hearts and “evil thoughts.”

Pope Francis said, “this also pertains to us. We often think that evil comes mainly from the outside: from other people’s conduct, from those who think badly of us, from society.”

“How often we blame others, society, the world, for everything that happens to us! It is always the fault of ‘others,’” including those who govern, misfortune and so on, he said.

But all that time spent blaming others “is wasting time,” he said.

“We become angry, bitter and keep God away from our heart,” he said. “One cannot be truly religious in complaining: complaining poisons, it leads you to anger, to resentment and to sadness, that of the heart, which closes the door to God.”

The first step on the path of holiness, according to the first fathers of the church, was “to blame yourself,” the pope said.

“It is wisdom: learning to blame yourself. Try to do it, it will do you good. It does me good, when I manage to do so, but it is good for us,” he said. He prayed that Mary would help people purify their hearts by letting go of “the vice of blaming others and complaining about everything.”

After the Angelus, the pope greeted members of the Laudato Si’ movement.

He thanked them “for your commitment to our common home, particularly on the World Day of Prayer for Creation” Sept. 1 and the Season of Creation that runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4.

“The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are becoming ever more serious and alarming, and they call for a decisive and urgent action to transform this crisis into an opportunity,” he said.