By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis called for abolishing the death penalty worldwide, lifting the burden of debt on poor nations, global aid policies that respect life and revamped laws that welcome and integrate migrants.
He urged individuals, communities and nations to not let indifference, information overload or pessimism discourage them from concrete efforts “to improve the world around us, beginning with our families, neighbors and places of employment.”
Building peace, he said, is not accomplished by words alone, but through the grace of God, a conversion of heart, an attitude of compassion and the courage to act against despair.
The pope’s multifaceted plea came in his message for World Peace Day, Jan. 1. The message, which was delivered to world leaders by Vatican ambassadors, was released at the Vatican Dec. 15.
The message, titled “Overcome Indifference and Win Peace,” contained a three-fold appeal to the world’s leaders.
He asked that countries: “refrain from drawing other peoples into conflicts of wars,” which not only destroy a nation’s infrastructure and cultural heritage, but also their “moral and spiritual integrity;” forgive or make less burdensome international debt of poorer nations; and “adopt policies of cooperation which, instead of bowing before the dictatorship of certain ideologies, will respect the values of the local populations” and not harm the “fundamental and inalienable right to life of the unborn.”
Also part of building peace in the world, he said, is addressing the urgent problem of improving the living conditions of prisoners, especially those still awaiting trial. Since rehabilitation should be the aim of penal sanctions, effective alternatives to incarceration should be considered as well as the abolition of  the death penalty.
The pope called on national governments to review their current laws on immigration and find ways they could “reflect a readiness to welcome migrants and to facilitate their integration” as well as respect the rights and responsibilities of all parties concerned.
All nations’ leaders should also take concrete measures in alleviating the problem of a lack of housing, land and employment, the pope wrote, as well as stop discrimination against women in the workplace, which included unfair wages and precarious or dangerous working conditions. He said he hoped those who are ill could be guaranteed access to medical treatment, necessary medications and home care.
The pope’s message focused on the dangers of cynicism and indifference against God, neighbor and creation.
“With the present Jubilee of Mercy, I want to invite the church to pray and work so that every Christian will have a humble and compassionate heart” and that all people will learn “to forgive and to give,” he said in his message.
The credibility of the church and its members rests on their willingness to live and act with the same tireless mercy God has for the world, the pope said. “We, too, then are called to make compassion, love, mercy and solidarity a true way of life, a rule of conduct in our relationships with one another,” he said.
Since these attitudes of compassion and solidarity are often handed down from person to person, the pope emphasized the importance of families and teachers in showing what love, respect, dialogue, generosity, charity and faith mean.
He also reminded the media and communicators of their responsibility to “serve the truth and not particular interests.” They don’t just inform people, he said, but also form and influence their audience.
“Communicators should also be mindful that the way in which information is obtained and made public should always be legally and morally admissible,” he said.
In his message, the pope praised those journalists and religious who raise awareness about troubling and “difficult situations,” and defend the human rights of minorities, indigenous peoples, women, children and the most vulnerable people in society.

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis said his Bible is old, beat up and worth more to him than anything money can buy.
“If you saw my Bible, you would not be impressed,” he wrote to young people. “You’d say, ‘What? This is the pope’s Bible? A book so old, so beat up?’ You might even want to give me a gift of a new one, something that costs 1,000 euro. But I don’t want it.”
Pope Francis wrote about his Bible and his Bible-reading habits in the preface to the German-language study guide, “Youth Bible for the Catholic Church.” It was released in late October by the Germany-based Katholisches Bibelwerk and the YouCat Foundation. Other language versions are expected in 2016.
The Jesuit journal, La Civilta Cattolica, published an Italian translation of the preface in early December.
The well-worn Bible has been with Pope Francis for half his life, wrote the pope, who will turn 79 Dec. 17.
“It has seen my joy and has been bathed by my tears: it is my priceless treasure,” the pope wrote, and “nothing in the world would make me give it up.”
Youths and young adults in Germany and Austria worked with three Catholic biblical scholars to compile the new introduction to reading and understanding the Bible. The illustrated guide, designed for teens and young adults, contains selections from every book of the Bible with an introductory note, as well as commentary on the chosen passages, reflections by the young people and related citations from saints and popes.
In the preface, Pope Francis urges young people to use the study guide and to read their Bibles daily. He asks them not to hide it on a bookshelf where it will gather dust “until one day your own children sell it at a used book stall. No! Don’t let that happen.”
The Bible is not just a piece of literature, he said. There are Christians in the world today being persecuted just for having a Bible; “evidently, the Bible is an extremely dangerous book.”
The pope quoted Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, who said, “You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.”
God speaks through the Bible, the pope wrote. It is not a book designed for the shelves, but for the hands.
Pope Francis asked young people to read from the Bible each day and with attention.
“Ask ‘What does this say to my heart? What is God saying to me through these words?’” the pope counseled.
“I want to tell you how I read my old Bible. Often I pick it up, read a bit, then set it down and let myself be seen by the Lord. I am not the one looking at him, but he looks at me. God is truly there, present.”
Pope Francis reassured the young people that it is not uncommon at all to feel like God is not saying anything. “But, patiently, I stay there and I wait, reading and praying.”
“I pray seated,” he said, “because it hurts when I kneel. Sometimes when I’m praying I even fall asleep, but that’s OK because I’m like a son near his father and that’s what counts.”
“Do you want to make me happy?” the pope asked the youths. “Then read the Bible.”

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – On a cloudy, damp morning, Pope Francis’ voice echoed in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica: “Open the gates of justice.” With five strong thrusts, the pope pushed open the Holy Door, a symbol of God’s justice, which he said will always be exercised “in the light of his mercy.”
The rite of the opening of the Holy Door was preceded by a Mass with 70,000 pilgrims packed in St. Peter’s Square Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the beginning of the extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy.
As the sun broke through the clouds, heralding the start of the jubilee year, the pope bowed his head and remained still for several minutes in silent prayer.
Amid a crowd of dignitaries and pilgrims, a familiar face was also present at the historic event: retired Pope Benedict XVI, who followed Pope Francis through the Holy Door into St. Peter’s Basilica.
During his homily, Pope Francis emphasized the “simple, yet highly symbolic” act of opening the Holy Door, which “highlights the primacy of grace;” the same grace that made Mary “worthy of becoming the mother of Christ.”
“The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history,” he said.
The feast of the Immaculate Conception, he continued, serves as a reminder of the grandeur of God’s love in allowing Mary to “avert the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into this world.”
“This is the love of God which precedes, anticipates and saves,” he said. “Were sin the only thing that mattered, we would be the most desperate of creatures. But the promised triumph of Christ’s love enfolds everything in the Father’s mercy.”
The Year of Mercy, the pope stressed, is a gift of grace that allows Christians to experience the joy of encountering the transforming power of grace and rediscovering God’s infinite mercy toward sinners.
“How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we speak of sins being punished by his judgment before we speak of their being forgiven by his mercy,” he said.
“We have to put mercy before judgment, and in any event God’s judgment will always be in the light of his mercy. In passing through the Holy Door, then, may we feel that we ourselves are part of this mystery of love.”
Fifty years ago, he said, the church celebrated the “opening of another door,” with the Second Vatican Council urging the church to come out from self-enclosure and “set out once again with enthusiasm on her missionary journey.” The council closed Dec. 8, 1965.
Pope Francis, the first pope to be ordained to the priesthood after the council, said the council documents “testify to a great advance in faith,” but the council’s importance lies particularly in calling the Catholic Church to return to the spirit of the early Christians by undertaking “a journey of encountering people where they live: in their cities and homes, in their workplaces. Wherever there are people, the church is called to reach out to them and to bring the joy of the Gospel. After these decades, we again take up this missionary drive with the same power and enthusiasm.”
Shortly after the Mass, as thousands of people waited in St. Peter’s Square for a chance to walk through the Holy Door, Pope Francis led the midday Angelus prayer.
The feast of the Immaculate Conception has a special connection to the start of the Year of Mercy, he said, because “it reminds us that everything in our lives is a gift, everything is mercy.”
Like Mary, the pope continued, Christians are called to “become bearers of Christ” and to “let ourselves be embraced by the mercy of God who waits for us and forgives everything. Nothing is sweeter than his mercy. Let us allow ourselves to be caressed by God. The Lord is so good and he forgives everything.”
(Editor’s note: The Diocese of Jackson  was set to open the Holy Door at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle Sunday, Dec. 13 before the 10:30 a.m. Mass.  See page 4 for a look at opportunities to participate here.)

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – “Jesus wept.” Pope Francis opened his morning homily with those words as he spoke about the wars and violence engulfing numerous parts of the world.
The Gospel reading for Nov. 19 began, “As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.’”
“Jesus is weeping today, too, because we have preferred the path of war, the path of hatred, the path of enmity,” the pope said during the Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae where he lives.
“The whole world” seems to be at war today, the pope said, and there is “no justification” for it.
“A war can be – quote-unquote – ‘justified’ for many reasons, but when the whole world is embroiled in war like it is today – there is a world war (being fought) in pieces, here, there, everywhere – there is no justification. And God weeps. Jesus weeps,” the pope said.
“It would do us good to ask for the grace of tears for this world that does not recognize the path of peace,” the pope said. “Let us ask for the conversion of hearts.”
Pope Francis prayed that the upcoming Year of Mercy would bring with it “the grace that the world would discover again the ability to weep for its crimes, for those who make war.”
“We are approaching Christmas,” the pope said, and soon everywhere “there will be lights, decorated trees, even Nativity scenes,” but if they are not signs of faith in Jesus and a commitment to following him, then it is “all fake.”
“The world continues to make war,” he said. “The world has not understood the path of peace.”
All the wars and violence lead to “ruin, thousands of children without an education, many innocent people dead and a lot of money in the pockets of those who sell weapons,” the pope said. “Jesus once said, ‘You cannot serve two masters: Either God or riches.’ War is choosing riches.”
Choosing war, he said, is like saying, “’Let’s make weapons, that way we can balance the budget a bit and move our own interests forward.’ The Lord has strong words for those people: ‘Be cursed!’ He said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Those who decide for war, who make wars, are cursed; they are criminals.”
While arms sellers around the world are getting rich, the pope said, peacemakers are humbly helping people one at a time.
Describing Blessed Teresa of Kolkata as an “icon of our age,” Pope Francis said she was one of those humble peacemakers. Cynics would ask what good Mother Teresa did by caring for the dying, but their question simply shows they do not understand the path to peace, he said.

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Bring honor back to keeping one’s promises, which must be made in full freedom and kept by making sacrifices, Pope Francis said.
The beauty of love and promises is that they are carried out in freedom, he said during his weekly general audience Oct. 21 in St. Peter’s Square. “Without freedom there can be no friendship, without freedom there is no love, without freedom there is no marriage.”
The pope also prayed for the intercession of “the pope of the family,” St. John Paul II, whose optional memorial is Oct. 22. He asked that the Synod of Bishops on the family “renew in the whole church the meaning of the indisputable value of the indissoluble marriage and healthy families, based on the mutual love between a man and woman and divine grace.”
The pope dedicated his catechesis to the promise of love and fidelity made between a husband and wife.
“The identity of the family is founded on promise,” he said, which can be seen in the loving care families provide one another in sickness and in health, and by accepting each other’s limitations and helping each other realize their full potential.
It is a promise of love that must not stay holed up in the home, but must expand to embrace one’s extended family, the community and the whole human family, the pope said.
Unfortunately, he said, honoring one’s promises has lost its standing. That is because, on the one hand, “a misunderstood right to pursue one’s own pleasure at all costs and in any relationship is exalted as a non-negotiable principle of freedom,” he said.
On the other hand, people “exclusively entrust the bonds of life’s relationships and the commitment to the common good to the requirements of law,” he said. But in reality, he said, nobody wants to be loved because of selfish reasons or out of compulsion.
“Love, just like friendship, owe their strength and beauty to this fact: that they generate a bond without removing freedom.”
“Freedom and fidelity are not opposed to each other, rather, they support each other” as people grow in the “free obedience to one’s word,” he said.
There is no better place than marriage and the family to teach the beauty and strength of keeping promises. “If we look at its audacious beauty, we are intimidated, but if we scorn its courageous tenacity, we are lost,” the pope said.
But this “masterpiece” and “miracle” of being true to one’s word must be an honest desire rooted in one’s very heart and soul – because promises “cannot be bought and sold, they cannot be coerced with force but nor can they be safeguarded without sacrifice,” he said.
“It’s necessary to bring social honor back to the fidelity of love,” he said, as well as bring to light the hidden miracles of millions of men and women who are building and rebuilding their families and promises every day.
St. Paul says the love which grounds the family points to the bond of love between Christ and the church, the pope said. That means, he said, that the church itself can find in the family “a blessing to safeguard” and always something to learn – even before it tries to teach or apply church discipline to it.
“Love for the human family, for better or for worse, is a point of honor for the church,” he said.
The pope asked that God bless the work of the Synod of Bishops that has gathered to discuss, “with creative fidelity,” the vocation and mission of the family.
He asked for prayers that the church would “uphold and strengthen the promise of the family” with an “unfailing trust in that faithful love by which the Lord fulfills his every promise.”
(Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news services may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to, such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method in whole or in part, without prior written authority of Catholic News Service.)

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While not specifically mentioning the controversial proposal of a path toward full reconciliation and Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, members of the Synod of Bishops on the family handed Pope Francis a report emphasizing an obligation to recognize that not all Catholics in such a situation bear the same amount of blame.
The 94-paragraph report approved Oct. 24, the last working day of the three-week synod, highlighted the role of pastors in helping couples understand church teaching, grow in faith and take responsibility for sharing the Gospel. It also emphasized how “pastoral accompaniment” involves discerning, on a case-by-case basis, the moral culpability of people not fully living up to the Catholic ideal.
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna told reporters Oct. 24 that the key word in the document’s discussion of ministry to divorced and civilly remarried people is ‘discernment.’ I invite you all to remember there is no black or white, no simple yes or no.” The situation of each couple “must be discerned,” which is what was called for by St. John Paul II in his 1981 exhortation on the family, he said.
The cardinal told Vatican Insider, a news site, that although St. John Paul called for discernment in those cases, “he didn’t mention all that comes after discernment.” The synod’s final report, he said, proposes priests help divorced and remarried couples undergoing conversion and repentance so that they recognize whether or not they are worthy to receive the Eucharist. Such an examination of conscience, he said, is required of every Catholic each time they prepare to approach the altar.
As Pope Francis said at the beginning of the synod, church doctrine on the meaning of marriage as a lifelong bond between one man and one woman open to having children was not up for debate. The final report strongly affirmed that teaching as God’s plan for humanity, as a blessing for the church and a benefit to society.
While insisting on God’s love for homosexual persons and the obligation to respect their dignity, the report also insisted same-sex unions could not be recognized as marriages and denounced as “totally unacceptable” governments or international organizations making recognition of “’marriage’ between persons of the same sex” a condition for financial assistance.
The report also spoke specifically of: the changing role of women in families, the church and society; single people and their contributions to the family and the church; the heroic witness of parents who love and care for children with disabilities; the family as a sanctuary protecting the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death; and the particular strain on family life caused by poverty and by migration.
The Catholic Church recognizes a “natural” value in marriage corresponding to the good of the husband and wife, their unity, fidelity and desire for children. But the sacrament of marriage adds another dimension, the report said. “The irrevocable fidelity of God to his covenant is the foundation of the indissolubility of marriage. The complete and profound love of the spouses is not based only on their human capabilities: God sustains this covenant with the strength of his Spirit.”
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters that several bishops mentioned specifically a need to improve the text’s references to “the relationship between conscience and the moral law.”
The text refers to conscience in sections dealing with procreation and with marital situations the church considers irregular, particularly the situation of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
First, though, synod members promised greater efforts to be with couples in crisis and praised divorced Catholics who, “even in difficult situations, do not undertake a new union, remaining faithful to the sacramental bond.” Such Catholics, they noted, can and should “find in the Eucharist the nourishment that sustains them.”
Those who have remarried without an annulment of their sacramental marriage must be welcomed and included in the parish community in every way possible, the report said. “They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit gives them gifts and charisms for the good of all.”
Quoting from St. John Paul’s exhortation on the family, the report insists that pastors, “for the sake of truth,” are called to careful discernment when assisting and counseling people who divorced and remarried. They must distinguish, for instance, between those who “have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage,” in the words of St. John Paul.
Priests must “accompany interested people on the path of discernment in accordance with the teaching of the church and the guidance of the bishop,” the report said.
While the report makes no explicit mention of absolution and the return to Communion, it seems to leave some possibility for such a solution by quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s affirmation that “imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified” because of different conditions. Just as the degree of guilt will differ, the report said, “also the consequences of the acts are not necessarily the same in all cases.”
In several places the text praises the teaching of “Humanae Vitae,” the document of Blessed Paul VI on married love and the transmission of life. “Conjugal love between a man and a woman and the transmission of life are ordered one to the other,” the report said.
“Responsible parenthood presupposes the formation of the conscience, which is ‘the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths,’” said the report, quoting from the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. “The more spouses try to listen to God and his commandments in their consciences, the freer their decision will be” from external pressures, the report said.
(Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news services may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to, such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method in whole or in part, without prior written authority of Catholic News Service.)

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Francis made a previously unannounced 15-minute stop Sept. 23 at a Washington residence operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor, where he met with about 45 sisters.
Sister Constance Veit, communications director for the Little Sisters, said the pope talked individually with each sister, ranging in age from novices to 102-year-old Sister Marie Mathilde, who is Colombian and spoke to the pope in Spanish.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters in Washington that evening that the papal visit was intended as a sign of support for the Little Sisters’ lawsuit against the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers offer contraceptive coverage in their health plans or participate in a religious “accommodation” that the sisters have refused.
But Sister Constance said Pope Francis made no mention of the lawsuit during his visit. Rather, his message to the group was about the Little Sisters’ “mission to the elderly” and “how important it is in a society that tends to marginalize the elderly and the poor,” she told Catholic News Service Sept. 24.

Pope Francis talks with Sister Marie Mathilde, 102, during his unannounced visit to the Little Sisters of the Poor residence in Washington Sept. 23. (CNS photo/courtesy of the Little Sisters of the Poor)

“We were deeply moved by his encouraging words,” she added.
The Little Sisters did not know about the visit until after the pope’s morning meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama, Sister Constance said. Three Little Sisters of the Poor, including Sister Constance, had been invited to attend the ceremony on the South Lawn.
Sister Maria del Monte Auxiliadora, the mother general, was told after the ceremony that Pope Francis wanted to make a five-minute visit to the Jeanne Jugan Residence, located across the street from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and not too far from the St. John Paul II Seminary.
Pope Francis made the stop between the canonization of St. Junipero Serra at the basilica and a visit to the seminary, run by the Archdiocese of Washington.
Because his visit was so brief, the pope was not able to meet any of the home’s residents, Sister Constance said. The visit ended up lasting about 15 minutes, she said.
In addition to the 12 nuns who live and work at the Jeanne Jugan Residence, sisters from other homes operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor and the order’s postulants were invited to the meeting, Sister Constance said.
The Jeanne Jugan Residence provides independent living, assisted living and nursing home care to low-income seniors. Although it currently has 80 to 90 residents, it is undergoing renovations and will upon completion reach full capacity of 100 residents, Sister Constance said.
(Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news services may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to, such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method in whole or in part, without prior written authority of Catholic News Service.)

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Never try to tame the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis told new bishops.
Let the Spirit “continually turn your life upside down” and inspire you to challenge faithful Catholics, seek out those who have left the church and boldly meet with non-believers, he said.
The pope made his comments Sept. 10 in a written address to some 130 recently appointed bishops from around the world.
In the lengthy text, Pope Francis said he didn’t want to dwell too long on the “dramatic challenges” the bishops would have to face “because I don’t want to frighten you. You are still on your honeymoon” as newly ordained or newly appointed bishops.
However, the pope did remind the bishops of the fear, confusion and dejection many disciples felt after Christ was crucified.
Yet their shattered lives found meaning again when Christ showed them he had conquered death and was truly risen. He breathed the Holy Spirit on them, giving them their new mission of spreading God’s mercy and forgiveness, the pope said.
Never forgetting Christ is risen is key to remaining strong in the face of so much disarray. “Passing through the walls of your helplessness, he has joined you with his presence,” he said. God is aware of their weaknesses, denials and betrayals, but he has still bestowed his Spirit on them, he said.
Safeguard the Spirit because it is a breath that will “turn your life upside down” and never be like it was ever before, the pope said. “I beg you not to tame such power,” but let it constantly move them.
The bishop’s primary task is to be a witness of the Risen Christ, which is “the reality that upholds the entire edifice of the church,” and which promises that all people can be reborn with him, Pope Francis said.
He asked the bishops to never exclude any aspect of human life or any person from their pastoral concern, instead encouraging them to teach and challenge faithful Catholics, actively seek out Catholics who have left the church and bring the Word to those who have always refused or do not know Jesus.
The pope said bishops should take by the hand those who are already part of the Christian community and lead them on a spiritual journey that reveals deeper mysteries about God and their faith than they “perhaps lazily have gotten used to listening to without seeing its power.”
Bishops can inspire their priests to reawaken joy in their parishioners because “without joy, Christianity wastes away into toil.”
Bishops must “intercept” those who are distanced from the church, let them “pour out” their sorrows and disappointments, and help them come to terms with the reasons they turned away from God.
“More than with words, warm their hearts with humble and engaged listening for their true good until they open their eyes and can turn things around and return to the One from whom they have been distanced,” the pope said.
Keep an eye open for signs of pride that may “dangerously worm into your community,” he said, thereby preventing parishioners from celebrating the return of those who were lost.
Finally, the pope said, bishops must be missionaries who “without fear or apprehension” can stand before people who do not know or have refused to believe in God and invite them to discover salvation has a place in their lives.
Showing concern for their true well-being, he said, might be what makes a tiny chink “in the walled perimeter they use to jealously protect their own autocracy.”