Tag: Pope

Pope Renews Call for Care of Planet

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“I would like to reaffirm my urgent call to renew dialogue on how we are building the future of the planet,” Pope Francis said in a message released by the Vatican on November 16, 2017. “We need an exchange that unites us all, because the environmental challenge we are experiencing, and its human roots, regards us all, and affects us all.”

The Holy Father’s renewed call to action came in a message he sent Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of the Fiji Islands, President of the 23rd Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-23), taking place in Bonn from November 6-17, 2017.  The message was read during the November 16 session.

Pope Francis listed “four perverse attitudes” that “do not help honest research and productive dialogue on building the future of our planet:” Denial; Indifference; Resignation; Trust in inadequate solutions.

The Pope stressed that economic and technological approaches are important, but “it is essential and desirable to carefully consider the ethical and social impacts and impacts of the new paradigm of development and progress in the short, medium .and long term.” And he continued: “…it is increasingly necessary to pay attention to education and lifestyles based on an integral ecology, capable of taking on a vision of honest research and open dialogue where the various dimensions of the Paris Agreement are intertwined.”

Pope Francis Pushes Church to be More Open to the Divorced

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The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’

In his first major teaching on family issues, Pope Francis advances the power of local bishops to include divorced and remarried Catholics in church life, perhaps even letting them celebrate the Eucharist, while largely sidestepping hot-button social issues like gay marriage and married clergy.

The drama around this document—titled “Amoris Laetitia,” Latin for “The Joy of Love”—has been building for more than two years, ever since Pope Francis first announced he would call Catholic bishops together to examine modern family crises around the world.

The document is Pope Francis’ official response to the two major meetings of bishops he hosted at the Vatican to discuss marriage and family issues—the Extraordinary Synod on the Family in 2014 and Synod of the Bishops in 2015.

Per Vatican custom, Pope Francis considered the bishops’ insights from these events, added his own, and wrote a formal teaching to guide the church on the issues. The result is this 270-page formal letter, called an apostolic exhortation, addressed to bishops, priests, married couples, and lay people about “love in the family.”

The letter is more about pastoral method than doctrine about the marriage itself. Pope Francis seeks to encourage families with practical guidance amid the myriad of challenges they face around the world, including unemployment, migration, poverty, gambling, alcoholism, polygamy and societal pressures that ignore the longstanding Catholic teaching of marriage. The document notes that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent is considered “strange and almost scandalous” for another, and he wants local bishops to seek local solutions.

“I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion,” Pope Francis says. “But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, ‘always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud on the street.’”

This openness can at times seem to give vague answers. Pope Francis says that divorced and remarried people are “not excommunicated” and should not feel “discriminated against”—he stops short of directly saying they are welcome to take the bread and wine at Eucharist, but then adds in a footnote: “I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.’”

On Wednesday, two days before the letter’s release, he met with a support group for divorced and remarried couples. In September, he made it easier for couples to obtain an annulment, which is not a divorce but a finding by Catholic officials that a marriage between a man and a woman was not a real marriage—a necessary step to return to celebrating Eucharist in the church now.

Several others of his most interesting lines are also the least clear. “The experience of the broad oriental tradition of a married clergy could also be drawn upon,” he writes, without specificying what that means in the context of the debate over married clergy in non-Eastern traditions. As expected, Pope Francis reminds Catholics that gay marriage is not marriage and that couples that cohabit are still in “irregular” unions. He only mentions gay marriage twice, but he also suggests that unions that are not marriages in the Church’s eyes can offer limited wisdom: “The Synod Fathers stated that the Church does not disregard the constructive elements in those situations which do not yet or no longer correspond to her teaching on marriage.”

Pope Francis does name a few specific policies he wants churches to implement. Local churches, he says, need to develop and deepen programs for marriage preparation—engagement periods are often too short, and couples need more training before they walk down the aisle. There should also be specialized regional counseling centers for families going through crises, he says, especially separation and divorce. He also asks for pastoral programs for migrant families and the relatives they’ve left behind.

Much of his teaching on marriage for spouses is fairly simple, similar to what one would expect from a local parish pastor. Don’t be arrogant, especially to non-believing family members. Forgive and trust each other. Show affection. Don’t keep secrets from each another. Be open-minded. Care for the elderly. Don’t fall asleep with your electronic device because it might mean you are ignoring your spouse. For churches, he also offers some practical suggesions: train ministers to better help families, mentor young couples, and encourage couples especially when they have young children or are empty-nesters.

To look at this document simply for a definitive Francis answer on a controversial topic misses the bigger picture. Pope Francis is trying to create a new culture of how bishops lead, and he wants them to think first of the person and her circumstances, instead of doctrine in the abstract. He sets the example and references teaching of bishops conferences frequently in the letter, including those in Spain, Korea, Mexico, Columbia and Kenya. It is important to remember that this teaching is for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, not just a subset in a specific country.

One of the most important parts of this teaching may not actually the letter itself, but the conversation it has provoked for the past two years. The synod gatherings themselves were particularly heated, but brought dialogue about issues that can get ignored. At the three-week meeting in 2014, one of the bishops’ working documents sparked a media firestorm when it included a section called “Welcoming homosexual persons.”Interpreters looking for revolution quickly learned they’d overreached. The section was later struck down, but a point had been made: Catholics across the world were deeply discussing issues, which is the Francis way.

Mercy, in the end, remains his constant theme. “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” he writes. “Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves.”

Poor Welcomed Into Vatican for Debut of ‘Call Me Francis’

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“What am I doing in Rome?” asks an elderly Jorge Mario Bergoglio at the beginning of the film “Call Me Francis,” which is out in Italian cinemas today. The Archbishop of Buenos Aires looks from a terrace at Saint Peter’s Basilica, as he prepares to enter the Conclave, which would then elect him to be Successor of Peter. With a thought-provoking sunset in the background, he reflects: “At my age people retire …”

Weighing on the shoulders of the future Pope, however, is not his age, but rather the anxieties, risks, and battles faced in the course of his life,  especially in Argentina, during the Videla dictatorship and also, ten years later, the obstinate operation of “discarding” the weak and poor. Scenes that the film, produced by Taodue with Mediaset, show with great intensity, offering a coherent stroke of all that happened in the last 50 years in the life of the Argentine Pope.

The film’s direction had an almost saint-like figure of Bergoglio emerge, who seemed like an Argentine Schindler who,– in the dark years of the military dictatorship (1976-1983), while the people were disappearing, being arrested, tortured, killed – sometimes with the complicit silence of the Church herself –, hid seminarians in his college, defended a judge to the point of hiding her in the baggage compartment of his beetle, had priests liberated, and procured false documents for them to flee to Brazil and Uruguay.

Poor Welcomed Into Vatican for Debut of 'Call Me Francis'Within very little time, he had climbed the ranks and gained recognition as a national hero. The film clarifies well on what side Bergoglio is. Neither on the right or the left, as he himself clarifies several times in the film, but on “the side of Jesus.” Far from being a political struggle, his was a concrete application of the Gospel. In virtue of which he does not bat an eyelid when, as Provincial, he is sent to Cordoba to be a priest, to “confess between swine and chickens.” In fact in 1992, Cardinal Quarracino came to fetch him there and to communicate to him John Paul II’s decision to appoint him Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, “Delegate” for the priests of the periphery. So, the film recounts his commitment as pastor in favor of the poor and the disinherited, his struggles against the Buenos Aires municipality, which for economic reasons wished to leave hundreds of families homeless.

Bergoglio was always there in the front line, to “fight” with the shantytown priests and their poor, to pull the reluctant Cardinal’s cassock to put his face in front of the television cameras and make him celebrate Mass in the shacks, poor and cops all together.

And also when he has his bag in hand, ready to leave for Rome for the Conclave after Ratzinger’s renunciation, he finds the time to celebrate a marriage in the “periphery.”

“Rome can wait,” he says. “But from Rome, you might never return,” replies the secretary. It was moving to see, in the last strands of the film the ready fans before the TV that exult with the announcement of Cardinal Tauran of the new Pope’s name. They knew it, they felt in in their heart. “He’s done it!”, exclaims between tears his old collaborator of San Miguel. And then the

Overall, “Call Me Francis” is a moving film. The applause broke out at the close of the film, especially by the 7,000 poor and homeless invited by the Pontiff, accompanied by volunteers and several Roman charitable realities and received by the Papal Almoner, Monsignor Konrad Krajewski.

Distributed to them at the exit was a small bag of provisions. The Musical Band of the Papal Swiss Guard, which usually gives concerts only twice a year – for the oath taking and for Christmas – wished to honor them by performing four musical pieces. Also, a group of Eritreans raised a giant placard in the Hall, between flags of the whole world, which read “Thank you Pope Francis.”

Argentine actor Rodrigo De La Serna, who plays the young Bergoglio (the other is Sergio Hernandez), between various selfies and autograph requests, was able to say to ZENIT: “It’s truly a dream, an indescribable, honorific sensation. I never imagined I would be in the Vatican, much less so interpreting a person that I admire as I do Pope Francis.”

Christians and Hindus: promoting human ecology together

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Vatican City, 6 November 2015 (VIS) – Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has written a message to the followers of Hinduism on the occasion of Deepavali, the Festival of Lights, which will be celebrated on 11 November this year. The message, entitled “Christians and Hindus: promoting human ecology together”, is also signed by Fr. Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, M.C.C.J, secretary of the same dicastery.
In the text, Cardinal Tauran comments that Pope Francis, in his recent encyclical “Laudato si’”, addresses the environmental and human ecological crisis threatening our planet. “Thus we deem it opportune to share, in keeping with our cherished tradition, some thoughts on the need to promote human ecology, and to foster a rediscovery of the interconnectedness of creation. Human ecology points to the relationship and responsibility which humans have towards the earth and to the cultivation of ‘ecological virtues’. These virtues include a sustainable use of the earth’s resources through the adoption of policies, at national and international levels, which respect the interconnectedness and interdependence of human beings and nature. These issues, as we know, have a direct bearing not only on the current health of our earth – the home of the human family – but also for generations to come”.
“Human selfishness, as evidenced in consumerist and hedonistic tendencies in some individuals and groups, nurtures an insatiable desire to be ‘masters’ and ‘conquerors’ rather than ‘guardians’ and ‘stewards’ of nature. We are all called, regardless of religious belief or national identity, to live with a greater responsibility towards nature, to nurture life-giving relationships and, most of all, to reorder our lifestyles and economic structures according to the ecological challenges facing us. Your tradition stresses the ‘oneness’ of nature, humanity and the divine. The Christian faith teaches that the created world is God’s gift to all human beings. As stewards of the created order, we are called to care for it responsibly and resolutely”.
“There is an inseparable link between our harmony with creation and our peace with one another. If peace is to prevail in the world, we must, together and as individuals, consciously give ourselves to ‘protecting nature, defending the poor, and building networks of respect and fraternity’. Promotion of human ecology requires formation and education, at all levels, in ecological consciousness and responsibility, and in the wise stewardship of the earth’s resources. This begins in the family, ‘the first and fundamental structure for ‘human ecology in which man receives his formative ideas about truth and goodness, and learns what it means to love and to be loved, and thus what it actually means to be a person’. Educational and governmental structures have a responsibility to form citizens in a proper understanding of human ecology and its relationship to the future of humanity and the created world”.
“United by our humanity and mutual responsibility, as well as our shared values and convictions, may we Hindus and Christians, together with people of all religious traditions and good will, always foster a culture which promotes human ecology. In this way, there will be harmony within us, and in our relationships with others, with nature and with God, which will ‘favour the growth of the tree of peace’”.
“Praying for a healthy ecology and creating awareness of the various ways to care for creation is a truly ennobling work. Pope Francis has instituted, therefore, an annual ‘World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation’ to be observed on 1 September. It is hoped that this initiative will increase awareness among all people of the need to be good stewards of creation and, thereby, promote a true human ecology”.
Source: VISnews151106

Pope to US Congress: Stop bickering

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The past, the promise and the potential of the United States must not be smothered by bickering and even hatred at a time when the U.S. people and world need a helping hand, Pope Francis told the U.S. Congress. Making history by being the first pope ever to address a joint meeting of Congress, Pope Francis was introduced to the legislators by the House sergeant at arms Sept. 24 as: “Mr. Speaker, the pope of the Holy See.”

The pope introduced himself, though, as a son of the American continent, who had been blessed by the “new world” and felt a responsibility toward it. In a long speech, he gave the sense that he sees the United States as a country divided, one so focused on calling each other names that it risks losing sight of how impressive it can be when its people come together for the common good. That is when it is a beacon of hope for the world, he said.

Pope Francis condemned legalized abortion, the death penalty and unscrupulous weapons sales. He called on Congress to “seize the moment” by moving forward with normalizing relations with Cuba. And, again referring to himself as a “son of immigrants” — and pointing out that many of the legislators are, too — he pleaded for greater openness to accepting immigrants.

A reporter had asked the pope in July about why he spoke so much about the poor and about the rich, but rarely about the lives and struggles of the hard-working, tax-paying middle class. The result of a papal promise to correct that was the speech to Congress and through Congress to the American people.

“I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and — one step at a time — to build a better life for their families,” the pope said.

“These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society,” he said. “They generate solidarity by their actions, and they create organizations which offer a helping hand to those most in need.”

Pope at US Congress
Pope at US Congress

Showing he had studied the United States before the visit — something he said he would do during the Rome August break — he used four iconic U.S. citizens as relevant models of virtue for Americans today: Abraham Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

“A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did; when it fosters a culture which enables people to ‘dream’ of full rights for all their brothers and sisters as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work; the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton,” the pope said.

Dialogue, he told the legislators, is the only way to handle the pressure and fulfill the call to serve the common good, promoting a culture of “hope and healing, of peace and justice.”
For the speech, Pope Francis stood in the House chamber in front of Rep. John Boehner, speaker of the House and a Republican from Ohio, and Vice President Joe Biden, president of the Senate. Both men are Catholics. Besides the senators, representatives and their invited guests, the attendees included members of the U.S. Supreme Court and members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet.

In his speech, Pope Francis gave strong support to several concerns of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, including defending the right of people to publicly live their faith and join political policy debates from a faith-based perspective.

“It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continues to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society,” he said. The dialogue the country needs must be respectful of “our differences and our convictions of conscience.”

“Every life is sacred,” he insisted, calling for the “global abolition of the death penalty” and the “responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.”

Some U.S. politicians and pundits have expressed confusion or even anger over Pope Francis’ teaching about the damage provoked when money becomes a god and profits count more than people. The pope insists his words are straight out of Catholic social teaching.

His speech to Congress included more of that teaching, delving deeper into the positive aspects of a market economy — as long as it is ethical and includes controls, solidarity and a safety net for the poorest and weakest members of society.

“The creation and distribution of wealth” obviously is important for continued efforts to reduce poverty in the United States and around the globe, he said. “The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable.”

“Business is a noble vocation” when it seeks the common good, Pope Francis said. And today, he told legislators, the common good includes protecting the environment and taking bold steps “to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.”

Pope to UN: Lack of Ethical Limits Can Enable Corruption and Ideological Colonization

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Addressing the 70th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, Pope Francis warned that without recognizing certain ethical limits, social progress risks becoming a cover for abuse, corruption and ideological colonization.

Pope Francis addressed the members of the international organization on the second leg of his Apostolic Visit to the United Nations. He is the fourth Pontiff to address the United Nations, preceded by Blessed Paul Vi in 1965, St. John Paul II in 1979 and 1995, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2008.

Recalling the organization’s 70th anniversary, the Pope praised the UN’s achievements in codifying international law, establishing human rights norms, as well as conflict resolution and peacekeeping missions around the world.

“Beyond these achievements, the experience of the past seventy years has made it clear that reform and adaptation to the times is always necessary in the pursuit of the ultimate goal of granting all countries, without exception, a share in, and a genuine and equitable influence on, decision-making processes,” he said. “The need for greater equity is especially true in the case of those bodies with effective executive capability, such as the Security Council, the Financial Agencies and the groups or mechanisms specifically created to deal with economic crises. This will help limit every kind of abuse or usury, especially where developing countries are concerned.”

Rights of the Environment and the Poor

The Pope called for the UN member states to protect the environment and to put an end to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged.

As part of the environment, he said, the care for the environment to mankind’s survival. “Any harm done to the environment,” he said, “is harm done to humanity.” Drawing applause from the delegations present, the Pope aligned with Christian and monotheistic religions in affirming that mankind is entrusted with the care for Creation by God and “is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it.”

The Pope also highlighted the consequences of the misuse and destruction of the environment, which leads to the detriment of the weak and disadvantaged. Ultimately, both the environment and the poor become casualties of the current throwaway culture.

“Economic and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offense against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most from such offenses, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing ‘culture of waste,’” he said.

Human Rights and ‘Ideological Colonization’

Continuing his address, Pope Francis also stressed the importance of place all people at the center of the UN activities, saying that integral human development and the full exercise of human development must be “built up and allowed to unfold” for each individual and family.

He also stressed that the right to education especially for young girls who are often excluded, must be respected and reinforced.

The 78 year old Pontiff called on government leaders to ensure the proper support for families, namely: lodging, labor and land. Religious freedom, education and civil rights, he said, are also crucial in creating support.

“These pillars of integral human development have a common foundation, which is the right to life and, more generally, what we could call the right to existence of human nature itself,” he said.

“The baneful consequences of an irresponsible mismanagement of the global economy, guided only by ambition for wealth and power, must serve as a summons to a forthright reflection on man: ‘man is not only a freedom which he creates for himself. Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature’”

Pope Francis, however, reminded the UN of their duty to recognize ethical limits, warning that promoting the social progress and better standards of life can risk becoming an unattainable illusion or “for carrying out an ideological colonization by the imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible.”

War and Arms Trafficking

The Pope also denounced war as the negation of all rights and an assault on the environment.

“If we want true integral human development for all,” he stressed, “we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and between peoples.”

Calling for the transparent application of the UN Charter, the Holy Father warned that a “Pandora’s Box is opened” when it is ignored. This particularly applies to the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destructions.

“There is urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the non-proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons,” he said.

The Pope also lauded the recent nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that it was proof “of the potential of political good will and of law.”

“I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved,” he said.

However, the Pope also appealed for the current conflicts in the Middle East and Africa where Christians, minority religions, cultural and ethnic groups are made to witness the destruction of their “places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement.”

The Jesuit Pope also recalled the conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region.

“In wars and conflicts there are individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die. Human beings who are easily discarded when our only response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements.”

Sacredness of Life

Finally, the Pope rounded out his address defending the fundamental right to life in all stages of development.

He called for respect for the sacredness of every human life: “of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the sick, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic.”

The Argentine Pope cited the words of his predecessor Blessed Paul VI, saying that such an understanding of respect for life calls for a higher degree of wisdom for the respectful use of creation for the common good.

Concluding his address, Pope Francis said that United Nations, like any human endeavor, “can be improved yet it remains necessary.”

“I pray to Almighty God that this will be the case, and I assure you of my support and my prayers, and the support and prayers of all the faithful of the Catholic Church, that this Institution, all its member States, and each of its officials, will always render an effective service to mankind, a service respectful of diversity and capable of bringing out, for sake of the common good, the best in each people and in every individual,” he concluded.

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