On Thursday Pope Francis yet again showed his knack for surprises and his openness to “newness” by adding the care of creation to the traditional sets of both the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
“We usually think of the works of mercy individually and in relation to a specific initiative: hospitals for the sick, soup kitchens for the hungry, shelters for the homeless, schools for those to be educated, the confessional and spiritual direction for those needing counsel and forgiveness.”
However, when we look at the works of mercy as a whole, “we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces,” the Pope said in his message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, published Sept. 1. Continue reading
Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, the Primate of the Anglican Communion, will meet in Rome Oct. 5 to celebrate First Vespers in the Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio.
ROME — Jorge Bergoglio, also known as “Pope Francis,” asked for Mary to intercede for the oppressed on Monday and claimed to the thousands gathered to observe what is known as the Roman Catholic “Feast of the Assumption” that she had been “assumed into Heaven body and soul.”
“I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence,” the Pope told journalists during the July 31 papal flight to Rome following his apostolic journey to Poland. “This is not right and it is not true.” “I don’t like to speak about Islamic violence,” the Pope said, taking into account that one sees violence every day in the newspapers, even at the hands of baptized Catholics. “There are violent Catholics!” he said. “If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence.” –
In general, Pope Francis gets high marks for his inter-religious outreach, which has been a core feature of his papacy from the beginning. Shortly after his election in March 2013, for instance, he went to a juvenile detention center in Rome and included two Muslims among the inmates whose feet he washed.
ROME-During the days following his historic resignation, many observers speculated that an alleged “gay lobby” within the Vatican had pressured Benedict XVI to step down. In a new interview-book, the emeritus pope admits to the existence of such a lobby, but says it had only “four or five members” and that he’d managed to dismantle it.
Pope Francis is expected to avoid using the word “genocide” when he visits a memorial to the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians this weekend.
Pope Francis and several prominent Evangelical and Pentecostal leaders met in Rome last Friday to discuss areas of mutual agreement and where they respectfully disagreed. The aim of the gathering, which had no official agenda, was to build unity between Christian traditions that have historic enmity.
The Pope held a meeting at the Vatican with a hundred judges from around the world. They participated in the Summit of Judges on human trafficking and organized crime that brought together legal experts to analyze this scourge and seek to combat it.