Tag: Pope Francis

Why Pope Francis Keeps Reaching Out to Mayors

pope_mayors_climateVATICAN CITY – When the Pope calls you to Rome, you go.

Dozens of mayors from around the world heeded the call in 2015, when Pope Francis invited them to the Vatican to discuss actions their cities could take against climate change and human trafficking. And it happened again last month, when Francis asked 70 mayors, mostly from Europe, to come and discuss local responses to the refugee crisis.

Both meetings amounted to follow-up on the Pope’s June 2015 encyclical letter, Laudato Sì. The 184-page letter expressed Francis’ concerns for the “common home” of humanity. In addition to strong words on the need to fight climate change, he included statements on the need for more socially inclusive urban planning.   Continue reading →

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Christian unity requires learning from each other, pope says

Pope Francis gestures as he stands with Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios of Italy and Malta and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Vatican, during an ecumenical evening prayer service to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Jan. 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-UNITY-PRAYER Jan. 25, 2017.
Pope Francis gestures as he stands with Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios of Italy and Malta and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Vatican, during an ecumenical evening prayer service to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Jan. 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-UNITY-PRAYER Jan. 25, 2017.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Divided Christians need to recognize the gifts God has given to other communities and learn from them “without waiting for the others to learn first,” Pope Francis said.

Leading an ecumenical evening prayer service Jan. 25 for the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis said Christians must overcome the “temptations of self-absorption that prevent us from perceiving how the Holy Spirit is at work outside our familiar surroundings,” including in the lives of other Christian communities.

The Vatican’s Sistine Chapel Choir and the Anglican Westminster Abbey Choir sang at the service at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Pope Francis walked to the tomb of St. Paul, under the basilica’s main altar, and prayed there with Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios of Italy, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and with Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, the representative of the archbishop of Canterbury.   Continue reading →

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POPE FRANCIS TO BLESS PHILIPPINES AND PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE

pope-francis-duterte-ap-sunstar-file_1Pope Francis will bless the Philippines and its leader Rodrigo Duterte, an aide to the president said, in a gesture of goodwill to a controversial figure known for his lurid lambasting of priests and bishops.

“When I had the opportunity of kissing the hand of the Pope, I said, ‘Bless the Philippines, Your Holiness,’ and his answer was, ‘Yes, I will also bless your president,'” presidential adviser Jesus Dureza said in a video clip at St. Peter’s Square, shown on television Thursday.

Dureza is in Rome ahead of peace talks between the government and Philippine Maoist rebels.   Continue reading →

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Pope Francis Inaugurates First Palestinian Embassy to the Holy See

abbas-pope-francis-640x480This weekend Pope Francis received Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Vatican and formally inaugurated the new Embassy of the State of Palestine to the Holy See.

Abbas met with the pontiff at the Vatican for some 20 minutes on Saturday just before the opening of diplomatic offices on Via di Porta Angelica, just outside the Vatican City, in a building that also houses the embassies of Peru, Ecuador and Burkina Faso.

The new Palestinian embassy, said Abbas, “is a sign that the Pope loves the Palestinian people and peace.” The Vatican recognized the state of Palestine about a year and a half ago.   Continue reading →

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Order of Malta snubs Pope Francis, dismissing as ‘irrevelant’ a Vatican inquiry into the sacking of a senior Knight

JS116655498_AFP_FILES-This-file-photo-taken-on-June-23-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpiVx42joSuAkZ0bE9ijUnGH28ZiNHzwg9svuZLxrn1UAn ancient chivalric order led by a British former Guards officer has dismissed as “irrelevant” an investigation launched by Pope Francis into the dismissal of a senior knight, in an increasingly bitter row with the Vatican.

 The Pope announced before Christmas that he had set up a commission of inquiry into a controversial decision by the head of the Order of Malta, Cambridge-educated Matthew Festing, to sack one of his deputies, Albrecht von Boeselager.

Mr von Boeselager, a German aristocrat whose title was Grand Chancellor, was accused of allowing a branch of the charitable organisation to distribute tens of thousands of condoms in Myanmar, in contravention of Catholic teaching.

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Order of Malta leader professes loyalty to Pope Francis amid Vatican investigation

pa-20196555-800x500Fra’ Matthew Festing said the Order would follow the Pope at this ‘complex and difficult time’

The leader of the Order of Malta has promised Pope Francis his loyalty, as the Order faces an investigation by the Vatican over a recent controversy.

In a letter to mark the World Day of Peace, Fra’ Matthew Festing, the organisation’s Grand Master, told Pope Francis: “the Order … even in a difficult and complex time, seeks to render its service in closely adhering to the teaching of the Church and the directions which come from the Successor to St Peter.”   Continue reading →

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Argentina rocked by story of two priests’ sexual abuse of children for decades

file“The children said they wailed as the two Roman Catholic priests repeatedly raped them inside the small school chapel in remote northwestern Argentina. Only their tormenters would have heard their cries since the other children at the school were deaf. …the Vatican knew about him since at least 2009, when the Italy victims went public with tales of shocking abuse against the most vulnerable of children and named names. In 2014, the Italian victims wrote directly to Pope Francis again naming the Rev. Nicola Corradi as a pedophile and flagged that he was living in Francis’ native Argentina. Yet apparently, nothing was done.” –Source
And why should the Vatican do anything at all? After all, all we can expect is more of the same lip service the previous Popes offered wherein nothing was done to slow or even stop the raping of children. Like when given the chance to actually help the children, the “zero tolerance” legislation for the Vatican was vetoed by John Paul II. But herein lies the sticky wicket for the present Pope. They need to spin this one extra carefully because the very man that stands as Jesuit Pope Francis today was the very same man who stood as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergolio over Argentina when the molestation scandal was first discovered back in 2009. He did nothing then, and judging by his past, and the past Popes; he won’t do much more than offer lip service now either.   Continue reading →

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Cardinal Zen: Pope Francis would ‘betray Christ’ by allowing Communist China to select bishops

cardinal_zen_810_500_55_s_c1 — The highest ranking Chinese Catholic has stated that if Pope Francis allows Communist China to have a hand in the selection of the nation’s Catholic bishops it would be “betraying Jesus Christ.”

“You cannot go into negotiations with the mentality ‘we want to sign an agreement at any cost,’ then you are surrendering yourself, you are betraying yourself, you are betraying Jesus Christ,” Cardinal Joseph Zen told The Guardian this week.

The 84-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong has firmly opposed a potential deal between the Vatican and the Chinese government that would add legitimacy to the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. He says the move would alienate authentic Catholics who worship in the ‘underground Church’ from the one true Church headed by Christ and his representative, the Pope.  Continue reading →

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Is the pope Catholic? Francis dismisses critics of his teachings

thumb-rns-pope-syriaVATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis is firing back at foes of his efforts to make the Catholic Church more open and pastoral in its ministry, telling an interviewer that “they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”

The pontiff’s lengthy interview in Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian hierarchy, was published Friday (Nov. 18) and followed days of news coverage of demands by four hard-line cardinals who have grave concerns about Francis’ approach.

The four say that focusing on ministering to people in their particular circumstances is eroding the church’s doctrinal absolutes and that Francis must dispel any ambiguities or face serious consequences.   Continue reading →

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Don’t listen to the ‘prophets of doom,’ Pope Francis insists

19394069f15e1931eca94d858893ca1a-690x450ROME- Pope Francis on Sunday called for the faithful not to be driven by end-times curiosities or apocalyptic preachers, urging them to focus on what is truly important: “The Lord and our neighbor.”

“Those who follow Jesus pay no heed to prophets of doom, the nonsense of horoscopes, or frightening sermons that distract from the truly important things,” Francis said.

It is important, he continued, to distinguish “the word of wisdom that God speaks to us each day” from the shouting of those who use “God’s name to frighten, to nourish division and fear.”

Francis’s words came as he was celebrating Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, in Rome.   Continue reading →

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