A notable change was made recently in the 2024 Pontifical Yearbook: the restoration of the papal title “Patriarch of the West”. Titles serve as significant markers of the roles individuals perform or the offices they […]
Pilgrims gather in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli prayer and address on Sunday, May 5, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
ACI Prensa Staff, May 6, 2024 / 14:07 pm (CNA).
A priest armed with several weapons and dress… […]
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), pictured in 1938-1939. / Credit: Public Domain
Rome Newsroom, May 6, 2024 / 11:12 am (CNA).
Edith Stein could be declared a doctor of the Church with the title “doctor veritatis,” or “doctor of truth… […]
Pope Francis greets the crowd gathered at St. Peter’s Square on May 5, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 5, 2024 / 09:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis asked for a moment of silence as he spoke from the window of the Apostolic Palace on Sunday for people to thank the Lord for their friends.
The pope reflected on the gift of friendship during his Regina Caeli address on May 5.
“Since childhood, we learn how beautiful this experience is: we offer friends our toys and the most beautiful gifts; then, growing up, as teenagers, we confide our first secrets to them; as young people we offer loyalty; as adults, we share satisfactions and worries; as seniors, the memories, considerations, and silences of long days,” the 87-year-old pope said.
“The Word of God, in the Book of Proverbs, tells us that ‘Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel’ (27:9). Let us think a moment of our friends, and thank the Lord for them.”
Speaking to the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square on a sunny Sunday in Rome, the pope remarked that Jesus desires to share in this great gift of friendship with us.
“Today the Gospel tells us about Jesus’ words to the Apostles: ‘I do not call you servants any longer, but friends,’” he said.
“And today Jesus, in the Bible, tells us that for Him we are precisely this, friends: dear people beyond all merit and expectation, to whom He extends His hand and offers His love, His Grace, His Word; with whom He shares what is dearest to Him, all that He has heard from the Father (cf. Jn 15:15),” he added.
Pope Francis asked people to reflect on whether they feel loved by the Lord as a beloved friend or if Jesus seems like more of a stranger.
“May Mary help us to grow in friendship with Her Son and to spread it around us,” the pope said as he began to pray the Regina Caeli prayer in Latin.
At the end of his address, the pope prayed for peace in Ukraine and the Holy Land and offered his solidarity to people affected by the heavy flooding in southern Brazil that has killed at least 60 people.
Pope Francis gave a shoutout to pilgrims visiting Rome from Texas, Chicago, Berlin, and Paris, as well as to the Pontifical Swiss Guards, who will celebrate their swearing-in ceremony on Monday.
The pope also wished a happy Easter to Orthodox Christians and Eastern-rite Catholics who are celebrating Easter this weekend according to the Julian calendar.
“May the Risen Lord fill all communities with joy and peace and comfort those who are in trial,” Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis meets with 300 priests taking part in the World Meeting of Parish Priests on May 2, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 12:41 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis published a letter on Thursday addressed to… […]
Pope Francis shared a stage with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on May 12, 2023, to speak at a two-day conference on “The General State of the Birth Rate,” held at Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The Vatican announced on Thursday that Pope Francis will speak at an event on Italy’s demographic crisis as the country’s birth rate sits at a historic low.
Pope Francis will address “The General State of the Birth Rate” conference on May 10 at the Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican.
The two-day event organized by the Forum of Family Associations and the Foundation for Births seeks to address the 50 years of steady decline in births across Europe, and especially in Italy, and what can be done to reverse it.
Births in Italy dropped to a historic low in 2023. Italy’s national statistics bureau recorded 379,000 births last year, a 3.6% decline from 2022 and a 34.2% drop from 2008.
Italy’s overall population has been falling since 2014 with 282,000 more deaths than births in Italy in 2023. The country has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe: 1.2 births per woman.
Pope Francis has described the low number of births as “a figure that reveals a great concern for tomorrow.” He lamented last year the “social climate in which starting a family has turned into a titanic effort, instead of being a shared value that everyone recognizes and supports.”
“The General State of the Birth Rate” will feature Italian government ministers, business leaders, and media personalities who will give talks on the family, including Eugenia Roccella, Italy’s family minister.
It will be the third time that Pope Francis has participated in the conference, which is supported by the Italian Ministry for Family, Birth, and Equal Opportunity.
Last year, Pope Francis shared the stage with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“The birth of children, in fact, is the main indicator for measuring the hope of a people,” Pope Francis said at the conference in 2023.
“If few are born it means there is little hope. And this not only has repercussions from an economic and social point of view but also undermines confidence in the future.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported last week that the U.S. birth rate also hit a record low in 2023 and that the total number of births was the lowest it’s been in decades.
According to the report, slightly fewer than 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, or 54.4 births per 1,000 women aged 15 through 44. This was a 2% decline in total births and a 3% decline in births per 1,000 women when compared with the previous year.
“The birth rate challenge is a matter of hope,” Pope Francis said.
Hope, the pope said, “is not an illusion or an emotion that you feel, no; it is a concrete virtue, a life attitude. And it has to do with concrete choices. Hope is nourished by each person’s commitment to the good, it grows when we feel we are participating and involved in making meaning of our own and others’ lives.”
Pope Francis delivers a message during his general audience on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 1, 2024 / 09:45 am (CNA).
On Wednesday, May 1, Pope Francis addressed an internatio… […]
Pope Francis waves to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square gathered for his weekly general audience on April 3, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Staff, May 1, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of May is for the formation of men and women religious and for seminarians.
“Every vocation is a ‘diamond in the rough’ that needs to be polished, worked, shaped on every side,” the pope said in a video released April 30.
“A good priest, sister, or nun must above all else be a man, a woman who is formed, shaped by the Lord’s grace, people who are aware of their own limitations and willing to lead a life of prayer, of dedicated witness to the Gospel,” he said, adding: “Beginning in the seminary and the novitiate, their preparation must be developed integrally, in direct contact with the lives of other people. This is essential.”
The Holy Father pointed out that “formation does not end at a certain moment but continues throughout life, integrating the person intellectually, humanly, affectively, spiritually.”
“There’s also preparation to live in community — life in community is so enriching, even though it can be difficult at times. Living together is not the same as living in community.”
He concluded with a prayer: “Let us pray that men and women religious, and seminarians, grow in their own vocational journey through human, pastoral, spiritual, and community formation that leads them to be credible witnesses of the Gospel.”
Pope Francis’ prayer video is promoted by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which raises awareness of monthly papal prayer intentions.
Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/Shutterstock
Rome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss “how to be a synodal local Chu… […]
The Verona Arena is illuminated at night on Aug. 3, 2018, in Verona, Italy. The Holy See Press Office on Monday, April 29, 2024, released the pope’s schedule for a one-day trip to the city scheduled for May 18, 2024, on the vigil of Pentecost. … […]
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