Pope names Archbishop Luis Ladaria as Müller’s successor to head CDF

Pope Francis with new Swiss Guard recruits in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall on May 6, 2022. / Vatican Media.

Vatican City, May 6, 2022 / 06:40 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Friday encouraged 36 new recruits of the Pontifical Swiss Guard to “grow as… […]

Rimini, Italy, Aug 22, 2019 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- The Vatican Secretary for Relations with States said Wednesday that politics surrounding migration in Europe fuel ideological conflicts that do not fully take into account the complexity of the problem.

“I believe it is clear to everyone that such a delicate issue cannot be dealt with effectively without a clear political vision at all levels. But how can we have such a vision, without a cultural perspective that allows us to face the wide spectrum of related problems?” Archbishop Paul Gallagher said Aug. 21 in a speech in Rimini, Italy.

Gallagher pointed to the Catholic social principles of solidarity and inalienable human dignity. He also spoke of the necessity to balance the rhetoric of “rights” in Europe with that of their corresponding duties.

“The concept of law no longer seems to be associated with the equally essential and complementary concept of duty, so that we end up affirming the rights of the individual without taking into account that every human being is linked to a social context, in which his rights and duties are connected to those of others and to the common good of society itself,” Gallagher said, quoting Pope Francis’ speech to the European Parliament in 2014.

The bishop said that the duty of solidarity is an indispensable underlying principle to achieve the pillars of the European unification project: the defense of freedom, the promotion of justice and the building of peace.

Solidarity, he said, is “not based on the compassion or repulsion that another arouses, but on the objectivity of a common human nature.”

The crises Europe has faced in the last decade from the financial crisis to Brexit have been compounded by the growing “emotionality and reactiveness of political choices,” he said.

“It is precisely this characteristic of objectivity and reasonableness that links duties and rights between them. Since the objective duty of solidarity with others corresponds to that set of rights that are as objective as any human person,” Gallagher said.

“Where objectivity is lacking, the same system of rights loses its meaningfulness. This is what has been happening in the last fifty years when the interpretation of some rights has progressively changed, so as to include a multiplicity of new rights,” he continued.

The process of “relativization of rights,” Gallagher said, is intricately connected to the progessive exclusion of religion from European social life, which has resulted in an unhealthy secularization.

Gallagher said that the result of this process is a “fragmentation of existence,” which he said was presciently described by St. John Paul II in his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Church in Europe:

“We find ourselves before a widespread existential fragmentation. A feeling of loneliness is prevalent; divisions and conflicts are on the rise. Among other symptoms of this state of affairs, Europe is presently witnessing the grave phenomenon of family crises and the weakening of the very concept of the family, the continuation or resurfacing of ethnic conflicts, the re-emergence of racism, interreligious tensions, a selfishness that closes individuals and groups in upon themselves, a growing overall lack of concern for ethics and an obsessive concern for personal interests and privileges,” John Paul II wrote in 2003.

“The weakening of the sense of duty and the progressive subjectivation of rights has therefore weakened the very heart of the European project,” Gallagher said.

“The European project arises with the idea of ​​giving life to a community of peoples who agree to be bound by mutual duties,” he said at the Rimini “Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples.”

Gallagher outlined examples duties of states that relate to the migration issue in Europe.

“Above all, there is the most obvious duty: that of human solidarity with the person who is in need, suffering and often in danger,” he said.

He said that the duty of solidarity between states  is “a key principle of the very existence of the European Union.”

States also have a duty to offer opportunities for integration to migrants and security to their citizens, Gallagher said, explaining that cultural integration can free migrants from “the dynamics from which they had fled home and which often reappear in the lands of landing remaining within their national communities.”
 
In an interview with Vatican News Aug. 22, Gallagher responded to the current debate in Europe on national sovereignty surrounding both the migration and European Union issues.

“No one questions the sovereignty of a country, of a nation. The problem emerges … when there is again an exaggerated view of sovereignty, when there is an insistence on sovereignty,” he said.

“It is very difficult for a government to guarantee all rights to their peoples, as well as peace, defense, security. We are all interconnected… The idea that ‘sovereignty’ means a total closure to others perhaps has a certain theoretical, pragmatic attraction, but I do not think it’s the path to follow,” he added.

Gallagher underlined in his speech in Rimini that when approaching the issue of migration, in particular, “ we need to rediscover the duties, rather than the rights,that are at stake.”

“The first and perhaps greatest contribution that Christians can bring to today’s Europe – the Pope affirms – is to remind them that it is not a collection of numbers or institutions, but is made up of people, endowed with of transcendent dignity,” he said.

[…]

A member of the crowd in St. Peter’s Square holds up a baby Jesus figure for a blessing by Pope Francis at his Sunday Angelus Dec. 17, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Dec 17, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis reflected on St. John the Baptist as a luminous figure who testifies to the light and teaches us that “only in God do we find the light of life” during his Angelus address Dec. 17 on the third Sunday of Advent, or Gaudete Sunday.

Observing this as the first lesson that we can learn from John the Baptist, the Holy Father told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican that the second is that “through service, consistency, humility, witness of life” we “can be a lamp that shines and helps others find the way on which to meet Jesus.”

Today’s message built upon the Holy Father’s Angelus message from the previous Sunday, where he highlighted John’s ministry as a voice that “is linked to the genuineness of his experience and the clarity of his heart.”

Expanding on this observation, the pontiff noted that John’s mission is characterized by his “frank language” and is underscored by his “sincere behavior, his austerity of life.” Thus it is through his example that the Holy Father suggested we look to John the Baptist as a figure who “motivate[s] us to rise above mediocrity and to be in turn models of good living for others.”

Expanding upon this point, the pope noted that we can see John as a “luminous” figure not only because he is “upright, free, and courageous” but because he submitted himself to God’s will, to carry out a mission to pronounce the light that is “Jesus, the Lamb of God” who “redeems, frees, heals, and enlightens.”

To that end, the luminosity of John is not self-aggrandizing, but instead he is at the service of others, a voice “who accompanies his brothers and sisters to the Word; he serves without seeking honors or the spotlight.” In this way the pope encouraged the faithful to look at John as a counterpoint to “other famous and powerful people” who “invested a lot in appearances.”

Drawing a connection between the biblical context and today, the pope noted that “in every age the Lord sends men and women like this,” but he asked the faithful: “Do we know how to recognize them? Do we try to learn from their witness, allowing ourselves to be challenged? Or rather, do we allow ourselves to be bedazzled by fashionable people?”

Following the recitation of the Angelus prayer, the Holy Father noted that on Saturday, Dec. 16, Argentine Cardinal Eduardo Francisco Pironio was beatified. The pope described Pironio as a “humble and zealous pastor, witness of hope, defender of the poor” who “collaborated with St. John Paul II in the promotion of the laity and in the World Youth Days.”

“May his example help us to be an outgoing Church, which becomes a traveling companion for everyone, especially the weakest,” the pope added.

The Mass of beatification was presided over by the 78-year-old Spanish Cardinal Vérgez Alzaga at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Luján in Argentina, where Pironio is buried.

Also after the Angelus the pope sharply condemned the reported killing of two women outside a Catholic church in Gaza City on Saturday, allegedly by an Israeli sniper.

“I continue to receive very serious and painful news from Gaza,” the pope lamented. “Unarmed civilians are subjected to bombings and shootings. And this even happened inside the parish complex of the Holy Family, where there are no terrorists but families, children, sick and disabled people, nuns.”

“Someone says, ‘It’s terrorism, it’s war.’ Yes, it’s war, it’s terrorism. This is why Scripture states that ‘God stops wars … breaks bows and breaks spears,’” the pope said. “Let us pray to the Lord for peace.”

[…]