Vatican City, May 13, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- A cardinal has praised Vatican officials for their “heartfelt response” to his request for donations to those suffering amid the coronavirus crisis.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told CNA May 13 that some officials had given the equivalent of a month’s salary, while others had donated two months’ worth of their earnings.
He said: “There was a great response. It exceeded all of our thoughts.”
The papal almoner wrote April 6 to the cardinals, archbishops, bishops and other members of the Papal Chapel, which assists the pope during liturgical ceremonies.
The cardinal invited them to show their solidarity with those suffering during the pandemic by making an offering.
In this way, he said, they would “be united intimately and in a special way to the Pontiff, Bishop of Rome, who ‘presides over the universal communion of charity’” — a reference to the Vatican II document Lumen gentium.
Krajewski continued: “The Holy Father will then decide the destination of the alms collected for the health crisis.”
The cardinal told CNA that he had even received donations from people within the Vatican whom he hadn’t approached, among them a group of police.
“It was a heartfelt response because it was a particular moment: Holy Week during the coronavirus,” he said.
He explained that the money raised would be shared with the poor all over the world. He said that some of the funds had been used to help the needy in Romania, as well as to send ventilators to Zambia.
A report on the Italian language Vatican News website April 6 explained that Krajewski’s proposal was “addressed to the ecclesiastical superiors of the Roman Curia, i.e. the approximately 250 or so heads of departments, secretaries and other prelates: all are invited to donate a monthly salary.”
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Juan Luis Tron (second from left) and Maria Magdalene Baca (second from right) together with other young people from the Regnum Christi movement wait outside St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 2, 2023, to pay their respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31, 2022. / Hannah Brockhaus / CNA
Vatican City, Jan 2, 2023 / 11:00 am (CNA).
Approximately 40,000 people visited Benedict XVI in the first five hours he was lying in state on Monday, according to the Vatican gendarmes.
Catholics have traveled to the Vatican from both near and far to see the late pope for the last time and to pray for his eternal repose.
The Herrera family traveled from Madrid, Spain, after learning that Benedict XVI had died on Dec. 31. They arrived in Rome late on Jan. 1 and joined the line of mourners the next morning.
Maria Jimenez told CNA she and her husband and four children, ages 19–25, “came especially to see the pope, to pray for him and to see him. To say goodbye, too.”
“We love Benedict,” she said, adding that she thinks he will one day be a saint.
Here are a few of the people who said goodbye to Benedict on Jan. 2:
Giancarlo Rossi, who lives in Rome, told CNA he got in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica at 7:45 a.m. on Jan. 2, 2023, to pay his respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI. Hannah Brockhaus / CNA
Giancarlo Rossi, who lives in Rome, told CNA he got in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica at 7:45 a.m.
He prayed the rosary while he waited to pay his final respects to Benedict.
“I met him a few times — I am from here. And so I came to greet the pope for the last time,” he told CNA. “And I am praying for him. I offered my Mass for him and I will ask for a plenary indulgence for him, as well.”
Gabriella Fedele, also from Rome, said she felt that Benedict XVI was a great and humble leader of the Church.
She told CNA his death is “a great sorrow, because a light is extinguished on this earth, but yet one is lit up in heaven.”
Sister Angel Bilegu, a consecrated virgin in the Diocese of Rome, pictured on the right with members of the Little Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows. They were among those who visited St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 2, 2023, where the late Pope Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31, 2022, laid in state for public viewing. Hannah Brockhaus / CNA
Sister Angel Bilegu, a consecrated virgin in the Diocese of Rome, waited in line from before sunrise to see the pope emeritus, whose election as pope she remembers.
“I appreciated his magisterium a lot,” she said. “He was a pastor and a theologian, who really did theology ‘on his knees.’”
“I really liked him a lot and so I had to come to say goodbye.”
The Schudel family was among those who visited St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 2, 2023, to pay their respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31, 2022. Hannah Brockhaus / CNA
Carmen Floriani and her husband, Hans Schudel, came to Rome with their three young children from Switzerland. Schudel waited in line from 6 a.m., while Floriani joined with their children — ages 5 months, 3, and 5 years — later in the morning.
Floriani, who is originally from Trento in the far northern part of Italy, told CNA her family came to see Benedict XVI “because he was our pope for some years,” but also because she and her husband, married six years, have a special connection to the Bavarian pope.
“The witness at our marriage is [former Cardinal] Ratzinger’s relative,” she said. “I studied in Munich, in Bavaria, and there I met the only members of his family still there. This is another reason for coming to say goodbye to him.”
Juan Luis Tron (second from left) and Maria Magdalene Baca (second from right) together with other young people from the Regnum Christi movement wait outside St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 2, 2023, to pay their respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31, 2022. Hannah Brockhaus / CNA
A group of teens, members of the international lay movement Regnum Christi, also lined up early on Monday morning.
They said they were in Rome from Mexico, Spain, Germany, Philippines, and Italy for a gathering of 120 members of the movement.
Maria Magdalena Baca, 17, said: “We are pretty young and maybe we don’t remember much of him as pope. But I remember when he came to Mexico and my parents talked to me about him as a pope.”
“I believe that we should be thankful, too,for his life,” 18-year-old Juan Luis Tron, from Mexico City, told CNA. “He was a pope that I admired so much. We have been talking about his life and many consecrated [women of Regnum Christi] and priests [of the Legionaries of Christ] have said, even though it’s sad, the notice that he has passed away, we should be thankful for his life and for all the things he built in the Church.”
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI greets Colombian Cardinal Jorge Enrique Jiménez Carvajal at the retired pope’s Vatican residence on Aug. 27, 2022. / Screenshot from EWTN video
Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 06:30 am (CNA).
The Vatican’s news service posted a prayer for the health of Benedict XVI on Wednesday, after Pope Francis asked Catholics to pray for the “very ill” pope emeritus.
At the end of his weekly public audience on Dec. 28, Pope Francis said: “I ask to all of you a special prayer for the pope emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church.”
“Remember him — he is very ill — asking the Lord to console him and to sustain him in this testimony of love for the Church until the end.”
Shortly afterward, the Vatican’s spokesperson, Matteo Bruni, confirmed that the 95-year-old Benedict XVI’s health had worsened “in recent hours.”
Let us pray for the health of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. The Vatican confirmed Wednesday that he has experienced a sudden decline in his health but is stable and under medical care. Today Pope Francis asked for prayers for Benedict XVI’s health.https://t.co/NtgT7qpqlwpic.twitter.com/6lBGD4oboH
“The situation at the moment remains under control, constantly followed by doctors,” Bruni said, noting that Pope Francis had gone to visit Benedict at his home in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery on Vatican grounds.
Below is the text of the prayer shared by Vatican News on Facebook:
A prayer for the health of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
Let us pray.
Almighty and Eternal God,
You are the everlasting health of
those who believe in You.
Hear our prayers for your sick servant Benedict
for whom we implore the aid of Your tender mercy,
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The president of the Italian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, said Wednesday the bishops are praying for Benedict XVI.
“At this time of suffering and trial, we gather around the Pope Emeritus,” the cardinal said in a Dec. 28 statement. “We assure remembrance in prayer in our churches, in the knowledge, as he himself had reminded us, that ‘no matter how hard the trials, difficult the problems, heavy the suffering, we will never fall out of the hands of God, those hands that created us, sustain us and accompany us on the journey of existence, because they are guided by an infinite and faithful love.’”
Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it unto me – says the Lord.