Vatican cardinal to make 2nd visit to Ukraine border at Pope Francis’ request

Vatican City, Dec 14, 2018 / 10:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This Christmas it is particularly important to support refugees and migrants, Pope Francis said Friday, ahead of the Vatican Christmas Concert fundraiser in support of young refugee education.

“Christmas is always new because it invites us to be reborn in faith, to open ourselves to hope, to rekindle charity,” Pope Francis said in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace Dec. 14.

“This year, in particular, calls us to reflect on the situation of many men, women and children of our time – migrants, displaced persons, and refugees – marching to escape wars, miseries caused by social injustice and climate change,” the pope continued.

Pope Francis stressed his particular concern for the “little ones” among migrants, who face dangerous situations and “long marches on foot” when they should be “sitting among the school desks, like their peers.”

“They too need training to be able to work tomorrow and participate as citizens, aware of the common good,” he commented.

The Holy Father expressed gratitude for the work of two papal charities that support young refugees in Iraq and Uganda. “Missioni Don Bosco” in Uganda and “Scholas Occurrentes” in Iraq will both receive proceeds from the Vatican Christmas Concert taking place in Vatican City’s Paul VI Hall Dec.14.

“Missioni Don Bosco” is an Italian Catholic charity supporting the education of disadvantaged youth in developing countries. Their Salesian missionaries in Uganda aid refugee families from South Sudan. One of their educational projects in the Palabek refugee camp provides vocational training to 1,500 students, who also receive one meal a day.

The Pontifical Foundation’s “Scholas Occurrentes” was founded by Bergoglio while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires as an initiative to encourage social integration and the culture of encounter through technology, arts and sports.

On Friday, Pope Francis met with young Iraqi refugees supported by “Scholas Occurrentes,” and the artists performing in the Christmas concert, and shared his message on the importance of education and solidarity.

The pope drew a direct link between the Christmas story and the needs of child refugees today. “When the violent anger of Herod struck the territory of Bethlehem, the Holy Family of Nazareth experienced the anguish of persecution, and guided by God, took refuge in Egypt,” he said.

“The little Jesus reminds us that half of the refugees of today, in the world, are children, innocent victims of human injustices,” he continued.

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Vatican City, Apr 29, 2020 / 05:15 am (CNA).- The eight beatitudes proclaimed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount reveal the path from selfishness to holiness, Pope Francis said at his general audience Wednesday.

Speaking via livestream due to the coronavirus crisis, the pope said April 29: “The path of the Beatitudes is an Easter journey that leads from a life according to the world to a life according to God, from an existence guided by the flesh — that is, by selfishness — to one guided by the Spirit.”

In his address from the library of the apostolic palace, the pope concluded his cycle of catechesis on the beatitudes.

He said that the eighth beatitude, “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10), was intimately connected to the first, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

“This beatitude announces the same happiness as the first: the kingdom of heaven is for the persecuted just as it is for the poor in spirit,” he said. “We understand that we have arrived at the end of a unified path set out in the previous proclamations.”

Those who follow the path of the beatitudes soon find themselves in conflict with the world, the pope noted. But they are blessed because “they have found something worth more than the whole world.”

“The world, with its idols, its compromises and its priorities, cannot approve of this kind of existence,” he said. So it dismisses life according to the Gospel “as an error and a problem, therefore as something to be marginalized.” 

That is why the world has persecuted Christians throughout history, the pope observed.

“It is painful to remember that, at this moment, there are many Christians suffering persecution in various parts of the world, and we must hope and pray that as soon as possible their tribulation will be stopped,” he said. 

He encouraged Catholics to express their solidarity with the persecuted, who he described as “bleeding members of the body of Christ which is the Church.” 

The pope urged Christians to be careful not to read the eighth beatitude in a “self-pitying way.” Sometimes, he said, we arouse contempt because we have drifted away from the Gospel, rather than because we are witnessing to it.

He said: “In fact, the contempt of men is not always synonymous with persecution: just a little later Jesus says that Christians are the ‘salt of the earth,’ and warns against ‘losing the taste,’ otherwise salt ‘serves no other purpose than to be thrown away and trampled underfoot’ (Matthew 5:13). Therefore, there is also a contempt that is our fault when we lose the taste of Christ and the Gospel.” 

In off-the-cuff remarks at the end of his address, the pope said: “In persecutions there is always the presence of Jesus who accompanies us, the presence of Jesus who consoles us and the strength of the Spirit who helps us to move forward.” 

“Let us not be discouraged when a life consistent with the Gospel attracts people’s persecutions: there is the Spirit that sustains us on this road.”

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A group of school girls receiving the sacraments of baptism and confirmation in Onitsha, Anambra, Nigeria, on May 30, 2022. / Shutterstock

St. Louis, Mo., Jan 29, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).
A compilation of new data by the Center for Applied R… […]