Vatican City, Jan 9, 2018 / 11:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Ahead of his visit to Chile and Peru, Pope Francis has said he wants to bring a message of peace and hope to both countries, which he said have been successful in fighting a “culture of waste” through their care for the poor and needy.
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In a Jan. 9 videomessage to both Chile and Peru, Francis told people from each country that “I want to meet with you, to look you in the eyes, to see your faces and be able to experience the closeness of God, his closeness and mercy, which embraces and consoles us.”
Both countries were forged with “determination and commitment,” he said, adding that he thanks God for “the faith and the love for God and for the most needy brothers, especially for the love that you have for those who are discarded by society.”
“The culture of waste increasingly invades us,” he said, explaining that while there, he wants to participate “in your joys and sorrows, your difficulties and your hopes, and tell you that you are not alone, that the Pope is with you, that the entire Church welcomes you, that the Church is looking at you.”
Pope Francis sent his message just days ahead of his departure for Chile and Peru, where he will be Jan. 15-22.
In Chile Pope Francis will visit the capital of Santiago, as well as the cities of Temuco and Iquique. In Peru, he will visit the capital city of Lima, as well as Puerto Maldonado and Trujillo.
The theme of his time in Chile is “I Give You My Peace,” while that of Peru is “United by Hope.”
In his message Francis touched on both themes, saying he wants the countries to experience “the peace that comes from God, and which is so needed; only he can give it to us.”
The Pope said peace is a gift meant for everyone, and is “the foundation of our coexistence and of society.” This peace, he said, “is sustained in justice and allows us to encounter moments of harmony and communion.”
We must constantly ask for this peace, which comes from the Risen Lord, “drives us to be missionaries, reviving the gift of faith which leads us to encounter, to the communion shared by the same faith celebrated and committed.”
This encounter with the Risen Christ also confirms us in hope, Francis said, explaining that “we do not want to be anchored in the things of this world, our gaze goes far off.” Rather, our eyes should be fixed “on his mercy, which heals our miseries.”
“Only he can give us the thrust to get up and follow,” he said, adding that “we are brothers who go out to meet others in order to confirm each other in the same faith and hope.”
The Pope closed the video entrusting his visit to Mary’s intercession and, as usual, asked for prayer, adding that he will be praying for the people of Chile and Peru.
Pope Francis is scheduled to land in Santiago just after 8 p.m. Jan. 15, and has no official events apart from the welcoming ceremony, after which he will head directly the apostolic nunciature.
The next day he’ll meet with the country’s authorities and diplomatic corps, and will have a private audience with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet before saying Mass. He’ll then make a brief visit to a women’s prison before meeting with Chile’s priests, seminarians, religious, and bishops in the afternoon.
His last activity for the day will be a private visit to a shrine dedicated to St. Alberto Hurtado S.J., where he will meet with the country’s Jesuit priests.
On Jan. 17 the Pope will head to Temuco, where he will say Mass and have lunch with around 10 people at the mother house for the Sisters of the Holy Cross order. He’ll then head back to Santiago for a meeting with youth and a visit to the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
The next day, his final one in Chile, Francis will go to Iquique in the morning, where he will celebrate Mass and have lunch at the retreat house for the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. He’ll then head directly to the Iquique airport, where he’ll depart for Lima, Peru.
Francis will land in Lima the evening of Jan. 18, but has no official events scheduled. His first formal appointment will take place Jan. 19, when he travels to Puerto Maldonado to meet with people from the Amazon region.
After this audience, the Pope will meet with the civil population and make a brief visit to the “Little Prince Home,” which houses some 40 at-risk children and youth. He’ll then lunch with representatives of Amazon before returning to Lima, where he’s scheduled to meet with Peru’s authorities and diplomatic corps.
Though he typically meets with the country’s authorities and diplomats as his first official engagement during international trips, Pope Francis has on occasion made exceptions.
His decision to meet with people from the Amazon first, then, is a sign of how important the region is to him, both for environmental reasons related to his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’, as well as the fact that in 2019 he will be holding a Pan-Amazonian synod to address problems related to the area.
After his meeting with authorities, Pope Francis will hold a private meeting with Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who recently survived an impeachment vote over corruption charges, and will meet with the country’s Jesuits.
On Jan. 20, the Pope will head to Trujillo, where he will celebrate Mass and ride through the city’s “Buenos Aires” neighborhood, one of the poorest areas in town. Francis will then visit the city’s cathedral and afterward will meet with the country’s priests, religious, and seminarians.
He will then head back to Lima, where he will start his final day in Peru, Jan. 21, praying the Liturgy of the Hours with a contemplative order before venerating the relics of several Peruvian saints in the city’s cathedral.
The Pope will then meet with the country’s bishops, pray the Angelus, and say Mass before heading back to Rome, where he is expected to arrive around 2:15 p.m. Jan. 22.
Francis, the Church’s first Latin American Pope, has visited several countries in South and Central America, including Brazil in 2013, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay in 2015, Cuba and Mexico in 2016, and Colombia in 2017.
The last Pope to visit Chile and Peru was St. John Paul II, who made pastoral trips to Peru in 1985 and 1988, and to Chile in 1987.
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Hey, Holy Father, it’s not possible to worship God while making the liturgy devoid of all its symbolism and beauty either. Where are these council deniers, anyhow? Probably hanging out with all the other straw men you’ve created.
The Pontiff is simply an arsonist who likes to stick around and watch what he’s firebombed burn to the ground.
He’s gonna’ have to live a long time if he hopes to see the TLM gone. Just like the papal oath against modernism; practitioners simply took it underground.
Well Gary, if that is what the fire in him (the Holy Spirit) does, then why should we grumble.
This reader doesn’t have a dog in this fight, and I don’t reject Traditionis custodes, but how are we to interpret this dismissal of “those movements that try to go back a little and deny the Second Vatican Council itself.”
In the interests of dialogue, reconciliation, factual accuracy and Church unity, what is really called for is not monologue but a coming together of today’s liturgy with what the Council actually adopted in Sacrosanctum Concilium–as a unified development of Tradition with what was explicitly intended for the Novus Ordo. Not either/or. Not setting the clock “back a little,” but setting in right.
Now that at least 70 percent of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence, or even attend Mass, what is to be done, really? Invest in doughnuts rather than candles?
Righteous, Jeff T. As for smelling Satan?, I’ve not got the nose for that. I have heard it said that Satan hates Latin, so he and Francis may have that in common.
I pray that Almighty God soon take this poor, confused soul into that big synodally synodal synod in the sky, and grant him the fullness of peace, mercy and salvation, regardless of his many human mistakes.
“When the liturgical life is a bit like a banner of division, there is the stench of the devil in there, the deceiver,”
It does seem that way. For the first three decades of worship in the old form, the change introduced by Vatican 2 came like a breath of fresh air. The liturgy of the Word was richer and more meaningful since it was done in a language I understood. I accepted the change because I went along with the decision of the Church. After all, I belonged to the Church having been baptized into it. I believe this the way our Lord wants it to be.
Malware Alert!
Regarding the liturgy, you refer to the “decision of the Church.” Notwithstanding that much cleaning-up has been done in recent decades, the earlier experimental masses (in both senses of the term) still linger as a bad taste associated with the Novus Ordo.
You, who in a recent post proudly imply that others fall short of your lofty personal standard of actually reading the works of Pope Francis, are invited to take a another or new look at what Vatican II actually decided and authorized in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy:https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
And as for your reported “millions”—certainly true–who admire the subtleties of Pope Francis’ writings (and his contrary signaling?), what are these compared to the 1,300 millions of Catholics in the world today and all those who have come before, the real Tradition-—what G.K. Chesterton calls the more inclusive (!) “democracy of the dead”?
Make no self-referential mistake, Pope Francis is the pope of all of us, but we also agree with him that his actions are far from perfect. These would be tough times for any pope, but unfortunately his successes include progress on his goal of “making a mess of things.”
Your own headcount of sympathetic followers on these pages could improve if you refrained from branding others—surely less pristine than yourself—as “trads and protestants.” Show some self respect.
I say “trads and Protestants” because they form the bulk of the people that oppose Pope Francis. Of course, there are others who think like them but who do not associate with them. I suppose I could add “and a few others”. But I will not change my ways because those groups are harming the Church and, sadly, quite a few souls.
“…others who think like them [only]? “I will not change my ways.” How “bigoted” and how very “rigid” can one be? How very “traditional”!
Brother Mal,
My less sarcastic remark is to recommend the 19th century St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (regarded as the “grandfather of the Second Vatican Council”) who, in his “Development of Christian Doctrine,” explains that in moving “forward” it is necessary to NOT burn our bridges (the real Tradition). The “others” whom you now recognize simply notice some fires and that’s where the one-sided (!) dialogue is focused.
Newman offers seven criteria:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/ natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment”?],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy v. neo-Hegelianism?],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter v. Fratellli tuti’s all religions equivalently (?) “the will of God”?];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. signaling the normalization of homosexual activity, etc.?], and
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [VS/Familiarus Consortio v. the fanciful social-science of Marx, and Batzing and Hollerich?];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Evangelization v. Amazonia/Germania?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [energized witnessing while/because also fully and steadfastly engaging new challenges v. double-speak?].
That’s great, as long as you never travel and have to listen to Mass in another language. Then it is no different than the Latin Mass. I have traveled to several countries, and any Mass in other than English or French is just as “non-understandable” as Latin. At least in my youth, most people had a missal with English translations so one could follow along, even without understanding the priest.
This is too much even from this Pope.
What do they call those who attribute actions to others that they themselves are doing???
The word you are looking for is projection
Pot and kettle maybe?
“Indeed, such closed-minded people use liturgical frameworks to defend their views.”
Were more true words ever spoken by the man?
Problems with worship go all the way back to the Church at Corinth. St. Paul had to give them correction to keep the faith pure in the face of pagan idol worship. St. Paul’s comments about women covering their heads and the eating of meat offered to idols was in response to the pagan worship practices of the time. The general sequence for pagan worship was for there to be a sacrifice to a pagan god. The meat from the pagan sacrifice was served in attached dining halls or sold in meat markets. The people in the dining halls got drunk and engaged in sexual orgies. In the pagan temples women who wore their hair down meant that they were sexually available. Proper women wore their hair up.
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St. Paul wrote:
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Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if one loves God, one is known by him.
4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
7 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.
(1 Corinthians 8:1-13 RSVCE)
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CWR has had articles about open, uncorrected liturgical abuses. Many modernist Catholics are all too puffed up with worldly knowledge, very much like the Church at Corinth.
Pope Francis neglected to add that he is the one who made the liturgy a battleground, not those who love the Mass of Ages. Popes John Paul and Benedict pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence and mutual enrichment, which he disregarded out of irrational hatred and a will to flex his power.
I agree completely. His Holiness absolutely should stop gratuitously making the Liturgy a battleground and deliberately being divisive. It is tragic.
For Mahatma Gandhi, following Christ was much more than liturgy. He would often say, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ”