Pope Francis appoints San Diego auxiliary to lead Phoenix diocese

Daniel Ibañez embraces Pope Francis. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Apr 28, 2025 / 14:56 pm (CNA).
Imagine that your cellphone rings and the display says the call is from a “private number.” You expect it to be a telemarketer, but instea… […]

Vatican City, Apr 4, 2017 / 11:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis spoke about what an ‘integral human development’ looks like, saying that development must include the whole person, both physically and spiritually.

“Development does not consist in having the regulation of more and more goods, for just a material well-being,” he said April 4. “Integrating body and soul also means that no development work can really achieve its purpose if it does not respect the place where God is present to us and speaks to our hearts.”

In Christ “God and man are not divided and separated. God became man to make of human life, both personal and social, a concrete path to salvation,” he reflected.

“So the manifestation of God in Christ – including his acts of healing, liberation, and reconciliation that we are called to propose to the many injured by the roadside – shows the way and the mode of service that the Church intends to offer to the world,” he explained.

“In this sense, the very concept of the person, born and matured in Christianity, helps to pursue a fully human development.”

Pope Francis spoke April 4 in the Vatican’s Synod Hall to participants in a conference hosted by the
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The April 3-4 conference, held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio, on the development of peoples, aimed to discuss the question: “who is man?”

“What does that mean, today and in the near future, integral development, i.e. development of every person and of the whole man?” Pope Francis asked, borrowing the words of his predecessor in Populorum Progressio.

Specifically, Francis said, in the use of the word “integrate,” we can find “a fundamental orientation for the new dicastery,” which was established Jan. 1 of this year.

One major integration that has largely been lost, he said, is that of community and the individual. Especially in the West, we have “exalted the individual until they become like an island, as if one can be happy alone,” he said.

On the other hand, there are “ideological views and political powers have crushed the person,” he said, taking away their personal liberty.

But “the self and the community are not in competition with each other,” he said. They should work together, because it is only within the context of authentic relationships that the “self is able to mature.”

“This applies even more to the family, which is the first cell of society and where we learn to live together,” he said.

The Pope said another form of integration we can improve is the solidarity between those who have too much and those who have nothing.

In considering social integration, we must remember that “everyone has a contribution to offer the whole of society,” he said, “no one is excluded from making something for the good of all. This is both a right and a duty.”

He said another essential aspect for this improved development is integration of the different systems: the economy, finance, labor, culture, family life, and religion.

“None of them can be free-standing and none of them can be excluded from a concept of integral human development,” he said, this is taking “into account that human life is like an orchestra that sounds good if the different instruments agree and follow a score shared by all.”

“The Church never tires of offering this wisdom and her work to the world, in the awareness that integral development is the way of goodness that the human family is called to tread,” the Pope concluded.

“I encourage you to pursue this action with patience and perseverance, trusting that the Lord is with us.”

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Tabea Schneider (far left) with a group of other pilgrims who traveled 20 hours by bus from Cologne, Germany, to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI on Jan. 5, 2023, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. / Courtney Mares / CNA

Vatican City, Jan 5, 2023 / 08:36 am (CNA).

Catholics from Germany, France, Ghana, India, Australia, Uganda, and many more countries who attended the funeral Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Thursday have shared their favorite memories of the late pope and why some decided to join in the chants of “santo subito” at the end of the ceremony.

More than 50,000 people attended the Jan. 5 funeral for the pope emeritus, who died at the age of 95 last Saturday. 

Among those in the crowd for the funeral was Arthur Escamila, who got to know Benedict XVI personally during the 2008 World Youth Day in Australia. 

“It was emotional seeing the coffin coming out of the basilica,” he told CNA.

Escamila, a numerary from Opus Dei, recalled how Benedict XVI rested for a few days in the Opus Dei center in Sydney where he was living at the time. 

“I had the privilege of living together with him for three days in Sydney in 2008 just before World Youth Day. We spent three days together. I attended his Mass. I ate with him. I listened to music with him,” he said.

Benedict XVI was “very humble” and “approachable,” Escamila remembered. “From the beginning he learned my name. He addressed me by my first name and I was very impressed by that.”

“My father had recently died. He was interested in that and asked me questions about my father, my family. He wanted to know about his illness. So I was personally touched,” he said.

“So his death meant a lot because it was closing a chapter where I knew the pope emeritus personally and had a connection with him that was personal.”

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Bombay, also spoke about his personal memories of Benedict XVI.

The cardinal, who traveled from India for the funeral, told CNA that he found the funeral “very moving” and a “fitting farewell for the Holy Father Emeritus.”

“He was a great theologian, the greatest of the 20th century I think. I personally … whenever I read any article, any book, any homily of his I always got a new insight into theology or spirituality. His was a great contribution for the Church,” Gracias said.

The Indian cardinal also expressed gratitude for the many ways that the former pope touched his life: “He created me cardinal. He appointed me archbishop of Bombay … and we met often. I was on the committee for the translation of liturgical texts and so we discussed much there.”

Father Albert Musinguzi from Uganda said that he felt “deep spiritual joy” at the funeral, especially because it was the first Mass he had ever concelebrated at the Vatican.

“Although we have lost a great man, we are not mourning. We are celebrating a spiritual giant, a great man, a gift to the Church and to the entire world because Pope Benedict was a man not only for the Church but for the entire world,” he said.

The priest from Uganda’s Archdiocese of Mbarara, currently studying in Rome, said that he believes that the late pope emeritus is a saint.

“Pope Benedict was a humble pope, but a great theologian. We have learned from his humility to approach God from the Word of God. But what I like most from his preaching is that God and science are not opposed to each other … And what touched me most recently in the life of Pope Benedict XVI were his last words,” Musinguzi said.

“As we know Pope Benedict was 95 years old, so for 71 years he has given homilies and innumerable essays. He has written 66 books, three encyclicals, four exhortations, and he has summarized all of them in four words, which were his last four words: ‘Jesus, I love you.’”

Tabea Schneider traveled 20 hours by bus from Cologne, Germany, with many other enthusiastic German pilgrims who spontaneously decided to come to Rome for the funeral. She said that she was very moved when Pope Francis touched the coffin of Benedict XVI.

“It was a very emotional moment,” she said. 

A group of approximately 65 people from all across France traveled together to Rome for Benedict’s funeral.

The Famille Missionnaire de Notre-Dame, a men and women’s religious community, organized two buses.

After the funeral, the group prayed the Liturgy of the Hours outside St. Peter’s Square for the repose of the soul of Benedict XVI.

Sister Maksymiliana Domini, originally from Poland, told CNA the group arrived on Tuesday evening and will depart the night of the funeral.

“We love Pope Benedict,” she said, adding that they wanted to honor him and his legacy.

The Famille Missionnarie de Notre-Dame, she said, feels very close to Benedict because of their shared love for the Church’s liturgy and for an interpretation of the Second Vatican Council in the hermeneutic of continuity.

“We are 100% aligned with him spiritually,” Domini said.

Father Anthony Agnes Adu Mensah from Accra, Ghana, said that he enthusiastically joined in the chants of “santo subito” at the end of the Mass.

“I feel in my heart that Pope Benedict is a saint,” the priest said.

Hannah Brockhaus contributed to this report.

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