Pope Francis speaks with members of the press on the flight from Bahrain to Rome. / Alexey Gotovsky/EWTN
Rome Newsroom, Nov 6, 2022 / 10:25 am (CNA).
While speaking about the gifts of women during an in-flight press conference on Sunday, Pope Francis mentioned the recent appointment of a pro-abortion economist to the Pontifical Academy for Life.
“I have seen that in the Vatican; every time a woman comes in to do work in the Vatican things get better,” the pope said Nov. 6 on the flight to Rome from Bahrain.
He mentioned several positions now filled by women, also citing, by name, pro-abortion economist Mariana Mazzucato.
“And now, I put on the family council Mazzucato, who is a great economist from the United States, to give a little more humanity to this,” he said.
Mazzucato, known for her work promoting the public sector’s role in encouraging innovation, was among seven academics appointed by the pope on Oct. 15 to serve five-year terms with the Pontifical Academy for Life.
In his comments, Pope Francis said the appointment of a woman as vice governor of the Vatican City State and the inclusion of women on the Council for the Economy had been a benefit to the Vatican.
Moving from all men to having five women on the Council for the Economy was “a revolution, because women know how to find a right way, they know how to move forward,” he added.
Mazzucato’s appointment to the life academy drew criticism due to her outspoken advocacy for abortion rights, including the tweeting and re-tweeting of pro-abortion statements concerning the Supreme Court’s decision to return abortion law to the states.
The Pontifical Academy for Life issued a statement defending Mazzucato’s appointment on the grounds that members are chosen to contribute to “fruitful interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interreligious dialogue.”
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School children from St. Mary Academy watch the Eucharistic Procession on the campus of their home parish, St. Mary
of the Pines Church, Manahawkin, New Jersey, May 29, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno
Mark Houck with his children / Credit: Thomas More Society
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 7, 2022 / 18:07 pm (CNA).
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Pope Francis celebrates Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24, 2020. / Vatican Media.
Greccio, Italy, Dec 17, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).
In 2019, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter on the meaning and importance of the Christmas nativity scene. He signed the document, Admirabile signum (“Enchanting image”), on Dec. 1 that year, at the Shrine of the Nativity in Greccio, a hilltown in the Italian region of Lazio.
The choice of Greccio was significant, because it was there in 1223 that St. Francis of Assisi created history’s first nativity scene.
In the apostolic letter, widely regarded as one of the most moving documents of Francis’ pontificate, the pope sets out “to encourage the beautiful family tradition of preparing the nativity scene in the days before Christmas.”
Here are 10 things that Pope Francis wants us to learn from the nativity scene, drawn from Admirabile signum.
1.The nativity scene is like a living Gospel. The depiction of Jesus’ birth is “a simple and joyful proclamation of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God,” the pope writes. The nativity scene invites everyone who contemplates it “on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman.”
The Vatican Nativity scene. Agencia Andina
2. The custom is rooted in the Bible. The pope underlines that the nativity scene rises from “the pages of sacred Scripture.” St. Luke’s Gospel says that Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (2:7). The manger is the focus of nativity scenes. Indeed, the Italian word for nativity scene is “presepe,” from the Latin word “praesepium,” meaning “manger.”
Pope Francis visits the site of the first nativity scene in Greccio, Italy, on Jan. 4, 2015. Vatican Media.
3.The tradition was born in an unassuming Italian town. St. Francis of Assisi stopped in Greccio in November 1223, probably on his way back from Rome after receiving papal approval for the Rule of his religious order. Fifteen days before Christmas, he asked a local man named John to help him “bring to life the memory of that babe born in Bethlehem, to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he was laid upon a bed of hay.” On Christmas Day, St. Francis was joined by his friars and people from the surrounding area before a manger full of hay, watched over an ox and a donkey.
Pope Francis blesses nativity scenes near the Vatican Dec. 9, 2019. .
4.The first nativity scene was connected to the Eucharist. Describing the scene in Greccio that day, Pope Francis writes: “All those present experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist.” Unlike in nativity scenes today, the pope says, there were no statues. Instead, “the nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all who were present.”
Nativity scene. . Ben White Photography via Unsplash.com.
5.The original nativity scene inspired a vision. The pope recalls that one of the witnesses to the first nativity scene saw “a marvelous vision.” Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of St. Francis, wrote that “one of those present saw the Baby Jesus himself lying in the manger.”
. fotorutkowscy / Shutterstock.
6.The nativity scene is a means of evangelization. The pope says that by creating the nativity scene, St. Francis “carried out a great work of evangelization” that continues to touch hearts to this day. The saint had discovered “a simple yet authentic means of portraying the beauty of our faith” that was accessible to all.
Pope Francis incenses the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24, 2017. . Vatican Media.
7.The manger is a sign of God’s love. Pope Francis writes that nativity scenes resonate so deeply because they show God’s tender love. They proclaim that “the Creator of the universe lowered himself to take up our littleness.” They engage the senses and imagination, helping people “to ‘feel’ and ‘touch’ the poverty that God’s Son took upon himself in the Incarnation.”
A detail from the monumental Nativity scene of the Castelli. . YouTube.
8.The nativity scene contains a call to service. The pope says that the Christmas crib contains an implicit message. “It summons us to follow him along the path of humility, poverty, and self-denial that leads from the manger of Bethlehem to the cross,” he writes. “It asks us to meet him and serve him by showing mercy to those of our brothers and sisters in greatest need.”
The Nativity, by Rogier van der Weyden, part of the Bladelin Altarpiece. Public Domain.
9.Even a nativity scene’s landscapes are meaningful. The pope notes that depictions of the Nativity often include “the ruins of ancient houses or buildings.” He writes: “More than anything, the ruins are the visible sign of fallen humanity, of everything that inevitably falls into ruin, decays, and disappoints. This scenic setting tells us that Jesus is newness in the midst of an aging world, that he has come to heal and rebuild, to restore the world and our lives to their original splendor.”
Courtney Mares.
10.Nativity scenes nourish devotion to Mary and Joseph. The pope observes that the Virgin Mary is shown as “a mother who contemplates her child and shows him to every visitor.” In her, “we see the Mother of God who does not keep her Son only to herself, but invites everyone to obey his word and to put it into practice.” St. Joseph stands at Mary’s side, protecting her and the Christ Child. The nativity scene reminds us that Joseph “entrusted himself always to God’s will, and put it into practice,” encouraging us to do the same.
Yes, to the genius of women…Helena, the mother of Constantine I and who discovered the True Cross; Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel; Margaret Thatcher, the long-serving prime minister of the British Empire…
and now this: Mazzucato, an economist on the Pontifical Academy for Life (Life!).
But what else can you do for a living member? Margaret Sanger is dead!
The Holy Father often tells us quite directly where he stands on a given issue. On other occasions, we have to read what he does (e.g. his recent appointments to the PAL) and what he fails to do (e.g. condemn the legalization of abortion in Argentina a few years ago) to know where his head and heart are. He simply cannot come right out and tell us in plain language that he favors “a woman’s right to choose” as that might cause some difficulties with even our laid-back hierarchy, so he needs to speak by his actions, while maintaining some maintaining some plausible deniability. By now, I bet he has tired of trotting out the shopworn “abortion is like hiring a hitman” analogy” and wants to go beyond it. He is, and from the beginning has been, trying to send us a message. Are we listening?
Sending us a message?
He is a mime performing in front of a blind audience.
Something fundamental is missing if all PF can do is dance, nod, wink and smile.
He is the seventh pontiff i have had during my lifetime.
Of those who served in the Chair of Saint Peter, all of them preceding PF displayed absolutely no ambiguity in communicating with his global sheepfold.
Bergoglio should hang his head in shame for destroying the PAL. A future Pope should simply disband the institution as it has been corrupted beyond recognition.
This report contains a mass of propositions that were being thrown about already in the 20th Century in local situations. The idea here seems to be that they are truly universal and should be established for the 21st Century, proof of which being (would be) that they are announced by the Pope and sealed in a kind of rapture in joy, brotherhood and unity. Apparently what was blocking them until now is “not going deep into shame”; and this “not going deep” and/or “shame” warrants to be resolved for the 21st Century and to be “more than local”?
In my experience of these things in my local situation, in the late part of the 20th Century, the proponents in the setting were Freemasons and Rosicrucians, who were very concrete, very non-formalist and very nesting. Is this report the answer to these types of problems too?
The headline reads that the abortionista is outwardly upheld and praised; and yes, I have seen such things happen before as well during in the 20th Century. Cardinal Kasper had said something about the rising of “a southern wind” and this makes complete sense when applied to my particular Church and my experience of it in the 20th Century. Again in the 20th Century I witnessed the joining of the issue of “women” to coddling of abortion, as if it must be so and only so.
What was local and isolated in the 20th Century, it seems must become ubiquitous for the 21st?
There is a possibility that the report is not of an actual dialogue with the Pope but the result of written questions answered by a ghost-writer and presented as THE on-flight presser.
I wonder how the report would have read had it included the pro-life position and culture though. It seems to stretch out the Holy Father’s first words to make a picture of someone else’s spectrums.
Taking up with something to give it an importance it does not have, a wrong kind of emphasis, a repacking of obligation – is not faith. Inevitably it carries with it a negation of hope -somewhere, somehow. And in both faith and hope, it is a blocking up of love.
“And now, I put on the family council Mazzucato, who is a great economist from the United States, to give a little more humanity to this,”
Just the thought of Pope Francis, with his “family council”, down at the abortion mill crushing little children’s heads and cutting them to pieces alive, while the children are silently screaming, for the sake of his ‘humanitarianism’, makes me dreadfully ill.
Yes, to the genius of women…Helena, the mother of Constantine I and who discovered the True Cross; Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel; Margaret Thatcher, the long-serving prime minister of the British Empire…
and now this: Mazzucato, an economist on the Pontifical Academy for Life (Life!).
But what else can you do for a living member? Margaret Sanger is dead!
Don’t think I have the stamina to read this report.
The Holy Father often tells us quite directly where he stands on a given issue. On other occasions, we have to read what he does (e.g. his recent appointments to the PAL) and what he fails to do (e.g. condemn the legalization of abortion in Argentina a few years ago) to know where his head and heart are. He simply cannot come right out and tell us in plain language that he favors “a woman’s right to choose” as that might cause some difficulties with even our laid-back hierarchy, so he needs to speak by his actions, while maintaining some maintaining some plausible deniability. By now, I bet he has tired of trotting out the shopworn “abortion is like hiring a hitman” analogy” and wants to go beyond it. He is, and from the beginning has been, trying to send us a message. Are we listening?
Sending us a message?
He is a mime performing in front of a blind audience.
Something fundamental is missing if all PF can do is dance, nod, wink and smile.
He is the seventh pontiff i have had during my lifetime.
Of those who served in the Chair of Saint Peter, all of them preceding PF displayed absolutely no ambiguity in communicating with his global sheepfold.
What kinship does he have with the church?
Bergoglio should hang his head in shame for destroying the PAL. A future Pope should simply disband the institution as it has been corrupted beyond recognition.
The train wreck pontificate continues unabated.
This report contains a mass of propositions that were being thrown about already in the 20th Century in local situations. The idea here seems to be that they are truly universal and should be established for the 21st Century, proof of which being (would be) that they are announced by the Pope and sealed in a kind of rapture in joy, brotherhood and unity. Apparently what was blocking them until now is “not going deep into shame”; and this “not going deep” and/or “shame” warrants to be resolved for the 21st Century and to be “more than local”?
In my experience of these things in my local situation, in the late part of the 20th Century, the proponents in the setting were Freemasons and Rosicrucians, who were very concrete, very non-formalist and very nesting. Is this report the answer to these types of problems too?
The headline reads that the abortionista is outwardly upheld and praised; and yes, I have seen such things happen before as well during in the 20th Century. Cardinal Kasper had said something about the rising of “a southern wind” and this makes complete sense when applied to my particular Church and my experience of it in the 20th Century. Again in the 20th Century I witnessed the joining of the issue of “women” to coddling of abortion, as if it must be so and only so.
What was local and isolated in the 20th Century, it seems must become ubiquitous for the 21st?
There is a possibility that the report is not of an actual dialogue with the Pope but the result of written questions answered by a ghost-writer and presented as THE on-flight presser.
I wonder how the report would have read had it included the pro-life position and culture though. It seems to stretch out the Holy Father’s first words to make a picture of someone else’s spectrums.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2013/03/13/pope-francis-first-words-let-us-pray-for-the-whole-world-that-there-might-be-a-great-sense-of-brotherhood/
Taking up with something to give it an importance it does not have, a wrong kind of emphasis, a repacking of obligation – is not faith. Inevitably it carries with it a negation of hope -somewhere, somehow. And in both faith and hope, it is a blocking up of love.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-11/pope-flight-three-wars-century-pacifist-interview-bahrain.html
“And now, I put on the family council Mazzucato, who is a great economist from the United States, to give a little more humanity to this,”
Just the thought of Pope Francis, with his “family council”, down at the abortion mill crushing little children’s heads and cutting them to pieces alive, while the children are silently screaming, for the sake of his ‘humanitarianism’, makes me dreadfully ill.
What the hell!