Meet the archbishop-elect of Brussels, the capital of the European Union

Vatican City, Mar 19, 2018 / 10:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis opened this week’s pre-synod meeting telling youth to hold nothing back and to have the courage to ask the “raw” and direct questions about life, love, and vocation.

In the March 19 opening session for the event, Francis told youth to let their questions come “without anesthetizing” them.

“The strong questions of ours can have a process of being played down in tone,” or asked in a “polite way,” he said, but urged the young attendees to “be courageous” and to “say the raw truth, to ask the raw questions.”

He spoke to French youth Maxime Rassion, who is not baptized. Rassion said he was facing doubts about his career and struggles to find a deeper meaning in life, asked what he can do to figure out where to start.

In his answer, Pope Francis noted how many youth have fears about similar questions, and said there is a need for discernment. However, “at this point, many ecclesial communities don’t know how to do it or they lack the ability to discern.”

“It’s one of the problems we have,” Francis said, and urged those in positions of pastoral authority not to be afraid to let youth “take everything out” that they are thinking or feeling, and to listen to the blunt questions that young people may pose.

“Accompany them so they don’t err,” he said; and on the other hand, he encouraged youth to find someone they can talk to about their experiences.

Talking is important, but “you can’t talk to everyone about everything,” he said, and told them to find someone “who is wise, who isn’t scared and who knows how to listen” to help them sort through the questions they have.

“It’s important to open everything, to open everything, not to put make up on your feelings,” he said, and cautioned against closing in on oneself, which “weighs you down and takes your freedom.”

“Let your feelings come up, don’t anesthetize them, don’t downplay them; look for someone wise [to talk to] and discern.”

Pope Francis spoke at the opening session of the March 19-24 pre-synod meeting, which has drawn some 300 youth from around the world to talk about major themes for the upcoming Synod of Bishops on “Young People, Faith and the Discernment of Vocation.”

Youth in different states in life are in Rome to participate in the event. Priests, seminarians, and consecrated persons will also participate. Special attention will also be given to youth from both global and existential “peripheries,” including people with disabilities, and some who have struggled with drug use or who have been in prison.

At the end of the gathering, notes of the various discussions throughout the week will be gathered into a comprehensive concluding document, which will be presented to Pope Francis and used as part of the “Instrumentum Laboris,” or “working document,” of the October synod.

In his opening speech for the March 19 session, Pope Francis told youth that “your contribution is indispensable” for the preparation of the October synod gathering.

Too often young people are talked about without being spoken to, he said, stressing the importance of having a “face to face” meeting where they can share their thoughts and desires.

“It’s not enough to exchange some messages or share some nice photos,” he said, adding that “youth must be taken seriously!” Too often youth are left alone, he said, and cautioned that in the Church, “it must never be like this.”

“We need to regain the enthusiasm of the faith and of the flavor of the search. We need to find again in the Lord the strength to recover from failures, to go forward, to strengthen confidence in the future.”

“We need to dare [to take] new paths, even if it involves risks,” he said, adding that risk is necessary because “love knows how to risk; without risk a young person grows old, and it also makes the Church grow old.”

Because of this, “we need you young people, living stones of a Church with a young face, but not using makeup: not artificially rejuvenated, but revived from within,” he said, explaining that the purpose of the synod is to accompany youth.

“Be assured: God trusts you, he loves you and he calls you,” Francis said, saying the Church, in the synod, must learn to have “new ways of presence and closeness.”

After his opening address, Francis heard testimonies from five young people: Tendai Karombo from Zimbabwe, Nicholas Lopez from the US, Cao Huu Minh Tri from Vietnam, Annelien Boon from Belgium, and Angela Markas from Australia.

The Pope was then asked questions from five youth, one of whom was a young Nigerian woman named Blessing Okoedion who was brought to Italy four years ago as a victim of human trafficking.

After suffering the “hell” of forced prostitution, she was finally able to escape and find healing with an order of religious sisters. In her question to the Pope, Okoedion said many of her clients were Catholics, and asked how youth can be made aware of the problem of trafficking, and how to fight the “sick” mentality that reduces women to being the property of men.

In his response, the pope said human trafficking is “a crime against humanity” which is ultimately “born from a sick mentality.”

“The woman is exploited,” he said, noting that “today there is no feminism that has been able to take this out of the unconsciousness” in societal thought. “It’s a sickness of mentality, it’s a sickness of social action, it’s a crime against humanity.”

Pope Francis then asked forgiveness “for all the Catholics who commit this criminal act.”

“I think of the disgust these young women must feel when these men make them do anything,” he said. What women endure is “unbelievable,” he said, and called the practice a form of “slavery.”

In response to a question posed by Argentine youth Maria de la Macarena Segui, who asked about education initiatives and what youth can do to make their encounter with the Lord last over time, the pope stressed the need for an integral education.

Francis said there is need for educational initiatives that follow a “head, heart, hands” model, and which “harmonize” these three aspects into a solid foundation for the person that takes intellectual and charitable formation and turns them into action.

He also responded to a question posed by Ukrainian seminarian Ylian Vendzilovych, who asked how young priests should act amid the “complex realities” of modern society, and questioned how someone preparing for ordination can differentiate between what is good and what is wrong in society.

Francis stressed the importance of community in the life of a priest, and pointed to the many priests who serve their parishes alone or in remote areas. In these cases, it’s important for both the priest and the parishioners to make an effort to build a communal relationship, he said.

“A priest is a testimony of Christ to the extent that he is a member of that community,” he said, adding that if there is not community in a parish, “the bishop needs to intervene.”

He also spoke out against the “terrorism” of gossip and clericalism, which he called a “sick mentality” that confuses the people and drives them away. “Attitudes that are not paternal, not fraternal, also worry me,” he said, explaining that when a priest becomes too rigid or worldly, “there is no witness of the mercy of Christ.”

“I prefer that a young person loses their vocation rather than being a bad religious,” he said.

Sr. Teresina Chaohing Cheng, a religious sister from China, asked how young consecrated people can balance their cultural formation and spiritual lives while fighting against a materialistic society.

In his answer, Pope Francis said good formation for a consecrated person is built on four pillars: the spiritual, intellectual, communal, and apostolic.

This means making sure religious are aware of cultural habits and trends, even those that are bad, while also having a solid foundation to help distinguish and discern what is harmful, he said.

Francis cautioned against keeping religious too sheltered and in the dark about what’s happening in culture and society, saying to “overprotect” them is not formation, but “annuls” their understanding and does them a disservice.

He said to do this “castrates” a person and takes away their freedom, and told Cheng to fight against this in her community. “Don’t overprotect,” he said, because doing so prevents people “from maturing psychologically” and from responding to people in need.

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St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. / Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Apr 13, 2024 / 14:41 pm (CNA).

The Holy See on Saturday confirmed that it had sent a diplomatic letter to the French embassy over a French court ruling involving a Canadian cardinal’s alleged wrongful dismissal of a nun.

A French court in Lorient, in Brittany, earlier this month had fined Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, along with several other parties, for the October 2020 wrongful dismissal of Sabine Baudin de la Valette, whose religious name was Mother Marie Ferréol.

Baudin de la Valette, 57, had reportedly lived in the French monastery since 1987 without any significant incidents, but in 2011 she denounced “serious abuses and facts” happening in the community. 

She was dismissed from the community after a visit from Ouellet. It was never made public what exactly the Vatican accused her of, though the former sister reportedly said the dismissal decree “accused her of having an evil spirit but gave no concrete reasons.”

On Saturday, meanwhile, Vatican News reported that Director of the Holy See Press Office Matteo Bruni confirmed to reporters the Vatican Secretariat of State’s transmission of a “Note Verbal,” or a diplomatic message, to the Embassy of France to the Holy See.

The letter addressed the “alleged decision of the Tribunal of Lorient in France in a civil dispute concerning the dismissal from a religious Institute of Ms. Sabine de la Valette (formerly Sister Marie Ferréol),” Bruni told reporters. 

“A potential ruling from the Lorient Tribunal,” Bruni told journalists, “could raise not only significant issues concerning immunity, but if it ruled on internal discipline and membership in a religious institute, it might have constituted a serious violation of the fundamental rights to religious freedom and freedom of association of Catholic faithful.”

Ouellet, who previously served as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, “never received any summons from the Lorient Tribunal,” Bruni said. 

The Vatican learned of the tribunal’s decision “only from the press,” Bruni said on Saturday. 

The court also accused the religious community, among other things, of not correctly following the dismissal procedure. There was no prior warning and no reason for the dismissal from the community.

In addition, the court said, the community breached its duty of care when dismissing Baudin de la Valette, who was not offered any financial compensation that would have enabled her to “enjoy appropriate civil living conditions after 34 years of religious life and service to her community in the spirit of justice and charity as set out in canon law.”

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Vatican City, Apr 13, 2020 / 03:15 am (CNA).- We face a fundamental choice as we seek to resolve the coronavirus crisis, Pope Francis said during his morning Mass Monday.

Commenting on the day’s Gospel reading (Mt 28:8-15), which describes the risen Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas, the pope said April 13: “The Gospel proposes a choice that also applies today: the hope of Jesus’ resurrection and nostalgia for the tomb.” 

“Thus, in finding solutions to this pandemic, the choice will be between life, the resurrection of the people, and the god of money.”

“If you choose money, you choose the way of hunger, slavery, wars, arms factories, uneducated children… there is the tomb. Lord — it is the prayer of the pope — help us to choose the good of the people, without ever falling into the tomb of mammon,” he said, according to a transcription of his homily by Vatican News.

He began the Mass by praying that researchers and political leaders would make the correct choices for those they serve. 

He said: “Let us pray today for the rulers, the scientists, the politicians, who have begun to study the way out, the post-pandemic, this ‘after’ that has already begun: that they find the right way, always in favor of the people.”

Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, the Casa Santa Marta, he noted that in the Gospel reading Jesus entrusted women with a message for his disciples.

“God always begins with women, always,” the pope observed. “They open roads. They do not doubt: they know; they have seen him, they have touched him. They have also seen the empty tomb.”

He then reflected on the soldiers guarding Jesus’ tomb, who accepted a large sum of money in return for saying that Christ’s body had been stolen at night by his disciples. 

The pope said: “These poor people do not understand, they are afraid because life is at stake… and they have gone to the priests, to the doctors of the law. And they have paid: they have paid the silence, and this, dear brothers and sisters, is not a bribe: this is pure corruption, pure corruption.”

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching via livestream in a prayer of spiritual communion.

He concluded his homily: “May the Lord, both in our personal life and in our social life, always help us to choose the proclamation: the proclamation on the horizon is always available, is open, always; lead us to choose the good of the people. And never fall into the tomb of the god of money.”

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