Pope Francis sends papal almoner to Holy Land for Christmas as a sign of solidarity

Vatican City, Sep 9, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- The wounds inflicted by the coronavirus crisis will only be healed if we put the common good first, Pope Francis said at his general audience Wednesday.

“A virus that does not recognize barriers, bord… […]

Pope Francis praying at the general audience on St. Peter’s Square / Daniel Ibáñez / CNA

Rome Newsroom, Nov 23, 2022 / 02:37 am (CNA).

Pope Francis used the example of several Catholic saints to explain the concept of spiritual consolation during his weekly audience on Wednesday.

“What is spiritual consolation?” he said Nov. 23. “It is a profound experience of interior joy, consisting in seeing God’s presence in everything. It strengthens faith and hope, and even the ability of doing good.”

The pope continued his teachings on the theme of discernment at his public audience in St. Peter’s Square, where he contrasted last week’s reflection on spiritual desolation with consolation, as experienced by several of the Church’s saints.

“The person who experiences consolation never gives up in the face of difficulties because he or she always experiences a peace that is stronger than any trial,” Francis said. Consolation “is, therefore, a tremendous gift for the spiritual life as well as life in general.”

The pope began his explanation by drawing from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who wrote about rules for the discernment of spirits.

Francis said “consolation is an interior movement that touches our depths. It is not flashy but soft, delicate, like a drop of water on a sponge.”

He went on to describe consolation as not “a passing euphoria,” nor something which tries to force our will or inhibit our freedom. “Even the suffering caused, for example, by our own sins can become a reason for consolation,” he added.

St. Augustine was consoled when he spoke with his mother, St. Monica, about the beauty of eternal life, the pope said. And St. Francis of Assisi experienced perfect joy despite the difficult situations he had to bear.

“Let’s think of the many saints who were able to do great things not because they thought they were magnificent or capable, but because they had been conquered by the peaceful

sweetness of God’s love,” Pope Francis said. “This is the peace that St. Ignatius discovered in himself with such amazement when he would read the lives of the saints.”

The pope also quoted St. Edith Stein, who is also known by the name she took in religious life: Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

A year after her baptism as a Christian, following her conversion from Judaism, St. Edith Stein wrote about her interior feeling of peace: “As I abandon myself to this feeling, little by little a new life begins to fill me and — without any pressure on my will — to drive me toward new realizations. This living inpouring seems to spring from an activity and it gives a strength that is not mine and which, without doing me any violence, becomes active in me.”

Francis emphasized the importance of action following consolation.

“Consolation is such peace, but not to sit there enjoying it, no, it gives you peace and draws you to the Lord and sets you on a path to do things, to do good things,” he said.

“In a time of consolation, when we are consoled, we get the desire to do so much good, always. Instead, when there is a time of desolation, we get the urge to close in on ourselves and do nothing. Consolation pushes you forward, in service to others, to society, to people.”

He recalled when St. Therese of the Child Jesus, at the age of 14, visited the Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome.

The girl from Lisieux, France, “tried to touch the nail venerated there, one of the nails with which Jesus was crucified,” the pope said. “Therese understood her daring as a transport of love and confidence. Later, she wrote, ‘I truly was too audacious. But the Lord sees the depths of our hearts. He knows my intention was pure […] I acted with him as a child who believes everything is permissible and who considers the Father’s treasures their own.’”

This, Pope Francis said, is a “splendid description of spiritual consolation.”

“We can feel a sense of tenderness toward God that makes us audacious in our desire to participate in his own life, to do what is pleasing to him because we feel familiar with him, we feel that his house is our house, we feel welcome, loved, restored,” he added.

Consolation gives one the strength to continue in the face of difficulty, Francis said, pointing to St. Therese’s request to the pope to enter the Carmelite order even though she was too young.

According to the pope, St. Bernard teaches us about consolation and discernment, especially the pitfall of “false consolations.”

“If an authentic consolation is like a drop on a sponge, is soft and intimate, its imitations are noisier and flashier, like straw fires, lacking substance, leading us to close in on ourselves and not to take care of others,” Francis said. This is where discernment comes in.

“False consolation can become a danger if we seek it obsessively as an end in itself, forgetting the Lord,” he pointed out. “As St. Bernard would say, this is like seeking the consolations of God rather than the God of consolations.”

There is a risk of treating our relationship with God in a childish way, he concluded, “of reducing it to an object that we use and consume, losing the most beautiful gift which is God himself.”

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Vatican City, Feb 10, 2020 / 01:55 pm (CNA).- A Vatican official has defended his decision to administer the Eucharist to Argentina’s president, despite the leader’s effort to legalize abortion in his country. The official also administered the sacrament to the president’s consort, who is by protocol Argentina’s first lady.

Argentine Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, administered Holy Communion during a Mass offered Jan. 31 in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica, shortly before a meeting between Fernández’ and Pope Francis.

Argentine newspaper La Nación posted a video of the Mass, in which Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández and Fabiola Yáñez, the president’s domestic partner, can be seen approaching the bishop to receive the Eucharist.

Fernández has pledged to promote a bill in the country’s legislature that would legalize abortion. In 2018, Argentina’s Senate defeated a bill that would have legalized abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The Argentine bishops have responded to the president’s abortion advocacy with a planned pro-life Mass and other pro-life activities.

Fernández was divorced in 2005. Yanez has been his consort since 2014; in 2019 she moved into Argentina’s presidential residence.

Sorondo was asked by online newsite LifeSiteNews last week about the distribution of Holy Communion to Fernandez.

The bishop said that according to canon law “you are obliged to give communion if somebody asks you for communion. Only in the case that he is excommunicated. The President is not excommunicated, so I can give communion if he asks me for communion.”

Canon 915 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law says that Catholics who are ”obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

In 1994, the Congregation from the Doctrine of the Faith clarified that “Members of the faithful who live together as husband and wife with persons other than their legitimate spouses may not receive Holy Communion.”

With regard to advocacy for the legal protection of abortion, in 2004 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a memorandum to US bishops which stated that a Catholic politician who consistently campaigns and votes for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws “should not present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin” and that his pastor should warn him “that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

Also present at the Mass were members of Fernández’ government, accompanying him on a European trip: Foreign Minister Felipe Solá; Secretary for Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Beliz; Justice Minister, Marcela Losardo; and the Secretary for Religious Affairs, Guillermo Oliveri.

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