Pope Francis greets young cancer patients who are on pilgrimage from Poland to Rome during a Jan. 10, 2025, audience at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jan 10, 2025 / 12:35 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis told a group of children receiving treatment for cancer in Poland they are “witnesses of hope” to those around them.
During a Jan. 10 audience at the Vatican, the pope greeted cancer patients, ranging in age from young children to adolescents, who are on a pilgrimage from the city of Wrocław, in western Poland, to Rome.
“Thank you for coming, you are brave! And so you are witnesses of hope for us adults and for your peers,” Francis said. “I am happy that you were able to organize this pilgrimage of yours in this jubilee year focused on hope. It is a year in which God wants to grant us special graces.”
The children received by Pope Francis on Friday morning are receiving treatment at a pediatric oncology clinic, “Cape of Hope,” opened in Wrocław in 2015. It is part of the national Wrocław Medical University.
Pope Francis meets with young cancer patients who are on pilgrimage from Poland to Rome during a Jan. 10, 2025, audience at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
The children were accompanied on their pilgrimage by their parents, nurses, doctors, a priest, and Honorary Consul of Luxembourg in Poland Krzysztof Bramorski.
“As I came to meet you, I felt a joy in my heart because we have the opportunity to give hope and love to each other,” the pontiff said in his remarks in the apostolic palace.
“You, dear children and young people, are signs of hope for me,” he continued. “Why? Because I am sure that Jesus is present in you. And where he is, there is hope that does not disappoint! Jesus took our sufferings upon himself, out of love, and then we too, through his love, can join him when we suffer.”
True friends share each others’ joy and pain, just as Jesus does, Francis said.
Another sign of Jesus’ friendship with the children is the love and presence of their parents and all who help take care of them, he added.
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Pope Francis greets Archbishop Rino Fisichella in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, Sept. 17, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Sep 17, 2021 / 07:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said on Friday that he instituted the new ministry of catechist with the hope that it would help to “awaken this vocation.”
Addressing participants in a meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization on Sept. 17, the pope referred to his decision to formally institute the new lay ministry in May.
Vatican Media.
He said: “We must insist on indicating the heart of catechesis: the risen Jesus Christ loves you and never abandons you! We can never tire or feel we are being repetitive about this first proclamation in the various stages of the catechetical process.”
“This is why I instituted the ministry of catechist. They are preparing the rite for the, I quote, ‘creation’ of catechists. So that the Christian community may feel the need to awaken this vocation and to experience the service of some men and women who, living the celebration of the Eucharist, may feel more vividly the passion to transmit the faith as evangelizers.”
Vatican Media.
The pope established the new ministry through the apostolic letterAntiquum ministerium (“Ancient ministry”) on May 11.
While catechists have served the Church since New Testament times, an instituted ministry is a type of formal, vocational service within the Catholic Church.
Vatican Media.
The newly instituted ministry of catechist is for lay people who have a particular call to serve the Catholic Church as a teacher of the faith.
In the apostolic letter, the pope said that the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments would “soon publish” the Rite of Institution of the new ministry.
Vatican Media.
In his address, the pope noted that last Sunday he celebrated the closing Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress in Budapest, Hungary.
He said that catechesis “can be effective in the work of evangelization if it keeps its gaze fixed on the Eucharistic mystery.”
“We cannot forget that the privileged place of catechesis is precisely the Eucharistic celebration, where brothers and sisters come together to discover ever more the different forms of God’s presence in their lives,” he said.
Vatican Media.
Speaking in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall to Catholics responsible for catechesis in Europe, the pope fondly recalled the two catechists who prepared him for First Communion.
“I felt a great respect, even a feeling of thanksgiving, without making it explicit, but it felt like veneration,” he said.
“Why? Because they were the women who had prepared me for my First Communion, together with a nun. I want to tell you about this experience because it was a beautiful thing for me to accompany them to the end of their lives, both of them. And also the nun who prepared me for the liturgical part of Communion: she died, and I was there, with her, accompanying her. There is a closeness, a very important bond with catechists…”
Referring to the Directory for Catechesis, released in June 2020, he said that catechesis should not be understood as “an abstract communication of theoretical knowledge to be memorized as like mathematical or chemical formulas.”
“It is rather the mystagogical experience of those who learn to encounter their brothers and sisters where they live and work, because they themselves have met Christ, who has called them to become missionary disciples,” he said.
He then referred to his address on Monday in St. Martin’s Cathedral, Bratislava, in which he encouraged Slovakian Catholics to draw inspiration from Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who translated the Bible into the Slavonic language.
He told catechists in Rome: “They beat new paths, invented new languages, new ‘alphabets,’ to transmit the Gospel, for the inculturation of the faith.”
“This requires knowing how to listen to the people, to listen to the peoples to whom one is proclaiming: listening to their culture, their history; listening not superficially, already thinking of the pre-packaged answers we carry in our briefcase, no! To truly listen, and to compare those cultures, those languages, even and above all the unspoken, the unexpressed, with the Word of God, with Jesus Christ, the living Gospel.”
“And I repeat the question: is this not the most urgent task of the Church among the peoples of Europe? The great Christian tradition of the continent must not become a historical relic, otherwise, it is no longer ‘tradition.’”
He continued: “Tradition is either alive or it is not. And catechesis is tradition, it is trador [in Latin], to hand down, but as living tradition, from heart to heart, from mind to mind, from life to life. Therefore: passionate and creative, with the impetus of the Holy Spirit.”
“I used the word ‘pre-packaged’ for language, but I fear catechists whose heart, attitude, and face are ‘pre-packaged.’ No. Either the catechist is free, or he or she is not a catechist. The catechist lets herself or himself be struck by the reality he or she finds, and transmits the Gospel with great creativity, or is not a catechist. Think about this well.”
Vatican City, Feb 7, 2018 / 02:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a rare new letter penned by Benedict XVI, the retired pontiff said he is in the last phase of his life, and while his physical strength might be waning, he is surrounded by a “love and goodness” that he never imagined.
“I can only say that at the end of a slow decline in physical strength, inwardly I am on pilgrimage home,” Benedict XVI said in the letter, published Feb. 7 in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
He said that “it’s a great grace for me to be to be surrounded in this last piece of the road, which is at times a bit tiring, by a love and goodness that I could never have imagined.”
Benedict addressed the letter to Italian journalist Massimo Franco of Corriere della Sera, who was charged with the task of presenting the retired pontiff with letters expressing concern and asking about his well-being five years after resigning from the papacy.
He shocked the world when he announced his resignation Feb. 11, 2013, declaring that the See of Peter would be vacant as of 8 p.m. on Feb. 28. A conclave was called to name his successor, and on March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Bishop of Rome, and took the name Francis.
In his letter, published Feb. 7 on the front page of Corriere della Sera, Benedict said he was moved that so many readers from the paper “want to know how I’ve spent this last period of my life.”
He said he considers the questions and concerns of the readers part of the love he has experienced, and sees them as “an accompaniment” on the last phase of his life.
“Because of this,” he said, “I cannot but be thankful, on my part assuring you all of my prayers. Best regards.”
Vatican City, Dec 19, 2018 / 06:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a statement Wednesday, the Holy See said the rules for implementing the Paris Agreement, established during the recent UN climate change summit in Poland earlier this month, are lacking in urge… […]
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