PHOTOS: Pope Francis is brought to St. Peter’s Basilica

Pope Francis meets with a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse, June 30, 2022. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 30, 2022 / 09:23 am (CNA).

“Seeking Christian unity is not merely a question internal to the Churches,” he said June 30. “It is an essential condition for the realization of an authentic universal fraternity, manifested in justice and solidarity towards all.”

The pope spoke about the role of ecumenical dialogue in peace-building during a meeting with an Eastern Orthodox delegation at the Vatican.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity, also took part in the meeting, which was held in the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse, where Pope Francis lives.

The delegation was sent to Rome by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, and also participated in the pope’s Mass for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, praying with Pope Francis at the tomb of St. Peter.

During the June 30 encounter, the pope emphasized that Christ is the source of peace in the world.

“Christ is our peace,” he said. “By his incarnation, death and resurrection for all, he has torn down the walls of enmity and division between people.”

“Let us start anew from him,” he continued, “and recognize that it is no longer the time to order our ecclesial agendas in accordance with the world’s standards of power and expediency, but in accordance with the Gospel’s bold prophetic message of peace.”

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with about 5.3 million members, most of whom are in Greece. Under Bartholomew I’s leadership, which began in 1991, the Church has emphasized ecumenical initiatives and dialogue between Christians.

Francis said “reconciliation among separated Christians, as a means of contributing to peace between peoples in conflict, is a most timely consideration these days, as our world is disrupted by a cruel and senseless war of aggression in which many, many Christians are fighting one another.”

This moment calls for serious reflection, he said, asking, “what kind of world do we want to emerge in the wake of this terrible outbreak of hostilities and conflict? And what contribution are we prepared to make even now towards a more fraternal humanity?”

“As believers, we must necessarily find the answers to these questions in the Gospel: in Jesus, who calls us to be merciful and never violent, to be perfect as the Father is perfect, and not be conformed to the world,” the pope said.

He said Christians should help each other “not to yield to the temptation to muffle the explosive newness of the Gospel with the seductions of this world.”

“Before the scandal of war, in the first place, our concern must not be for talking and discussing, but for weeping, for helping others and for experiencing conversion ourselves,” he said. “We need to weep for the victims and the overwhelming bloodshed, the deaths of so many innocent people, the trauma inflicted on families, cities and an entire people.”

Pope Francis also noted that Christians are obliged to exercise charity toward Christ present in the poor, wounded, and displaced.

“But we also need to experience conversion, and to recognize that armed conquest, expansionism and imperialism have nothing to do with the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed,” he said.

The pope said it is his hope that theological dialogue between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox “will progress by promoting a new mentality that, conscious of the errors of the past, can help us to look together to the present and future.”

“Let us not be content with an ‘ecclesiastical diplomacy’ that would allow us to politely maintain our own points of view, but instead journey together as brothers,” he added.

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Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, in St. Peter’s Square, Oct. 10, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

Vatican City, Jun 30, 2021 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri has called for a reawakening of cons… […]

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2019 / 08:05 am (CNA).- Newly published manuscripts belonging to Karol Wojtyła have offered a glimpse into the future pope and saint’s deep devotion and prayer throughout his writing process.

The 39 handwritten pages contain Wojtyła’s reflections on St. Paul’s Areopagus address to the Athenians described in the Acts of the Apostles. It is believed that these meditations and catecheses were written in or shortly after 1965, while Wojtya was Archbishop of Krakow. He was made a cardinal in 1967 and elected pope in 1978.

On each page, Wojtyła wrote a little prayer in Latin on the top right corner, such as “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” (Come Holy Spirit) and “Adoro te devote latens Deitas” (I devoutly adore you hidden God), a Eucharistic Hymn written by St. Thomas Aquinas. 

On the top of the first page he wrote, in Latin, the full quote of St. Louis de Montfort from which he had taken his episcopal motto, Totus Tuus: “I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart.”

The writings have been published in a book titled “Christ, the Church and the World: Catechesis of the Areopagus.”

Speaking at the launch of the publication, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re reflected that the inscription of a prayer on each page was a discipline Wojtyła continued as pope, even while drafting encyclicals.

“When he wrote Redemptoris Hominis, before every page, before the beginning, he wrote in Latin: ‘Totus Tuus Ego Sum,’ The second page: ‘Et omnia mea tua assunta,’ like this he continued,” Re said. 

Cardinal Re worked with St. John Paul II as sostituto, or deputy, at the Secretariat of State from 1989 – 2000 and later as the prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. He said that when the Polish pope wrote Redemptoris Mater about the Virgin Mary, he wrote out the Litany of Loreto with a different title of Mary on each subsequent page. 

“That’s why, in a certain sense, every page that he wrote it was an act of prayer,” Re said in Italian. “It reveals to us a little of  … the great spirituality, devotion that he had.”

Re said he was always impressed with the “intensity” of St. John Paul II’s prayer: “He had a great capacity for concentration. When he gathered himself for prayer whatever happened around him did not disturb him. He was so immersed in God, so concentrated on God.”

The retired cardinal remembered that when faced with a decision or problem, the pope would respond, “We need to pray more about this.”

The manuscripts were first published in Polish in 2018 to mark the 40th anniversary of Wojtyła’s election as Archbishop of Krakow. No decision has yet been made about publication in English or Spanish.

Wojtyla began writing the meditations on St. Paul’s speech at the Areopagus following two trips to Athens in the mid-1960’s. Within the text, he references documents from Vatican Council II, including Nostra Aetate, Dei Verbum, and Gaudium et Spes. 

Dr. Marta Burghardt, who conducted historical and philological analysis of the original manuscripts, concluded that the Wojtyla wrote several passages of conciliar texts and Scripture from memory. 

Burghardt said it is still unknown to whom, if anyone, Wojtyła was writing these reflections on St. Paul or whether they were intended for a series of speeches or publication. 

“The depth of these texts perfectly reflects his extraordinary conception of the world from the point of view of communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz wrote in the introduction to the book, published by the Vatican library. Dziwisz served as St. John Paul II’s personal secretary throught his time as a bishop and pope.

“In this particular historical moment we all feel again the need for a profound and general catechesis on the truths of the faith, of a catechesis that completely introduces us into the mystery of God’s work in our human history,” Dziwisz said.

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