Pope Francis greets young people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Wednesday general audience on April 17, 2024, at the Vatican. (Credit: Vatican Media)
Rome Newsroom, Apr 27, 2025 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
In a video message published after his death, but recorded in January, Pope Francis encouraged young people to work on listening well to others.
The video, shared by the Italian weekly magazine “Oggi,” was made public one day after the funeral Mass of Pope Francis, who died at the Vatican on April 21.
In the video, recorded on Jan. 8, Pope Francis addressed a group of teens and young adults participating in “Listening Workshops,” an initiative started by the Italian Luca Drusian.
According to Vatican Media, the idea behind the workshops is for young people to discuss different topics while experiencing the beauty of both listening to others and being heard.
“Dear boys and girls, one of the most important things in life is to listen — to learn how to listen,” Francis said in the recording, taken in his Santa Marta residence.
“When someone speaks to you, wait for them to finish so you can really understand, and then, if you feel like it, respond. But the important thing is to listen,” he said, explaining they should not rush to give an answer.
The pope said, “look closely at people — people don’t listen. Halfway through an explanation, they’ll answer, and that doesn’t help peace. Listen — listen a lot,” he urged.
Francis also told young people to listen to their grandparents, who “teach us so much.”
The posthumous papal message was made public as an estimated 200,000 people, many of them teenagers, attended Mass in St. Peter’s Square on the morning of April 27.
The Mass was celebrated both as part of the Church’s second day of the “novendiales,” nine days of mourning, for Pope Francis, and as part of the Jubilee of Teenagers, which took place in Rome April 25-27.
The day after the late pope’s funeral and burial, tens of thousands of people visited his tomb in the Basilica of St. Mary Major. In the afternoon, Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, coadjutor archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, led vespers in a packed basilica. The College of Cardinals also attended.
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At his first general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 21, 2025, Pope Leo XIV appeals for peace and the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, where, he said, children and elderly are suffering. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, May 21, 2025 / 08:05 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV in the first general audience of his pontificate on Wednesday appealed for an end to hostilities in Gaza and for the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
Speaking before tens of thousands of attendees on an overcast day in St. Peter’s Square, the new pope ended his remarks by calling the situation in the Gaza Strip “increasingly worrying and painful.”
“I renew my heartfelt appeal to allow the entry of decent humanitarian aid and to end the hostilities whose heartbreaking price is paid by children, the elderly, and the sick,” he added.
The pope’s appeal comes as the numbers of dead and injured in the Gaza Strip continue to rise under Israel’s attacks. According to reports, while some humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter Gaza, it has not yet been released for distribution.
One month to the day since Francis’ death, Pope Leo also recalled with gratitude the “beloved Pope Francis, who just a month ago returned to the house of the Father.”
Leo closely followed his written remarks, only adding the comment on Gaza, during the May 21 public audience, which he began by taking a turn around the square in the popemobile to cheers, banners, and waving flags. Some people stood on their chairs to try to catch a glimpse of the new pope, who paused often to bless babies of all ages held out to him in outstretched arms.
Pope Leo XIV pauses to bless a baby during his trip around St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile before the start of his first general audience on May 21, 2025. Credit: Vatican Media
The inaugural catechesis of the first U.S.-born pope picked up the theme begun by Francis for the 2025 Jubilee Year: “Jesus Christ our hope.”
Reflecting on the Parable of the Sower, Leo noted the unusual behavior of the sower in the story, who “does not care where the seed falls. He throws the seeds even where it is unlikely they will bear fruit: on the path, on the rocks, among the thorns.”
“The way in which this ‘wasteful’ sower throws the seed is an image of the way God loves us,” he said, echoing a part of his first message from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after his election on May 8, that God “loves us all unconditionally.”
“First and foremost in this parable Jesus tells us that God throws the seed of his Word on all kinds of soil, that is, in any situation of ours,” Leo underlined.
He continued: “God is confident and hopes that sooner or later the seed will blossom. This is how he loves us: he does not wait for us to become the best soil, but he always generously gives us his word. Perhaps by seeing that he trusts us, the desire to be better soil will be kindled in us. This is hope, founded on the rock of God’s generosity and mercy.”
The theme of personal transformation was also repeated later in the catechesis, when Leo said, “Jesus is the Word, he is the Seed. And the seed, to bear fruit, must die. Thus, this parable tells us that God is ready to ‘waste away’ for us and that Jesus is willing to die in order to transform our life.”
Chuma Asuzu, who is Nigerian-born and living in Canada, is happy to have attended Pope Leo XIV’s general audience on May 21, 2025 with his wife and children. Credit: Kristina Millare/CNA
Husband and father Chuma Asuzu from Canada came to the square early in the morning with his family to attend the pope’s first general audience.
“It was good and I think it was interesting how he explained the seeds and how it’s the word of God,” Asuzu shared with CNA. “I really appreciate it.”
“He made the point to drive around a lot because it was his first audience and he looked emotional at the beginning,” he added.
Instead of taking an example from literature or philosophy, as Pope Francis often did, Pope Leo used Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “The Sower at Sunset,” to prompt a meditation on hope.
Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Sower at Sunset”. Public Domain.
“That image of the sower in the blazing sun also speaks to me of the farmer’s toil,” he said. “And it strikes me that, behind the sower, Van Gogh depicted the grain already ripe. It seems to me an image of hope: one way or another, the seed has borne fruit. We are not sure how, but it has.”
“At the center of the scene, however, is not the sower, who stands to the side; instead, the whole painting is dominated by the image of the sun, perhaps to remind us that it is God who moves history, even if he sometimes seems absent or distant,” the pope noted. “It is the sun that warms the clods of earth and makes the seed ripen.”
The pontiff’s final thought was to remind those present to ask the Lord for the grace to welcome the seed of his Word: “And if we realize we are not a fruitful soil, let us not be discouraged, but let us ask him to work on us more to make us become a better terrain.”
Leo closed the audience in the customary way, singing the “Our Father” prayer in Latin and then giving his apostolic blessing.
Among the pilgrims present on Wednesday was Father Rolmart Verano, who is leading a group of jubilee pilgrims from the Diocese of Surigao, Philippines.
“I never thought that one day I will come here [to Rome],” he told CNA. “It is one of my wildest dreams that came true!”
Father Rolmart Verano, from the Diocese of Surigao, Philippines, tells CNA at the general audience on May 21, 2025, that it was a dream come true for him to travel to Rome and see the pope. Credit: Kristina Millare/CNA
“The striking point of Pope Leo XIV’s general audience is when he said that the Word of God should take root in each one of our hearts,” he said. “It should serve as a guide for our daily lives no matter that it be ordinary or difficult circumstances.”
As one of 40 members of a pilgrim group from the Diocese of Mumbai, India, Sandesh Almeida said he was immediately impressed by the kindness shown by the new pontiff at the audience.
“Peace is a good message from him,” he said. “Now with India and Pakistan … we should go for peace and the pope is mostly focusing on peace.”
The third National Eucharistic Congress in Madagascar is underway Aug. 23-26. Pope Francis sent a message, saying that "each person should be a missionary of God’s love to others." / Credit: EWTN
Mother Teresa in the year 1980. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Rome Newsroom, Sep 5, 2022 / 06:40 am (CNA).
The so-called “definitive movie” about Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be in theaters in October. It sheds new light on — and delivers powerful images of — the life of this venerated Albanian-Kosovar nun.
Sept. 5 is the feast day of the St. Teresa of Kolkata. She died on Sept. 5, 1997, and was beatified only six years later, on Oct. 19, 2003.
John Paul II proclaimed her blessed in 2003, only six years after her death. Her life inspired thousands of books. Her life, witness, and legacy have been studied and written about in depth.
Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa on Sept. 4, 2016.
For this reason, it doesn’t seem easy to add anything to the many biographies and stories about Mother Teresa of Calcutta. But the film “No Greater Love”, produced by the Knights of Columbus, achieves this feat.
The film premiere took place in Rome on Aug. 29, while on Aug. 31, there was a press conference about the movie.
Divided into chapters that tell the salient moments of Mother Teresa’s life, the film is fragmented with interviews with missionaries, members of the order she founded, and biographers of Mother Teresa.
“Mother Teresa” is not only a reflection on the life of the saint but also gives a general perspective of the great work that the Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa do all over the world, in Brazil, in the fields on the border between Mexico and the United States, in the Philippines.
The story of Mother Teresa is well-documented. Born in Skopje to an Albanian-Kosovar family, a minority of the minorities in the Balkan region, she soon felt the missionary impulse, entered the Missionary Nuns of Our Lady of Loreto, and left for India, where she began to work as a teacher.
After witnessing the shocking impact of local suffering in the streets of Calcutta after some riots, she realized her mission was, first and foremost, to be with the poor.
Indeed, with the poorest of the poor.
From this vocation was born a work that has touched the entire world. It spread from the slums of Calcutta (Kolkata) to the Bronx, helping those stricken with another kind of poverty: marginalized AIDS patients, who, at the end of the previous century, was at first treated like lepers at the time of Jesus.
Eventually, her vital work was recognized by the world. In 1979, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize, and in Oslo, she delivered a touching speech in which she labeled the nations that legalize abortion as “the poorest nations.”
Mother Teresa’s friendship with Saint John Paul II bore many fruits, including a house of the Missionaries of Charity right in the Vatican, where they are today.
Part of this saint’s enduring legacy is her spirituality, her struggle with the “dark night of the soul.”
What is powerful in the film is, above all, the images. The producers had full access to the Missionaries of Charity’s archive, finding unpublished or little-known footage, including that of Mother Teresa acting as an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist.
Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, emphasized that the film was born “thanks to the relationship of trust between the Knights of Columbus and the Missionaries of Charity.”
After all, Virgil Dechant, the predecessor of Kelly’s predecessor as Supreme Knight, was a personal friend of Mother Teresa. They collaborated, sharing the mutual value of charity, at the foundations of the Knight of Columbus, considering that “charity is the fundamental principle of the Knights of Columbus.”
In a letter sent to Kelly, Pope Francis thanked for initiatives that “help, in a creative way, to make zeal for evangelization accessible especially to the younger generations.”
Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, talked about his friendship with Mother Teresa. Although he asked her to send nuns to his diocese on two different occasions “to bring healing and consolation,” Mother Teresa always fulfilled the requests.
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator of the cause of the canonization of Mother Teresa, stressed that the film helps to remember the great work and vocation of the saint.
The movie’s message is that “Calcutta is everywhere” — because there are those in need everywhere: “There is a work of charity yet to be done.”
Sister Myriam Therese, regional superior of the Missionaries of Charity, said it was “nice to see people who changed their lives because they were affected by God’s love” and that Mother Teresa was “a carrier of that love.”
Finally, David Naglieri, the movie’s director, underlined that “they did not want only a biography, we wanted to show her radical call, but also to show how the mission of Mother Teresa continues.”
Did Pope Francis “listen” to the four Dubia Cardinals when they requested to meet with him as they believed they had some things to say that deserved his listening to? So, please, CNA, don’t tell us the Pope’s message to anyone about “listening.” Pope Francis has died and has been buried.
Maybe he should have told children to listen to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And maybe he should have followed its teachings himself. We pray the next pope will. God help us!
Did Pope Francis “listen” to the four Dubia Cardinals when they requested to meet with him as they believed they had some things to say that deserved his listening to? So, please, CNA, don’t tell us the Pope’s message to anyone about “listening.” Pope Francis has died and has been buried.
Maybe he should have told children to listen to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And maybe he should have followed its teachings himself. We pray the next pope will. God help us!