Vatican City, Aug 6, 2018 / 10:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis made a private visit Monday morning to pray at the tomb of Bl. Paul VI, on the 40th anniversary of his death.
Francis made a similar visit to Bl. Paul VI’s tomb last year.
Pope Francis’ visit to the tomb took place in an absolutely private manner, said vice-director of the Holy See press office, Paloma Garcia.
She told EWTN Aug. 6 that Pope Francis prayed for about 10 minutes at the tomb, which is located in the Vatican Grottos, the crypt beneath St. Peter’s Basilica.
Bl. Paul VI, to whom Francis referred Sunday as a “pope of modernity,” was the author of the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, which reaffirmed Church teaching against contraception.
Bl. Paul VI will be canonized with Bl. Oscar Romero Oct. 14, during the synod on young people, faith, and vocational discernment.
At the end of his Angelus address Aug. 5, Francis recalled the blessed, calling him a “great pope of modernity,” and remembering him “with much veneration and gratitude.”
“From heaven may he intercede for the Church and for peace in the world,” the pope said.
Pope Francis unofficially confirmed the news of Paul VI’s canonization during his annual meeting with the priests of Rome Feb. 17. “Paul VI will be a saint this year,” he said Feb. 15.
After a long question and answer session, the pope gave texts containing meditations by Bl. Paul VI as a gift to each of the priests. “I saw it and I loved it,” Francis said about the book.
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Pope Francis carries the statue of the Child Jesus to place in the Nativity scene inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of Mass on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2024, surrounded by children dressed in traditional clothing from their countries. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 24, 2024 / 17:20 pm (CNA).
Hope lives, Pope Francis said in his homily for Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican, as he reflected on the incredible fact that the infinite God became a small Child.
“God is Emmanuel, he is God-with-us,” the pope said in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24. “The infinitely great has become small; the divine light has shone through the darkness of the world; the glory of heaven has appeared on earth. And how? In the littleness of a Child. And if God comes, even when our hearts resemble a poor manger, then we can say: hope is not dead, hope is alive, and it envelops our lives forever.”
The 88-year-old Pope Francis presided over Mass during the Night for the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord after opening the Holy Door of the basilica to officially start the 2025 Jubilee Year.
With the opening of the Holy Door, the pontiff said, “each of us can enter into the mystery of this proclamation of grace.”
“This is the night when the door of hope has opened wide on the world; this is the night when God says to each one: there is hope for you too!” he said in his Christmas homily.
Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica before Mass on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2024, officially launching the Jubilee Year 2025. Credit: Vatican Media
Francis said the Jubilee, which has the theme “pilgrims of hope,” is an opportunity for all people to have hope in the Gospel, hope in love, and hope in forgiveness.
“It invites us to rediscover the joy of the encounter with the Lord, calls us to spiritual renewal, and commits us to the transformation of the world, so that this may truly become a Jubilee time,” he underlined.
The world really needs hope right now, Pope Francis continued, especially amid wars, the bombing of hospitals and schools, and the machine-gunning of children.
While symptoms of a cold kept the pope indoors on the weekend before Christmas, he was well enough on Tuesday to open the Holy Door and preside over Christmas Eve Mass. It was also one of his first public appearances sporting hearing aids.
During the rite of opening of the Holy Door, Francis, seated in his wheelchair, leaned forward to knock on the gold door, which had been sealed since the last jubilee. As assistants opened the two sides of the door, the choir sang in Latin: “This is the Lord’s own gate. Where the upright enter. I enter your house, O Lord.”
The pope then passed through the door and into the basilica, followed by cardinals, bishops, priests, and ministers for Christmas Mass, as well as representatives of other Christian churches and Catholics from five continents wearing traditional clothing from their countries.
“On this night it is for you that the ‘holy door’ of God’s heart opens,” the pontiff said in his homily. “Jesus, God-with-us, is born for you, for me, for us, for every man and woman. And, you know, with him joy flourishes, with him life changes, with him hope does not disappoint.”
He said the task of Christians during the Jubilee Year is to bring hope into different situations of life, because Christian hope “is not the happy ending of a movie” to be passively awaited. “It is the Lord’s promise to be welcomed here, now, in this suffering and groaning earth.”
“Let us learn from the example of the shepherds: the hope born on this night does not tolerate the indolence of the sedentary and the laziness of those who have settled into their comforts — and so many of us, we are in danger of settling into our comforts,” Pope Francis warned.
“Hope,” he continued, “does not admit the false prudence of those who do not get off the hook for fear of compromising themselves and the calculation of those who think only of themselves; hope is incompatible with the quiet life of those who do not raise their voices against evil and against the injustices consummated on the skin of the poorest.”
Cardinal Raymond Burke gives the final blessing after celebrating a Traditional Latin Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica during the third edition of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage in Rome on Oct. 25, 2014. / Credit: Danie… […]
Pope Francis stops for a brief prayer in front of the Bethlehem Nativity in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall during its presentation and a meeting with some of the people involved in its creation on Dec. 7, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 13, 2024 / 12:50 pm (CNA).
A Nativity scene made by artisans from Bethlehem was the source of controversy this week for including a Palestinian keffiyeh with the child Jesus in the manger — but according to the project’s organizer, the headscarf was a last-minute decision meant only to represent Palestinians.
The keffiyeh was visible during the presentation of the Bethlehem Nativity to Pope Francis in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Dec. 7. By Dec. 11, four days later, the headscarf, manger, and Jesus sculpture had been removed from the scene without explanation.
Amid the Israel-Hamas war, the black-and-white checkered keffiyeh has become a symbol for the Palestinian cause. But Johny Andonia, a 39-year-old artist from Bethlehem who led the project, said it is just a symbol to represent or show the “existence” of Palestinians.
Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told CNA the Vatican follows the tradition of placing the infant Jesus in the Nativity scene on the night of Christmas Eve. It is typical for the whole scene to be first presented to the pope before the Jesus statue is then removed, leaving behind the empty manger until the official start of Christmas.
Speaking to CNA by phone from Cyprus, where he has an art residency until May, Andonia said he did not expect the scale of the reaction to the keffiyeh, which he also signed off on, after it was approved by people at the Vatican during the Nativity’s installation on Dec. 5.
Johny Andonia. Credit: Beata Michalska
“It came about in a spontaneous way, actually, because we learned that the child baby Jesus has to be covered or even absent until the 24th of December, and [the on-the-ground coordinator] suggested to cover it with a keffiyeh,” the artist said on Dec. 13.
“And they said no, no, not to cover him. And then he asked, can I put it then under [the child Jesus] and the people … in charge at that time accepted laying the keffiyeh under the baby Jesus, and this is how it came about.”
Andonia said he does not agree with commentary from some quarters that the keffiyeh indicates violence or the eradication of others. “It’s only about recognition,” he said. “This keffiyeh represents the people who had presented the Nativity scene.”
He added that he does not think the Vatican will put the keffiyeh back when the manger and child Jesus are returned on Christmas Eve.
The Associated Press reported that the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See had declined to comment on whether it had complained about the keffiyeh or had asked for it to be removed.
Andonia, who is a physical artist and painter, was born in Jerusalem but has lived all his life in Bethlehem. He is a teacher at Dar al-Kalima University College of Art and Culture in Bethlehem.
After being contacted in April 2023 by the Palestinian Embassy to the Holy See in Rome about the idea for a Nativity from Bethlehem to be featured at the Vatican, Andonia said he decided to reach out to local artisans to create the structure from traditional materials, which he said have deep roots in the area, especially olive wood and mother-of-pearl.
The round, almost 10-foot-high installation, the work of over 30 artisans from Bethlehem, also incorporates stone, ceramics, glass, felt, and fabric.
Some evidence shows that the use of olive wood in Bethlehem dates back to the fourth century during the construction of the Basilica of the Nativity, Adonia said. And Franciscan monks introduced the use of mother-of-pearl in craftmaking to the area in the 17th century.
The Nativity is “a gift from the Bethlehemites,” he said.
Though not a religious person himself, the artist said being the bridge between the Vatican and the Bethlehem artisans has, nonetheless, been deeply meaningful for him.
“Most of [the people involved] were people of faith, and having their work at the Vatican with the pope, that was something [significant] for them,” he said.
“I’ve lived my life looking at people creating Nativity scenes, and they are proud of it, so it also meant something to me to be a part of it and give that opportunity to the individuals, and to support them even financially. The project was funded by the Palestinian Authorities, so it was also kind of a [financial] help, in this current situation, for them.”
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