Vatican City, Aug 2, 2020 / 04:35 am (CNA).- Pope Francis deplored a firebomb attack on a cathedral in Nicaragua Sunday.
Speaking after his Angelus address Aug. 2, he condemned the incident in which an unidentified man threw a firebomb into a chapel of Managua’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, severely damaging the chapel and a devotional image of Christ more than three centuries old.
The attack took place July 31 amid rising tensions between the Church and the Nicaraguan government. Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes of Managua described the attack as “a terrorist act.”
Speaking from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, the pope said: “I am thinking of the people of Nicaragua who are suffering from the attack on Managua Cathedral, where the much-venerated image of Christ, which has accompanied and sustained the life of the faithful people throughout the centuries, has been greatly damaged — almost destroyed.”
“Dear Nicaraguan brothers, I am close to you and I pray for you.”
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Vatican City, Jun 29, 2019 / 07:35 am (CNA).- The Catholic Church is Christ’s beloved bride, Pope Francis said Saturday on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.
“To the Lord we are not a group of believers or a religious organization, we are His bride. He looks at His Church with tenderness, He loves it with absolute fidelity, despite our mistakes and betrayals,” Pope Francis said June 29.
In his Angelus address for the feast of the patron saints of Rome, Pope Francis reflected on Christ’s words to St. Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.”
“Like that day to Peter, today He says to all of us: ‘my Church, you are my Church,’” the pope said. “And we too can repeat it: my Church.”
“Today, through the intercession of the Apostles, we ask for the grace to love our Church,” Pope Francis said.
“We ask for the strength to pray for those who do not think like us,” he added.
Saints Peter and Paul were very different, Pope Francis explained: “a fisherman and a Pharisee with different life experiences, characters, ways of doing things, and very different sensibilities.”
“But what united them was infinitely greater: Jesus was the Lord of both. Together they said ‘my Lord’ to Him who says ‘my Church,’” the pope said.
“Brothers in faith, they invite us to rediscover the joy of being brothers and sisters in the Church,” he said. “How nice it is to know that we belong to each other, because we share the same faith, the same love, the same hope, the same Lord.”
Pope Francis said that the feast of Saints Peter and Paul invites each Catholic to say, “Thank you, Lord, for that person who is different than me: it is a gift for my Church.”
“It is good to appreciate the qualities of others, to recognize the gifts of others without malice and without envy,” he said. “Envy causes bitterness inside, it is vinegar on the heart.”
The pope recommended praying for the intercession of the two saints for “a heart that knows how to welcome others with the tender love that Jesus has for us.”
As early as the year 258, there is evidence of an already lengthy tradition of celebrating the solemnities of both Saint Peter and Saint Paul on the same day. Together, the two saints are the founders of the See of Rome, through their preaching, ministry and martyrdom.
In a sermon in the year 395, St. Augustine of Hippo said of Sts. Peter and Paul: “Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”
“I ask you, please, say a prayer for me through the intercession of Saints Peter and Paul,” Pope Francis said.
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.”
May the Good Lord bless Nicaragua, the land and its people with peace, unity, harmony and prosperity.