Pope Francis prays during his general audience on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Staff, Aug 1, 2024 / 09:21 am (CNA).
Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of August is for political leaders.
“Today, politics doesn’t have a very good reputation: corruption, scandals, and distance from people’s day-to-day lives,” Pope Francis said in a video released July 30.
“But can we move ahead toward universal fraternity without good politics? No,” he continued. “As Paul VI said, politics is one of the highest forms of charity because it seeks the common good.”
“I’m talking about POLITICS with all capital letters, not politicking. I’m talking about politics that listens to what is really going on, that’s at the service of the poor, not the kind that’s holed up in huge buildings with large hallways.”
The Holy Father explained that he’s speaking about the politics “that’s concerned about the unemployed and knows full well how sad a Sunday can be when Monday is just one more day not being able to work. If we look at it this way, politics is much more noble than it appears.”
Pope Francis encouraged the faithful to “be grateful for the many politicians who carry out their duties with a will to serve, not of power, who put all their efforts toward the common good.”
He concluded with a prayer: “Let us pray that political leaders be at the service of their own people, working for integral human development and the common good, taking care of those who have lost their jobs and giving priority to the poorest.”
Pope Francis’ prayer video is promoted by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which raises awareness of monthly papal prayer intentions.
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People visit a polling station to cast their vote during the second phase of voting on April 26, 2024, in a village in Ukhrul district, Manipur, India. / Credit: Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images
Bangalore, India, Jun 5, 2024 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
Indian … […]
Pope Francis opens the Holy Door in L’Aquila, Italy on Aug. 28, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Aug 28, 2022 / 04:15 am (CNA).
Pope Francis became the first pope in 728 years to open the Holy Door of a 13th-century basilica in L’Aquila, Italy on Sunday.
During a visit to the Italian city located about 70 miles northeast of Rome on Aug. 28, the pope participated in a centuries-old tradition, the Celestinian Forgiveness, known in Italian as the Perdonanza Celestiniana.
The opening of the Holy Door marked a key moment in the annual celebration established by Pope Celestine V in 1294.
“For centuries L’Aquila has kept alive the gift that Pope Celestine V left it. It is the privilege of reminding everyone that with mercy, and only with it, the life of every man and woman can be lived with joy,” Pope Francis said in his homily during Mass at L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio.
“To be forgiven is to experience here and now what comes closest to the resurrection. Forgiveness is passing from death to life, from the experience of anguish and guilt to that of freedom and joy. May this church always be a place where we can be reconciled, and experience that grace that puts us back on our feet and gives us another chance,” he said.
Pope Francis began the day trip at 7:50 a.m. traveling by helicopter from the Vatican to L’Aquila. He visited the city’s cathedral, which is still being rebuilt after it was badly damaged during a 2019 earthquake in which more than 300 people died.
The pope wore a hard hat while touring the reconstruction area of the damaged church. He spoke to family members of earthquake victims in the town square in front of the cathedral, where local prisoners were also present in the crowd. People cheered and waved Vatican flags as Pope Francis greeted them from a wheelchair.
Pope Francis wore a hard hat while visiting the L’Aquila cathedral, which was damaged by a 2019 earthquake. Vatican Media
Pope Francis said: “First of all I thank you for your witness of faith: despite the pain and loss, which belong to our faith as pilgrims, you have fixed your gaze on Christ, crucified and risen, who with his love redeemed the nonsense of pain and death.”
“And Jesus has placed you back in the arms of the Father, who does not let a tear fall in vain, not even one, but gathers them all in his merciful heart,” he added.
After speaking to the families of the victims, Pope Francis traveled in the popemobile to L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, where he celebrated an outdoor Mass, recited the Angelus, and opened the Holy Door.
In his brief Angelus message, the pope offered a prayer for the people of Pakistan, where flash floods have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced thousands more.
Pope Francis also asked for the intercession of the Virgin Mary to obtain “forgiveness and peace for the whole world,” mentioning Ukraine and all other places suffering from war.
Pope Francis prayed for peace in his Angelus address following Mass in L’Aquila, Italy. Pope Francis prayed for peace in his Angelus address following Mass in L’Aquila, Italy.
During his visit to L’Aquila, the pope said that he wanted the central Italian city to become a “capital of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.”
“This is how peace is built through forgiveness received and given,” he said.
L’Aquila is the burial place of Pope Celestine V, who led the Catholic Church for just five months before his resignation on Dec. 13, 1294. The pope, who was canonized in 1313, is buried in L’Aquila’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio.
In the spring, the Vatican’s announcement that Pope Francis would visit L’Aquila prompted unsourced speculation that the trip could be the prelude to the 85-year-old pope’s resignation.
When Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years in 2013, Vatican-watchers recalled that he had visited the tomb of Celestine V years earlier. During his trip on April 28, 2009, he left his pallium — the white wool vestment given to metropolitan archbishops — on the tomb. In hindsight, commentators suggested that Benedict was indicating his intention to resign.
In his homily in L’Aquila, Pope Francis praised Pope Celestine V for his humility and courage.
Mentioning Dante Alighieri’s description of Celestine as the man of “the great refusal,” Pope Francis underlined that Celestine should not be remembered as a man of “no” — for resigning the papacy — but as a man of “yes.”
Pope Francis said: “Indeed, there is no other way to accomplish God’s will than by assuming the strength of the humble, there is no other way. Precisely because they are so, the humble appear weak and losers in the eyes of men, but in reality they are the true winners, for they are the only ones who trust completely in the Lord and know his will.”
At the end of the Mass, the crowd prayed the Litany of Saints and watched as Pope Francis made history when he opened the basilica’s Holy Door. According to Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila, Pope Francis is the first pope to open the Holy Door in 728 years.
Visiting cardinals have opened the Holy Door for the Celestinian Forgiveness in past years, after a reading of the bull of forgiveness by the local mayor. Celestine donated the papal bull to L’Aquila, where it is kept in an armored chapel in the tower of the town hall.
The bull of forgiveness drawn up by Celestine V offered a plenary indulgence to all who, having confessed and repented of their sins, go to the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio from Vespers on Aug. 28 to sunset on Aug. 29. A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary, and all the saints to remove the temporal punishment due to sin.
Celestine’s indulgence was exceptional at the time, given it was available to anyone, regardless of status or wealth, and cost nothing except personal repentance at a time when indulgences were often tied to almsgiving.
Pope Francis prays at the tomb of Pope Celestine V in L’Aquila, Italy. Vatican Media
After opening the Holy Door, Pope Francis was wheeled through the basilica to the tomb of Pope Celestine V, where he spent a moment in silent prayer before the relics of his papal predecessor who was declared a saint in 1313.
“In the spirit of the world, which is dominated by pride, today’s Word of God invites us to be humble and meek. Humility does not consist in the devaluation of self, but rather in that healthy realism that makes us recognize our potential and also our miseries,” Pope Francis said.
“Starting precisely from our miseries, humility causes us to look away from ourselves and turn our gaze to God, the One who can do everything and also obtains for us what we cannot have on our own. ‘Everything is possible for those who believe (Mark 9:23).'”
The grotto at Lourdes where Our Lady appeared. / Alessio Di Cintio/CNA.
Vatican City, Feb 11, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis on Friday encouraged Catholics to ask Our Lady of Lourdes to intercede for them to have a heart more open to encou… […]
4 Comments
Do Catholics want Universal Brotherhood or Catholicism? With all due respect to the active Ministerium you occupy, you might meditate ppBXVI :
“By her nature the Church does not herself engage in politics; rather, She respects the autonomy of the state and its ordering.”
Ignatius Press, God is Love, Annexe. Introduction written by the former holder of the Papal Munus, ppBXVI.
Like all fellow mortals, politicians are human, fragile and mortal. During their brief tenure of humble service to humankind and Planet Earth, they are known to generate good and very ideas. We need to pray for their wellbeing and good health.
Yes on all points. And yet, there falls the shadow…
The problem is that even elected folks who attend to the needs of abstract “humankind” too often do not much care for real people in the concrete. The most egregious example is the Gulag. And, as for “Planet Earth,” this too has merit, but we also pray that politicians can tell the difference between responsible stewardship and an airbrush and one-world ideology.
So, too, the “service of their own people, working for integral human development and the common good.” With “integral human development” defined as the whole person [!] and all persons. And, about the elusive riddle of the rarely-defined “common good,” how to do both Solidarity AND Subsidiarity always together?
Some clues:
CLUE #1: “The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains ‘common,’ because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future” (“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” 2004, n. 164).
CLUE #2: “Catholic political philosophy asserts that in human nature is the origin of the state. Here it must be stated that ‘human nature’ should be understood in its full philosophical meaning. Human nature does not [!] mean the empirical, psychological nature as the politician or the advertising businessman sees it. The state originates in the bodily and spiritual nature of man. Nature or essence is also the end of man’s activity and striving. Therefore the political status is necessary for the fulfillment of man’s end; the state is an intentional disposition of human nature . . . the state is not a supernatural, immediately divine establishment. Yet, as originating in human nature, divinely established, the state is part and subject of the order of the Creator” (Heinrich Rommen, LL.D., The State in Catholic Thought: A Treatise in Political Philosophy (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder Book Co., 1945), 220-1.
CLUE #3: The common good “embraces the sum of those conditions of social life by which individuals, families, and groups can achieve their own fulfillment [!] in a relatively thorough and ready way” (Rommen).
Subsidiarity is not only the lower and more local levels of government, but also those communities and initiatives other than any level of government or within the domain of politicians.
July 25 I had called on the Holy Father in the CWR Extra, extra! feature of July 24, to condemn the abortion meeting the Jesuits and the Kennedys held between themselves back in the Sixites. See in the Comments in the CWR link.
I said “Correct and condemn it.” This month’s Papal intention could be the correction?
Do Catholics want Universal Brotherhood or Catholicism? With all due respect to the active Ministerium you occupy, you might meditate ppBXVI :
“By her nature the Church does not herself engage in politics; rather, She respects the autonomy of the state and its ordering.”
Ignatius Press, God is Love, Annexe. Introduction written by the former holder of the Papal Munus, ppBXVI.
Like all fellow mortals, politicians are human, fragile and mortal. During their brief tenure of humble service to humankind and Planet Earth, they are known to generate good and very ideas. We need to pray for their wellbeing and good health.
Yes on all points. And yet, there falls the shadow…
The problem is that even elected folks who attend to the needs of abstract “humankind” too often do not much care for real people in the concrete. The most egregious example is the Gulag. And, as for “Planet Earth,” this too has merit, but we also pray that politicians can tell the difference between responsible stewardship and an airbrush and one-world ideology.
So, too, the “service of their own people, working for integral human development and the common good.” With “integral human development” defined as the whole person [!] and all persons. And, about the elusive riddle of the rarely-defined “common good,” how to do both Solidarity AND Subsidiarity always together?
Some clues:
CLUE #1: “The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains ‘common,’ because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future” (“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” 2004, n. 164).
CLUE #2: “Catholic political philosophy asserts that in human nature is the origin of the state. Here it must be stated that ‘human nature’ should be understood in its full philosophical meaning. Human nature does not [!] mean the empirical, psychological nature as the politician or the advertising businessman sees it. The state originates in the bodily and spiritual nature of man. Nature or essence is also the end of man’s activity and striving. Therefore the political status is necessary for the fulfillment of man’s end; the state is an intentional disposition of human nature . . . the state is not a supernatural, immediately divine establishment. Yet, as originating in human nature, divinely established, the state is part and subject of the order of the Creator” (Heinrich Rommen, LL.D., The State in Catholic Thought: A Treatise in Political Philosophy (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder Book Co., 1945), 220-1.
CLUE #3: The common good “embraces the sum of those conditions of social life by which individuals, families, and groups can achieve their own fulfillment [!] in a relatively thorough and ready way” (Rommen).
Subsidiarity is not only the lower and more local levels of government, but also those communities and initiatives other than any level of government or within the domain of politicians.
July 25 I had called on the Holy Father in the CWR Extra, extra! feature of July 24, to condemn the abortion meeting the Jesuits and the Kennedys held between themselves back in the Sixites. See in the Comments in the CWR link.
I said “Correct and condemn it.” This month’s Papal intention could be the correction?
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/07/24/extra-extra-news-and-views-for-wednesday-july-24-2024/