Pope Francis meets with Eastern Orthodox priests and monks on Feb. 6, 2025, at his Santa Marta home in the Vatican instead of in the Apostolic Palace as planned. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Feb 6, 2025 / 12:30 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis will hold the next few days of meetings in rooms at his Vatican residence while sick with bronchitis, the Vatican said Thursday.
“Due to bronchitis, from which he is suffering at this time, and in order to continue his activities, on Friday, Feb. 7, and Saturday, Feb. 8, Pope Francis’ audiences will be held at Casa Santa Marta,” the Feb. 6 message from the Holy See Press Office said.
The 88-year-old Francis’ meetings with an association of Italian midwives and with Eastern Orthodox priests and monks on Feb. 6 were also held at his Santa Marta home instead of the Apostolic Palace as planned. The pope also did not read aloud his prepared speeches for those audiences.
Due to the light illness, the day prior, the pope had an aide to read his catechesis at his weekly public audience in the Paul VI Hall.
Pope Francis also kept his schedule while remaining indoors when he had a cold right before Christmas. His Angelus prayer and message on Dec. 22, 2024, were livestreamed from the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta.
The pope, who has been suffering from visible breathlessness during recent meetings, has more and more frequently declined to read his prepared remarks to audiences or opted to have the remarks read by a priest aide.
He has faced several health challenges in recent years, including knee problems requiring a wheelchair, respiratory infections, and a fall resulting in a forearm contusion.
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Pope Francis celebrates the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Mar 29, 2024 / 15:20 pm (CNA).
During the Good Friday liturgy at the Vatican, presided over by Pope Francis, the papal preacher reflected on the triumph of the cross, noting that it is an event that changed the universal perception of God’s omnipotence, revealing his humility.
“The true omnipotence of God is the total powerlessness of Calvary,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap., said during his homily.
Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
At approximately 5 p.m. Rome time, Pope Francis made his way into Saint Peter’s Basilica, in a wheelchair, vested in a red chasuble. Cast against the backdrop of complete and palpable silence, the Holy Father paused in meditation before the Papal Altar underneath Bernini’s Baldacchino (covered in scaffolding for its restoration), while the congregation knelt.
For the past several years the pope has been unable to lay prostrate due to his fragile health, which includes persistent knee problems and several bouts of pulmonary inflammation.
After the chanting of the passion from the Gospel of John, Cantalamessa — who was made a cardinal in 2020 after more than 40 years as Preacher of the Papal Household — opened his homily reflecting on Christ’s self-affirmation of “I am,” words he said come without any qualification and carry “an absolute, metaphysical significance” and is an “unprecedented novelty.”
“Jesus did not come to retouch and perfect the idea that men had of him God, but, in a certain sense, to overturn it and reveal the true face of God,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. said during his homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
The cardinal stressed that this new paradigm can only be understood by looking at Christ’s preceding words heard in the passion: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man.”
Observing that “to be lifted up” refers to the crucifixion, the cardinal noted that the sum of these words express a “total reversal of the human idea of God,” revealing “the true face of God.”
“Jesus did not come to retouch and perfect the idea that men had of him, but, in a certain sense, to overturn it and reveal the true face of God,” he said. ““He humbly behaves in the glory of the resurrection as in the annihilation of Calvary. The concern of the risen Jesus is not to confuse his enemies, but to immediately go and reassure his lost disciples and, before them, the women who had never stopped believing in him.”
“The true omnipotence of God is the total powerlessness of Calvary,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. said during his homily at the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
“Understood in this light,” Cantalamessa continued, “the word of Christ takes on a universal significance that challenges those who read it, in any era and situation, including ours.”
The cardinal warned not to conflate God’s omnipotence, and the “definitive and irreversible triumph” of the cross with temporal triumphs, as God’s triumph showcases humility.
“It takes little power to show off,” the cardinal noted, “Instead, it takes a lot to step aside, to cancel. God is this limitless power of self-concealment.”
“The resurrection takes place in the mystery,” he continued. “As a resurrected one, Jesus appears only to a few disciples, out of the spotlight. With this he wanted to tell us that after suffering, we must not expect an external, visible triumph, like an earthly glory.”
Pope Francis celebrates the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. March 29, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
At the end of Cantalamessa’s homily, the faithful sat in a moment of deep silence and reflection. This was followed by the reading of the Oratio Universalis, the universal prayer also known as the Solemn Intercessions.
Then, a deacon, flanked by two candle bearers, stopped at three separate points in the central nave of the basilica, proclaiming, with an increasing pitch, “Ecce lignum crucis” (“behold the wood of the cross”). After the third proclamation, the deacon, holding an unveiled crucifix, brought it to the papal chair for the pope’s veneration.
Once the crucifix was fixed in a central place, the Sistine Chapel Choir chanted the Improperia, or the Good Friday Reproaches, a series of antiphons sung in alternating manner between a cantor and the choir. The cardinals, who sat opposite the pope, filed in line to kneel before and kiss the crucifix.
After the final prayer over the people, the pope left the basilica just as he entered: solemn, and in silence.
Pope Francis meets with Vatican journalists on Nov. 13, 2021. / Vatican Media/CNA
Vatican City, Nov 13, 2021 / 11:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis told Vatican journalists on Saturday to remember that the Catholic Church is not a political organizatio… […]
1 Comment
I like Pope Francis. I agree with him a lot. That said, he is 88 years old and has serious health problems. I wonder if it might be prudent for him to step down at 90?
I like Pope Francis. I agree with him a lot. That said, he is 88 years old and has serious health problems. I wonder if it might be prudent for him to step down at 90?