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Pope Francis speaks at the 50th annual Social Week of Catholics in Trieste, Italy, on the morning of July 7, 2024. At his arrival in the northern Italian city, he was greeted by Archbishop Luigi Renna, president of the organizing committee (R), and Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the Italian bishops’ conference (L). / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Jul 7, 2024 / 08:06 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday urged Catholics to share their faith in the public square, and to combat political polarization by supporting person-centered democracy.
“Let us not be fooled by easy solutions. Let us instead get passionate about the common good,” he said at a Catholic conference on democracy in the northern Italian city of Trieste July 7.
Francis participated in the last morning of the 50th Social Week of Catholics, an annual meeting of the Catholic Church in Italy aimed at promoting the social doctrine of the Church. The theme of the July 3-7 congress was “At the Heart of Democracy: Participate between History and the Future.”
In his speech, the pope spoke strongly of the importance of democracy — encouraging participation over partisanship, and comparing ideologies to “seductresses.”
“As Catholics, on this horizon, we cannot be satisfied with a marginal or private faith,” the pope said before around 1,200 conference participants at the Generali Convention Center. “This means not so much to be heard, but above all to have the courage to make proposals for justice and peace in the public debate.”
“We have something to say, but not to defend privileges. No. We need to be a voice, a voice that denounces and proposes in a society that is often mute and where too many have no voice.”
“This is political love,” Francis underlined, adding that “it is a form of charity that allows politics to live up to its responsibilities and get out of polarizations, these polarizations that impoverish and do not help understand and address the challenges.”
The Social Week of Catholics congress was held in Trieste, a port city located on a narrow strip of Italian territory in the country’s far northeastern point, bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia.
Pope Francis arrived in Trieste by helicopter from the Vatican in the early morning July 7. After addressing congress delegates from across Italy, he met briefly with representatives of other Christian traditions and with a group of immigrants and people with disabilities.
The pope then celebrated Mass for an estimated 8,500 Catholics in Trieste’s Unità d’Italia Square before again boarding a helicopter to return to the Vatican.
In speaking about the Christian vision of democracy, the pontiff quoted a 1988 pastoral note from the Italian bishops, which said democracy is meant, “to give meaning to everyone’s commitment to the transformation of society; to give attention to the people who remain outside or on the margins of winning economic processes and mechanisms; to give space to social solidarity in all its forms; to give support to the return of a solicitous ethic of the common good […]; to give meaning to the development of the country, understood […] as an overall improvement in the quality of life, collective coexistence, democratic participation, and authentic freedom.”
“This vision, rooted in the Social Doctrine of the Church,” Pope Francis said, applies “not only to the Italian context, but represent a warning for the whole of human society and for the journey of all peoples.”
“In fact, just as the crisis of democracy cuts across different realities and nations, in the same way the attitude of responsibility towards social transformations is a call addressed to all Christians, wherever they find themselves living and working, in every part of the world,” he added.
The pope also emphasized the importance of combating a culture of waste, as exhibited by a self-referential power “incapable of listening and serving people.”
He recalled the importance of the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity and condemned a certain attitude of “welfare-ism” that does not recognize the dignity of people, calling it “social hypocrisy.”
“Everyone must feel part of a community project; no one must feel worthless,” he said.
“Abortion isn’t wrong because the Catholic Church says it’s wrong,” Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, pointed out. “The Catholic Church says it’s wrong because it’s inherently wrong.” / Credit: “EWTN News Nightly”/Screenshot
CNA Staff, Jul 6, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
As the 2024 U.S. presidential election heats up, a Wisconsin bishop is calling on President Joe Biden to consider “the dignity of life” while other Wisconsin Catholics are also voicing their support for the pro-life cause.
“Our goal is certainly that every one of our parishes has people equipped, informed to receive, to welcome, to accompany, and to really practically help both women and men that find themselves in crisis pregnancy or crisis parenthood,” Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, told EWTN News correspondent Owen Jensen.
When asked what he would say to Catholic president Biden, Hying responded: “I would say, Mr. President, we invite you to look at what the Church says about the dignity of life.”
“It’s important to point out that abortion isn’t wrong because the Catholic Church says it’s wrong,” Hying continued. “The Catholic Church says it’s wrong because it’s inherently wrong.”
Wisconsin pro-life advocates are awaiting a state court decision on an 1849 abortion law protecting unborn children. The legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, Matt Sande, voiced concern about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court’s current makeup, calling the court, which has a liberal majority of 4-3, “radicalized.”
“Not only are we looking at them ruling 940.04, our abortion ban, unenforceable, overturning it, they could be looking to find a right to abortion in our state constitution,” he told Jensen on “EWTN News Nightly.”
Tom Usle, the northern regional manager of Students for Life, noted that now is the time to “step up” for the right to life.
“It’s a battleground state, to be sure,” Usle said. “But we also see just more and more people are really coming to the realization that it is on us now to step up.”
“We no longer have the excuse of: ‘Roe’ is in the way, we can’t do anything about abortion,” he said. “Now is the time that we really do have the power.”
A pro-life student in Milwaukee credited adoption with saving her life from abortion.
“All glory be to God that I was kept and able to live given the chance at life,” Isabelle Thompson told Jensen.
Thompson, who is Catholic, gave advice for expectant mothers who may be considering abortion.
“A pregnancy that you’ll go through is nine months of your life, and that’s hard to give that up, even if you’re not going to keep that child — especially if you’re not going to keep that child,” she said. “That’s a hard nine months to give of your life, but that’s nine months as opposed to a child’s entire life that could be gone.”
To her biological mother who put her up for adoption years ago, Thompson said: “Just thank you. Not only for giving me life, but you gave my parents a child, something that they couldn’t have. Adoption is one of their greatest blessings.”
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