Americas

Lima, Peru, Jan 17, 2018 / 04:38 pm (ACI Prensa).- Last weekend, just days before Pope Francis’ visit to Peru, a fire was set that damaged part of Cristo del Pacifico, a 120 foot tall statue located in Lima, the nation’s capital.

According to RPP News, five fire department units responded and put out the fire Jan. 13, which caused noticeable smoke damage to the back part the the statue.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”es” dir=”ltr”>Incendiaron el Cristo del Pacífico o “Cristo de lo Robado”, no sufrió daños de consideración. <a href=”https://t.co/85fqMbN0nf”>pic.twitter.com/85fqMbN0nf</a></p>&mdash; Mona Paredes (@monaparedes) <a href=”https://twitter.com/monaparedes/status/952148963485978624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>January 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

“So far the motive leading to the incident is unknown; but the theory has come up that this may have been done  because of Pope Francis’s upcoming visit,” RPP stated.

Cristo del Pacifico is a 70 feet tall sculpture set on a 50 foot base and can be seen from several areas of the capital. It was dedicated June 29, 2011.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 17, 2018 / 03:31 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Speaking to Chilean university students and academics Wednesday, Pope Francis said Catholic educational institutions play a prophetic role in helping future generations tackle problems with an integrated, inclusive approach.

“In our day, the mission entrusted to you is prophetic,” the Pope said Jan. 17 to a crowd of  some 2,400 students and academics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. “You are challenged to generate processes that enlighten contemporary culture by proposing a renewed humanism that eschews every form of reductionism.”

This prophetic role on the part of Catholic universities is a key motive in seeking out “ever new spaces for dialogue rather than confrontation,” he said.

These spaces, he added, must be occasions “of encounter rather than division, paths of friendly disagreement that allow for respectful differences between persons joined in a sincere effort to advance as a community towards a renewed national coexistence.”

The meeting marks the last event for the day, and is part of his Jan. 15-18 visit to Chile, after which he will visit Peru Jan. 18-21.

In his speech, the Pope said Chilean Saint Alberto Hurtado, SJ, who studied at the university, is a prime example of how “intelligence, academic excellence and professionalism, when joined to faith, justice and charity, far from weakening, attain a prophetic power capable of opening horizons and pointing the way, especially for those on the margins of society.”

He then noted how the rector of the university, Dr Ignacio Sánchez, had said there are “important challenges” in Chile which deal with “peaceful coexistence as a nation and the ability to progress as a community.”

On the topic of peaceful coexistence as a nation, Pope Francis said even speaking of challenges is a sign that certain situations “need to be rethought.”

“The accelerated pace and a sense of disorientation before new processes and changes in our societies call for a serene but urgent reflection that is neither naïve nor utopian, much less arbitrary,” he said.

Peace as a nation is possible to the extent that educational processes are transformative, inclusive, and favor coexistence, the Pope maintained.

This doesn’t mean simply attaching values to educational work, but rather implies means “establishing a dynamic of coexistence internal to the very system of education itself. It is not so much a question of content but of teaching how to think and reason in an integrated way.”

For this “mental formation” to happen, Francis said an “integrating literacy” is needed which can help students process the rapid changes happening in society.

This literacy, he said, must integrate know how to integrate and harmonize the various “languages” which “constitute us as persons”: the “intellect (the head), affections (the heart) and activity (the hands).”

Following this approach will allow students to grow not only on a personal level, but also at the level of society, he said, which is important since “we urgently need to create spaces where fragmentation is not the guiding principle, even for thinking. To do this, it is necessary to teach how to reflect on what we are feeling and doing; to feel what we are thinking and doing; to do what we are thinking and feeling. An interplay of capacities at the service of the person and society.”

The Pope noted the importance of the unity of knowledge against the fragmentation of fields, saying, “The ‘divorce’ of fields of learning from languages, and illiteracy with regard to integrating the distinct dimensions of life, bring only fragmentation and social breakdown.”

He noted that in our “liquid” society, borrowing a phrase from the late Polish sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, “those points of reference that people use to build themselves individually and socially are disappearing.”

“It seems that the new meeting place of today is the ‘cloud’, which is characterized by instability since everything evaporates and thus loses consistency,” he said.

The Pope said that “This lack of consistency may be one of the reasons for the loss of a consciousness of the importance of public life, which requires a minimum ability to transcend private interests (living longer and better) in order to build upon foundations that reveal that crucial dimension of our life which is ‘us’.”

“Without that consciousness, but especially without that feeling and consequently without that experience, it is very difficult to build the nation. As a result, the only thing that appears to be important and valid is what pertains to the individual, and all else becomes irrelevant. A culture of this sort has lost its memory, lost the bonds that support it and make its life possible,” he said.

“Without the ‘us’ of a people, of a family and of a nation, but also the ‘us’ of the future, of our children and of tomorrow, without the ‘us’ of a city that transcends ‘me’ and is richer than individual interests, life will be not only increasingly fragmented, but also more conflictual and violent.”

“The university, in this context, is challenged to generate within its own precincts new processes that can overcome every fragmentation of knowledge and stimulate a true universitas.”

On progressing as a community, the Pope pointed to the university’s chaplaincy program, which he said is a sign of “a young, lively Church that ‘goes forth’.”

This same mentality has to be present in universities, he said, noting that classic forms of research are now “experiencing certain limits,” which means modern-day culture requires new forms that are more inclusive “of all those who make up social and hence educational realities.”

A great challenge for the university’s community, then, “is to not isolate itself from modes of knowledge, or, for that matter, to develop a body of knowledge with minimal concern about those for whom it is intended.”

Rather, “it is vital that the acquisition of knowledge lead to an interplay between the university classroom and the wisdom of the peoples who make up this richly blessed land,” Francis said, adding that education has to extend beyond the classroom and to “be continually challenged to participation.”

Francis then pointed to the need for an education that emphasizes both quality and integration, saying the service that universities offer must always aim for excellence when it comes to national coexistence.

“In this way, we could say that the university becomes a laboratory for the future of the country, insofar as it succeeds in embodying the life and progress of the people, and can overcome every antagonistic and elitist approach to learning.”

The Pope warned against a kind of knowledge that seeks to subject nature to its own “designs and desires,” citing a warning against this from the 20th century kabbalist Gershom Scholem. He said that “to reduce creation to certain interpretative models that deprive it of the very Mystery that has moved whole generations to seek what is just, good, beautiful and true” will “will always be a subtle temptation in every academic setting.”

“Whenever a ‘professor’, by virtue of his wisdom, becomes a ‘teacher’, he is then capable of awakening wonderment in our students,” Pope Francis said. “Wonderment at the world and at an entire universe waiting to be discovered!”

The mission entrusted to the university, then, is prophetic, he said, and closed his speech asking the Holy Spirit to guide the steps of everyone present, so that the university is able continue “to bear fruit for the good of the Chilean people and for the glory of God.”

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 17, 2018 / 02:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a meeting with youth during his second full day in Chile, Pope Francis said that faith is a grand adventure, one that gives young people the inspiration to overcome difficulties and dream big.

“I know that the hearts of young Chileans dream, and that they dream big dreams, for these lands have given rise to experiences that spread and multiplied across the different countries of our continent,” he said.

“Who inspired those dreams? It was young people like yourselves, who were inspired to experience the adventure of faith,” the Pope said Jan. 17 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Carmel in Maipú, a suburb of Santiago, Chile.

“For faith excites in young people feelings of adventure, an adventure that beckons them to traverse unbelievable landscapes, rough and tough terrain,” he said, but added that young people like adventures and challenges.

Pope Francis spoke to youth during an encounter at the National Shrine of Maipú, which includes a basilica dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Patroness and Queen of Chile. The meeting took place as part of the Pope’s Jan. 15-22 apostolic visit to Chile and Peru.

Among those present was a group who took part in a 10-day missionary project earlier this month, in anticipation of Francis’ visit. The project included more than 2,500 college students, who spread out to 90 rural communities across Chile to share their faith, lead youth activities, and build chapels.

During the encounter, students presented the Pope with a flag signed by those who took part in the mission projects, as well as a scale model of a rural chapel, representing the evangelization of the peripheries of Chile.

Pope Francis said that the National Shrine where the gathering with youth took place “is a home to both heaven and earth. A home for Chile, a home for you, dear young people, where Our Lady of Carmel waits for you and welcomes you with an open heart.”

Just like she has accompanied the nation and its people over these last 200 years, she wants to accompany you and the dreams that God has placed in your hearts, he said. “Dreams of freedom, dreams of joy, dreams of a better future.”

Francis told a story about a young man who once told him about how unhappy it made him when his cell phone battery died, or when he couldn’t connect to the internet. The young man said it was because when this happens it makes him feel “shut off from the world, stuck.”

The same thing can happen in our faith: “After a while on the journey or after an initial spurt, there are moments when, without even realizing it, our ‘bandwidth’ begins to fade and we lose our connection, our power,” Pope Francis said.

“Then we become unhappy and we lose our faith, we feel depressed and listless, and we start to view everything in a bad light.”

Jesus is our internet “connection,” he continued. Without a good relationship with Jesus, we can become frustrated and annoyed, even starting to believe that nothing really matters or that nothing we do makes a difference.

“It worries me that, once they have lost their ‘connection,’ many people think they have nothing to offer; they feel lost. Never think that you have nothing to offer or that nobody cares about you. Never!” Francis emphasized.

Referencing the Chilean St. Alberto Hurtado, he said that the saint can be a good guide for young people on how to set their hearts ablaze “with the fire that keeps joy alive” – which is Jesus.

St. Alberto’s “password” for achieving happiness was to ask the question: “What would Christ do in my place?” Francis said, asking youth to type that phrase into their phones to remember to ask it on a regular basis.

He advised them to ask themselves “at school, at university, when outdoors, when at home, among friends, at work, when taunted: ‘What would Christ do in my place?’ When you go dancing, when you are playing or watching sports: ‘What would Christ do in my place?’”

The only way to commit something to heart, like a password, is by using it over and over, day after day, the Pope said. Therefore, “wherever you are, with whomever you are with, and whenever you get together,” ask yourself: “What would Jesus do?”

“The time will come when you know it by heart, and the day will come when, without realizing it, your heart will beat like Jesus’ heart.”

“Dear friends, be courageous, go out straightaway to meet your friends, people you don’t know, or those having troubles,” he encouraged.

“Go out with the only promise we have: that wherever you are…you will always be ‘connected’; there will always be a ‘power source.’ We will never be alone. We will always enjoy the company of Jesus, his Mother and a community.”

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 08:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met privately Tuesday with 6 victims of sexual abuse committed by priests in Chile, the papal spokesman has reported. The meeting had not been previously announced as a part of the Pope’s schedule.

“Today after lunch, the Holy Father met with a small group of victims of sexual abuse committed by priests, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Santiago. The meeting was strictly private, and there was no one else present: only the Pope and the victims. In this way, the were able to share their sufferings with Pope Francis, who listened to them, and prayed and cried with them,” reported Greg Burke, director of the Vatican’s press office.

At a press conference from Santiago, Burke told reporters that the meeting lasted half an hour.

The Pope’s visit to Chile has been marked by protests, including some from groups who allege a bishop appointed by the Pope covered up acts of sexual abuse committed by an influential Chilean priest.

Earlier Tuesday, during a speech to Chile’s civic authorities and diplomats, the Pontiff expressed his sorrow for the cases of abuses against minors.

“I can not help but express the pain and shame I feel at the irreparable damage caused to children by Church’s ministers. I join with my brothers in the episcopate, knowing that it is a matter of justice to ask for forgiveness, and to support the victims with all our strength. At the same time we must work so that it does not happen again,” he said at the event.

Later, in the afternoon, the Pontiff conveyed solidarity with priests and religious who, he said, suffer insults and misunderstandings because of the abuses committed by some ministers of the Church.

“I know that at times you have been insulted in the metro or walking on the street, and that by going around in clerical attire in many places you pay a heavy price. For this reason, I suggest that we ask God to grant us the clear-sightedness to call reality by its name, the strength to seek forgiveness and the ability to listen to what he tells us,” the Pope said.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 02:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis reminded the Chilean bishops of the importance of living out their priestly fatherhood united in mission with their people in his final address on Tuesday, the first full day of his apostolic trip to Chile and Peru.

“Stay close to your priests, like Saint Joseph, with a fatherhood that helps them to grow and to develop the charisms that the Holy Spirit has wished to pour out,” the Pope said Jan. 16 in the sacristy of the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral.

He began his address by greeting Archbishop Bernardino Piñera Carvallo, who at 102 is the oldest bishop in the world. He is Archbishop Emeritus of La Serena and has been retired since 1990. Piñera was ordained a priest in 1947. He was consecrated a bishop in 1958, and attended the Second Vatican Council. The Pope called him a “marvellous living memory.”

In his address, Pope Francis stressed the importance of unity, especially at a time when secular individualism leaves many feeling isolated and alone: “One of the problems facing our societies today is the sense of being orphaned, the feeling of not belonging to anyone. This ‘post-modern’ feeling can seep into us and into our clergy. We begin to think that we belong to no one; we forget that we are part of God’s holy and faithful people.”

Pope Francis warned the bishops that they are not immune to this individualistic postmodern temptation, particularly in the form of clericalism, the narrow view of the Church as only “an elite of consecrated men and women, priests and bishops.”

“The mission belongs to the entire Church, and not to the individual priest or bishop,” said Pope Francis, stressing that clericalism poses the risk of stifling “the initiatives that the Spirit may be awakening in our midst.”

The Pope emphasized that seminaries must prepare future priests to avoid clericalism and for the challenges of postmodern secularism, saying, “Tomorrow’s priests must be trained with a view to the future, since their ministry will be carried out in a secularized world. This in turn demands that we pastors discern how best to prepare them for carrying out their mission in these concrete circumstances and not in our ‘ideal worlds or situations’.”

The mission of today’s seminarians is to be “carried out in fraternal unity with the whole People of God,” he said. “Side by side, supporting and encouraging the laity in a climate of discernment and synodality, two of the essential features of the priest of tomorrow. Let us say no to clericalism and to ideal worlds that are only part of our thinking, but touch the life of no one.”

He added that the bishops must “beg and implore” from the Holy Spirit “the gift of dreaming and working for a missionary and prophetic option capable of transforming everything, so that our customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and ecclesial structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelization of Chile rather than for ecclesiastical self-preservation. Let us not be afraid to strip ourselves of everything that separates us from the missionary mandate.”

With this address to bishops, Pope Francis ended the public portion of the first full day of his Jan. 15-22 apostolic trip to Chile and Peru.

He had earlier met also with Chile’s civil leaders, whom he asked forgiveness on behalf of the Church for the sexual abuse scandals among the country’s clerics; female prisoners; priests and religious; and the country’s bishops.

The Pope will spend two more days in Chile visiting Santiago, Temuco, and Iquique before he heads off to Peru.

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 02:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Tuesday that even amid the pain which results from sinfulness, the Church can still serve the world if she acknowledges the reality of her woundedness and puts Christ and his mercy at the center of all things.

“We are not asked to ignore or hide our wounds. A Church with wounds can understand the wounds of today’s world and make them her own, suffering with them, accompanying them and seeking to heal them,” the Pope said Jan. 16 at the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral in Santiago, Chile.

“A wounded Church does not make herself the center of things, does not believe that she is perfect, but puts at the center the one who can heal those wounds, whose name is Jesus Christ.”

Pope Francis spoke during an encounter with priests, deacons, religious men and women, consecrated, and seminarians, where he was welcomed by Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of Santiago.  The meeting took place as part of the Pope’s Jan. 15-22 apostolic visit to Chile and Peru.

Cardinal Ezzati reflected that “presbyteral and consecrated life in Chile have and do endure difficult times of turbulence,” and that while many have been faithful, “the weeds of evil have also grown, and their consequence of scandal and desertion.” He thanked Pope Francis for “your words which denounce sin and lukewarmness and, at the same time, your continuous calls to live the beauty of the election and the apostolic dedication of the consecrated vocation.”

Pope Francis said that it doesn’t help to try to hide wounds and sins: “whether we like it or not, we are called to face reality as it is – our own personal reality and the reality of our communities and societies.”

Even St. Peter had to acknowledge that he “was a sinner like everyone else, as needy as the others, as frail as anyone else,” Francis emphasized. “As disciples, as a Church, we can have the same experience: there are moments when we have to face not our success but our weakness.”

What made St. Peter an apostle? What makes us apostles? he asked. One thing alone: that we have received the mercy of Christ.

Francis outlined three moments in the Gospels where we can learn from St. Peter, even as imperfect and sinful people, to bring Christ to the world. These three moments the Pope called Peter disheartened, Peter shown mercy, and Peter transfigured.

Before the resurrection, but following Christ’s passion, St. Peter and the other apostles were “dismayed and confused,” Francis said. “These are the hours of dismay and confusion in the life of the disciple,” he said.

He pointed to the child sexual abuse scandal that has occurred within Chile as a “time of upheaval,” saying he is attentive to what priests, consecrated, and religious are doing “to respond to this great and painful evil.”

It is particularly painful, he said, “because of the harm and sufferings of the victims and their families, who saw the trust they had placed in the Church’s ministers betrayed. Painful too for the suffering of ecclesial communities, but also painful for you, brothers and sisters, who, after working so hard, have seen the harm that has led to suspicion and questioning; in some or many of you this has been a source of doubt, fear or a lack of confidence.”

“I know that at times you have been insulted in the metro or walking on the street, and that by going around in clerical attire in many places you pay a heavy price. For this reason, I suggest that we ask God to grant us the clear-sightedness to call reality by its name, the strength to seek forgiveness and the ability to listen to what he tells us,” he stated.

The Church in both Chile and Peru has faced major fallout from sexual abuse scandals in recent years, which have damaged the Church’s image and created a strong distrust of the hierarchy.

The major case in Chile is that of Fr. Fernando Karadima, who once led a lay movement from his parish in El Bosque. He was found guilty of sexually abusing minors in 2011 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He then addressed the changes Chilean society has seen since his youth: “New and different cultural expressions are being born which do not fit into our familiar patterns.”

“We can yield to the temptation of becoming closed, isolating ourselves and defending our ways of seeing things, which then turn out as nothing more than fine monologues,” he said. “We can be tempted to think that everything is wrong, and in place of ‘good news’, the only thing we profess is apathy and disappointment. As a result, we shut our eyes to the pastoral challenges, thinking that the Spirit has nothing to say about them. In this way, we forget that the Gospel is a journey of conversion, not just for ‘others’ but for ourselves as well.”

The Pope stated, “Whether we like it or not, we are called to face reality as it is – our own personal reality and the reality of our communities and societies.”

Turning to “Peter shown mercy,” he discussed St. Peter’s encounter with the risen Christ: “It is time for Peter to have to confront a part of himself. The part of him that many times he didn’t want to see. He experienced his limitation, his frailty and his sinfulness. Peter, the temperamental, impulsive leader and saviour, self-sufficient and over-confident in himself and in his possibilities, had to acknowledge his weakness and sin. He was a sinner like everyone else, as needy as the others, as frail as anyone else … It is a crucial moment in Peter’s life.”

“As disciples, as Church, we can have the same experience: there are moments when we have to face not our success but our weakness,” the Pope said.

When Christ takes St. Peter aside to ask him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” he is trying to save him, the Pope said, “from the danger of remaining closed in on his sin, constantly dwelling with remorse on his frailty, the danger of giving up.”

Christ wants to free St. Peter “from seeing his opponents as enemies and being upset by opposition and criticism. He wants to free him from being downcast and, above all, negative. By his question, Jesus asks Peter to listen to his heart and to learn how to discern.”

The Lord “questioned Peter about love and kept asking until Peter could give him a realistic response: ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’. In this way, Jesus confirms him in his mission.”

The reception of mercy is what confirmed St. Peter as an apostle, Pope Francis said. “We are not superheroes who stoop down from the heights to encounter mere mortals. Rather, we are sent as men and women conscious of having been forgiven. That is the source of our joy … A consecrated man or woman sees his or her wounds as signs of the resurrection; who sees in the wounds of this world the power of the resurrection; who, like Jesus, does not meet his brothers and sisters with reproach and condemnation,” he said.

Reflecting on how the risen Christ appeared with his wounds, which indeed “enabled Thomas to profess his faith,” the Pope said, “We are not asked to ignore or hide our wounds. A Church with wounds can understand the wounds of today’s world and make them her own, suffering with them, accompanying them and seeking to heal them. A wounded Church does not make herself the centre of things, does not believe that she is perfect, but puts at the centre the one who can heal those wounds, whose name is Jesus Christ.”

“The knowledge that we are wounded sets us free. Yes, it sets us free from becoming self-referential and thinking ourselves superior” and from a “promethean tendency,” he stated.

“In Jesus, our wounds are risen. They inspire solidarity; they help us to tear down the walls that enclose us in elitism and they impel us to build bridges and to encounter all those yearning for that merciful love which Christ alone can give.”

Pope Francis reflected: “I am concerned when I see communities more worried about their image, about occupying spaces, about appearances and publicity, than about going out to touch the suffering of our faithful people.”

He then quoted the words of St. Alberto Hurtado, a Chilean Jesuit of the mid-20th century who was involved in Catholic Action: “All those methods will fail that are imposed by uniformity, that try to bring us to God by making us forget about our brothers and sisters, that make us close our eyes to the universe rather than teaching us to open them and raise all things to the Creator of all, that make us selfish and close us in on ourselves.”

The Pope explained that “God’s people neither expect nor need us to be superheroes. They expect pastors, consecrated persons, who know what it is to be compassionate, who can give a helping hand, who can spend time with those who have fallen and, like Jesus, help them to break out of that endless remorse that poisons the soul.”

Pope Francis finally turned to “Peter transfigured.”

St. Peter experienced the “wound of sin” but “learned from Jesus that his wounds could be a path of resurrection.”

 But “to know both Peter disheartened and Peter transfigured is an invitation to pass from being a Church of the unhappy and disheartened to a Church that serves all those people who are unhappy and disheartened in our midst.”

“To renew prophecy is to renew our commitment not to expect an ideal world, an ideal community, or an ideal disciple in order to be able to live and evangelize, but rather to make it possible for every disheartened person to encounter Jesus,” he said. “One does not love ideal situations or ideal communities; one loves persons.”

A “frank, sorrowful and prayerful recognition of our limitations” makes us able to return to Christ, Pope Francis said.

“How good it is for all of us to let Jesus renew our hearts.”

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 12:55 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis visited a women’s prison in Santiago on Tuesday, telling the inmates that while at times it might seem like they have no future, they must never stop dreaming and should look for opportunities for personal growth.

“Losing our freedom does not mean losing our dreams and hopes. Losing our freedom is not the same thing as losing our dignity,” the Pope said Jan. 16.

Because of this, he stressed the need to reject all of the “petty clichés” that tell us “we can’t change, that it’s not worth trying, that nothing will make a difference.”

“No, dear sisters! Some things do make a difference,” he said. “All those efforts we make to build for a better future – even if often it seems they just go down the drain – all of them will surely bear fruit and be rewarded.”

Pope Francis spoke to inmates at the San Joaquin women’s prison in Santiago, which was founded by religious sisters from the Congregation of the Good Shepherd.

Established in 1864 and entrusted to the sisters in 1996, the prison until 1980 had no more than 160 inmates. However, with the increase in drug trafficking and the use of narcotics, by 2000 the prison had around 1,400 inmates.

Today the prison, which has 885 spaces available, houses nearly 45 percent of all female inmates in Chile.

Francis visited the prison on his first full day in Santiago, which is part of a Jan. 15-22 visit to Chile and Peru. He gave the penitentiary a ceramic bas-relief of Our Lady from Italy.

During the encounter, he heard the testimony of Sister Nelly León, who is in charge of pastoral outreach in the prison and who lamented that the poor are disproportionately incarcerated in Chile.

He also listened to one of the inmates, Janeth Zurita, who asked forgiveness of those who have been harmed by the wrongs the imprisoned have done and spoke about the suffering of the children of inmates. “May God have mercy on all the childen whose parents are prisoners, because they have a punishment we gave them, without willing it,” she said. Zurita also asked that “we may be able to repay our debt to society without being separated from our childen.”

In his address, the Pope thanked Zurita for “coming forward and sharing your hurt with all of us, and for your courageous request for forgiveness.”

“How much we all have to learn from your act of courage and humility,” he said, and also thanked Zurita for her words on forgiveness, which serve as a reminder “that without this attitude we lose our humanity.”

He noted how many of the women at the prison are mothers, and therefore know what it means to take on a new life and bring it into the world.

“Motherhood is not, and never will be a problem. It is a gift, and one of the most wonderful gifts you can ever have,” he said, noting that in their position, the women face the very real and unique challenge of caring for the life they have created.

“You are asked to care for the future. To make it grow and to help it to develop,” he said, adding that as women, “you have an incredible ability to adapt to new circumstances and move forward.”

Children themselves are a source of strength and incentive for the future, he said, explaining that their presence is also a reminder that life must be lived for the future, and not stuck in the past.

“Today your freedom has been taken away, but that is not the last word. Not at all,” he said, and told the women to “keep looking forward. Look ahead to the day when you will return to life in society.”

Pointing to the Gospel passage in Mark in which Christ is laughed at for saying the daughter of a synagogue leader was not dead but merely asleep, the Pope said Christ “pays no attention to ridicule and never gives up,” but rather takes our hand and tells us to get up, just as he did for the little girl.

Sadly, he noted that a jail sentence can seem like just a punishment with no opportunities for personal growth. “This is not good,” he said, explaining that initiatives aimed at job training and the restoration of relationships are “signs of hope for the future.”
 
“Let us help them to grow,” he said, adding that “public order must not be reduced to stronger security measures, but should be concerned primarily with preventive measures, such as work, education, and greater community involvement.”

Francis closed his address saying life itself blooms and shows its beauty when we work hand-in-hand to make things better and open the door to “open up new possibilities.”

He greeted all those who work and volunteer at the prison, who carry out “sensitive and complex” tasks. He also spoke to the authorities at the prison, asking them to provide “the conditions needed to carry out your work with dignity. A dignity that engenders dignity.”

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 11:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As Pope Francis began his visit to Chile, a Vatican spokesman has voiced “maximum respect” for the rights of protesters continuing their three-year opposition to a bishop’s appointment, but the Pope will not meet with them.
 
The subject of the protests, Bishop Juan Barros Madrid of Osorno, has repeated explanations that he did not know his longtime friend Father Fernando Karadima was a sexual abuser, despite the claims of protesters alleging that Barros helped cover up Karadima’s abuse.
 
“I never knew anything about, nor ever imagined the serious abuses which that priest committed against the victims,” Bishop Barros told the Associated Press. “I have never approved of nor participated in such serious dishonest acts and I have never been convicted by any tribunal of such things.”
 
In January 2015 the Pope named Bishop Barros to head the Diocese of Osorno in southern Chile. The appointment drew objections and a call for his resignation from several priests. Dozens of protesters, including non-Catholics, attempted to disrupt his March 21, 2015 installation Mass at the Osorno cathedral.

 Days later, Archbishop Fernando Chomali Garib of Concepcion said that Pope Francis had told him that there was “no objective reason at all” that the bishop should not be installed. The pontiff had been kept up-to-date on the situation.

On March 31, 2015, the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops also released a statement, saying that the office had “carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”
 
The then-apostolic nuncio to Chile, Archbishop Ivo Scapolo, said that all information about Barros was passed on to Pope Francis. Most of the people in the church were not protesters, but “people who love their bishop,” the nuncio said.
 
Decades previously, Bishop Barros had been a close friend to Father Fernando Karadima, an influential Santiago-area priest who fostered the vocations of about 40 priests, including Barros.
 
When reports of sexual abuse and other scandal surrounding Karadima surfaced, Bishop Barros was among the prelates who did not believe the accusations. A civil lawsuit against the priest was dismissed on the grounds that his alleged behavior was beyond the statute of limitations.
 
In February 2011, however, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith finished its investigation with the conclusion that the priest was guilty. At the age of 84, Karadima was sent to a life of solitude and prayer.
 
Bishop Barros said he had already been distancing himself from the priest before allegations surfaced, because he had become “ill-tempered.”
 
“The pain of the victims hurts me enormously, I pray for those that carry this pain with them today,” he said in a 2015 letter to the faithful of the Diocese of Osorno ahead of his installation.
 
On May 6, 2015, five months after Barros was appointed to lead the Diocese of Osorno, Deacon Jaime Coiro, general secretary of the Chilean episcopal conference, told Pope Francis that the Church in Osorno “is praying and suffering for you.”

“Osorno suffers, yes,” Pope Francis said, “for silliness.”

“The only accusation against that bishop was discredited by the judicial court,” the Pope told Coiro, according to a video of the conversation released by Chile’s Ahora Noticias.

“Think with your head, and do not be carried away by the noses of the leftists, who are the ones who put this thing together,” the Pope added.

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Three of Karadima’s victims have accused Barros of covering up for the priest, an allegation not supported by the Vatican investigation. The most well-known of these accusers, former seminarian Juan Carlos Cruz, lives in the U.S. and has served as a leading communications executive for the DuPont company.
 
Cruz charged that Karadima sexually abused him in the 1980s and claimed that Barros and other bishops trained by Karadima were aware of the abuse and even witnessed it, the Associated Press says.
 
On Jan. 11 the Associated Press said a confidential letter from the Pope to the Chilean bishops’ conference, dated Jan. 31, 2015, acknowledged some Chilean bishops’ concerns about the appointment. The Pope reportedly said that the apostolic nuncio in 2014 had asked Barros to resign as bishop to Chile’s armed forces and to take a sabbatical before assuming any other responsibility as a bishop.
 
The Pope’s letter said Barros was informed that similar approach was planned for two other bishops trained by Karadima, but the bishop was not to share this information. Barros allegedly created “a serious problem” when he named these two bishops in his letter stepping down as military bishop and “blocked any eventual path” to remove these bishops from controversy.
 
Burke, the Vatican spokesman, declined to comment to the AP regarding the Pope’s 2015 letter. For his part, Barros said he knew nothing of the letter.
 
Pope Francis is visiting Chile and Peru during a trip spanning Jan. 15-22. The papal visit to Chile has drawn some violent opposition.
 
At least six Catholic churches in the country were attacked in apparent protest of the visit.

Three Catholic churches in the capital of Santiago were attacked or vandalized by unknown assailants Jan. 12. A firebomb at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Santiago’s Estación Central district included a death threat against the Pope.
 
“Pope Francis, the next bombs will be in your cassock,” said a pamphlet left behind.
 
Two other chapels in the city also suffered damage, including broken windows and doors.
 
Other pamphlets left behind appeared to object to the Church, saying “We will never submit to the dominion they want to exercise over our bodies, our ideas and actions because we were born free to decide the path we want to take.” The messages appeared to support “autonomy and resistance” for the Mapuche, the largest indigenous group in the country. Many Mapuche live in the Aurancia region, where Pope Francis will visit.
 
Since Chile’s 19th-century military conquest that incorporated the region, many Mapuche communities have sought the return of ancestral lands, respect for their cultural identity, and sometimes autonomy.
 
A fourth church – Christ the Poor Man Shrine – was targeted by a bomb threat and was subsequently investigated by a bomb squad. Some evangelical Protestant churches were also targeted.
 
The morning after the attacks, a group of protesters stormed Chile’s apostolic nunciature before police arrived and evicted them.
 
Roxana Miranda, head of an activist group that protest high mortgage rates, claimed responsibility for the protest and said it was motivated by objections to the cost of the Pope’s visit to the country.

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 16, 2018 / 05:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In the first official encounter of his apostolic visit to Chile, Pope Francis expressed his shame and sorrow for the child sexual abuse crisis that occurred at the hands of clergy of the Catholic Church.  

“I feel bound to express my pain and shame at the irreparable damage caused to children by some ministers of the Church,” the Pope said Jan. 16.

Speaking to the country’s civil leaders, he said “I am one with my brother bishops, for it is right to ask for forgiveness and make every effort to support the victims, even as we commit ourselves to ensuring that such things do not happen again.”

The Church in both Chile and Peru has faced strong fallout from sexual abuse scandals, which have damaged the Church’s image and created a strong distrust of the hierarchy.

The major case in Chile is that of Fr. Fernando Karadima, who once led a lay movement from his parish in El Bosque. He was found guilty of sexually abusing minors in 2011.

The Pope’s meeting with the Chilean authorities, civil society, and diplomatic corps, was his first official encounter during his apostolic trip to Chile and Peru Jan. 15-22.

He will be in Chile through Jan. 18, visiting Santiago, Temuco, and Iquique. During the visit he will have lunch with the Mapuche residents of the Araucania region, and visit the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

From Chile he will go to Peru, visiting Lima, Puerto Maldonado, and Trujillo. He will meet with indigenous Amazonians and pray before the relics of Peruvian saints before returning to Rome Jan. 22.

In his speech the Pope said that the future of Chile depends on the ability of both its people and leaders to listen to one another, preserving the country’s ethnic, cultural and historical diversity from “all partisan spirit or attempts at domination,” which threaten the common good.

He enumerated the different groups of people he believes most need to be listened to: children, the unemployed, native peoples, migrants, youth, and the elderly.

“It is necessary to listen,” he said. “To listen to the native peoples, often forgotten, whose rights and culture need to be protected lest that part of this nation’s identity and richness be lost.” As well as migrants, who come to this country in search of a better life.

We should also listen to young people and their desire for greater opportunities, he continued, especially in education, “so that they can take active part in building the Chile they dream of.”

Quoting the Te Deum homily of deceased Chilean Cardinal Silva Henríquez, the Pope said that “We – all of us – are builders of the most beautiful work: our homeland. The earthly homeland that prefigures and prepares the (heavenly) homeland that has no borders.”

The Pope encouraged people to strive to make Chile a place that welcomes everyone, and where everyone feels called to join in helping to build up the nation.

“Yours is a great and exciting challenge: to continue working to make this democracy, as your forebears dreamed, beyond its formal aspects, a true place of encounter for all,” Francis said.

He quoted the words of St. Alberto Hurtado, a Chilean Jesuit who died in 1952 and was canonized in 2005, who said: “A nation, more than its borders, more than its land, its mountain ranges, its seas, more than its language or its traditions, is a mission to be fulfilled.”

A visit to the saint’s shrine is part of the Pope’s schedule at the end of the day, during a private meeting he’ll have with local Jesuits.

“Each new generation must take up the struggles and attainments of past generations, while setting its own sights even higher,” he said. “Goodness, together with love, justice and solidarity, are not achieved once and for all; they have to be realized each day.”

“It is not possible to settle for what was achieved in the past and complacently enjoy it, as if we could somehow ignore the fact that many of our brothers and sisters still endure situations of injustice that none of us can ignore.”

[…]

Aboard the papal plane, Jan 15, 2018 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- En route from Italy to Chile on Monday, Pope Francis told journalists of his concerns about war, and especially the use of nuclear weapons, giving each of them a photo of a child in Nagasaki.

On the back of the photo is printed “the fruits of war”, and it is signed by Pope Francis.

“I was moved when I saw this photo, and I dared to write only ‘the fruits of war’. I thought of printing it to distribute it because it is more moving than 1,000 words,” the Pope told journalists Jan. 15.

The photo is of a boy carrying the body of his brother while in line at a crematorium in Nagasaki in the wake of the Aug. 9, 1945 atomic bombing of the city by the US.

Pope Francis made his remarks at the beginning of the nearly 16 hour flight.

He also noted that he studied in Chile for a year and knows the country well. He will also be visiting Peru, where he has visited two or three times.

The Pope will be in Chile through Jan. 18, visiting Santiago, Temuco, and Iquique. He will have lunch with the Mapuche residents of the Araucania region, and visit the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

From Chile he will go to Peru, visiting Lima, Puerto Maldonado, and Trujillo. He will meet with indigenous Amazonians and pray before the relics of Peruvian saints before returning to Rome Jan. 22.

[…]