A Caritas Poland ‘Tent of Hope’ in Krościenko, southern Poland. / Caritas Poland.
Warsaw, Poland, Mar 22, 2022 / 06:45 am (CNA).
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Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. / Quirinale.it/President.gov.ua via Wikimedia.
Rome Newsroom, Mar 22, 2022 / 05:55 am (CNA).
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he had spoken to Pope Francis on… […]
Blessed Alexandrina of Balazar / Hogar de la Madre
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Children shelter in a basement in Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine, amid Russian bombardment on March 5, 2022. / Vladyslav Babenko via Shutterstock.
Kyiv, Ukraine, Mar 21, 2022 / 07:30 am (CNA).
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church acc… […]
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in a 2021 file photo. / Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 20, 2022 / 10:30 am (CNA).
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will join with Pope Francis and the bishops of the world in praying… […]
Pope Francis, during his Angelus address on March 20, 2022, called on the world’s leaders to end the “abhorrent” war in Ukraine. / Vatican Media
Boston, Mass., Mar 20, 2022 / 08:34 am (CNA).
Jesus implores us not to blame God for misfortunes and points us instead to conversion as a solution to evils which oppress us, Pope Francis said Sunday.
“We must be careful: When evil oppresses us, we risk losing our clarity and, to find an easy answer to what we are unable to explain, we end up putting the blame on God,” Pope Francis said to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his March 20 Angelus address. “And so often the very bad habit of using profanities comes from this.”
“How often we attribute to Him our woes and misfortunes in the world, to Him who instead leaves us always free and hence never intervenes imposing, but only proposing; He who never uses violence and instead suffers for us and with us,” he said.
Pope Francis’s comments included reflections on Sunday’s reading from the thirteenth Chapter in the Gospel of Luke.
In that reading, the pontiff said, Jesus “refuses and contests strongly the idea of blaming God for our evils: Those persons who were killed by Pilate and those who died when the tower collapsed on them were not any more at fault than others, and they were not victims of a ruthless and vindictive God, which does not exist!”
When bad things happen to us, we should not blame God, he said. Jesus tells us “we need to look inside ourselves,” he added. “It is sin that produces death; our selfishness can tear apart relationships; our wrong and violent choices can unleash evil.”
The Lord offers a “true solution,” Pope Francis said, which is “conversion.” Citing the Gospel reading, he said, “If you are not converted, [Jesus] says, you will all perish in the same way.”
God can never be the source of evil, he said, because, citing Psalm 103, God does not treat us according to our sins, but according to his mercy.
Mercy is God’s “style,” Pope Francis said. “He can’t treat us otherwise. He always treats us with mercy.”
Pope Francis offered an invitation to “turn from evil,” to “renounce the sin that seduces us,” and to “open” ourselves to the “logic of the Gospel.”
Where “love and fraternity reign, evil has no more power,” he said.
Pope Francis said that converting is not easy and Jesus knows this. Jesus wants to help in this conversion, he added.
Jesus knows that, oftentimes, “people repeat the same mistakes and the same sins,” and that can bring discouragement,” Pope Francis said.
“Sometimes our commitment to do good can seem useless in a world where evil seems to rule,” he added.
But Jesus encourages us by telling a parable that shows God’s patience, he said. Jesus “offers the consoling image of [a] fig tree that does not bear fruit during the accorded season, but it is not cut down. Jesus “gives it more time, another possibility,” the pope observed.
Pope Francis told the crowd that he enjoys “thinking that a nice name for God could be ‘the God of another possibility’: God always gives us another opportunity, always, always.”
God does not “cut us out of his love” nor does he “lose heart or tire of offering us again His trust with tenderness,” he said. “God believes in us! God trusts us and accompanies us with patience, the patience of God with us. He does not get discouraged, but always instills hope in us.”
Pope Francis said that “God is Father” and “looks after you like a father,” while noting that God does not look at the “achievements you have not yet reached” but rather “encourages your potential.”
“He does not dwell on your past, but confidently bets on your future,” he said. “This is because God is close to us.”
Pope Francis visited Ukrainian refugee children being treated in the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome on March 19, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Mar 19, 2022 / 11:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis made a surprise visit on Saturday to Ukrainian refugee children being treated in the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome.
The children suffering from cancer, neurological diseases, and other illnesses were brought to Italy for medical treatment during the first days of the war in Ukraine.
Some of the hospitalized children suffer from serious blast wounds from the war, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
Pope Francis stopped in the hospital rooms to visit all of the children staying in the ward on the afternoon of March 19, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, before returning to the Vatican.
In total, 50 Ukrainian children have been treated in Rome since the outbreak of the war, 19 of which were in the hospital ward on the day of the pope’s visit.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis prayed ahead of his general audience for “all the children who are living under the bombs, who see this terrible war, who have no food, who must flee, leaving home, everything.”
“Lord Jesus, look upon these children, these children, they are the victims of the pride of us, the adults. Lord Jesus, bless these children and protect them. Together we pray to Our Lady to protect them,” Pope Francis said.
This photograph taken on March 18, 2022 shows smoke rising after an explosion in Kyiv. – Authorities in Kyiv said one person was killed early on March 18, 2022 when a downed Russian rocket struck a residential building in the capital’s northern suburbs. They said a school and playground were also hit. / Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2022 / 12:21 pm (CNA).
While it is logistically feasible for Pope Francis to travel to Kyiv, as the city’s mayor has invited him to do, the danger associated with holding any gatherings with him once he got there makes such a visit unlikely, according to the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas.
“Yesterday, three prime ministers arrived to Kyiv — the prime ministers of Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. So, logistically speaking, yes, it is possible to come to Kyiv,” Kulbokas, the pope’s representative in Ukraine, told Raymond Arroyo, host of EWTN’s “The World Over,” on March 17.
“I know that Pope Francis wants to do all that is possible for him in order to contribute for peace, so I know for sure that he is evaluating, he is thinking about all the possibilities,” he added.
However, Kulbokas explained, the hope is that a papal visit could involve more than simply a discussion, as can happen readily enough through conventional or online means. Catholics and church leaders would want to pray with him, as would members of the Orthodox Church and other faiths.
While it is certainly something to hope for, he said, the situation is “too dangerous in Kyiv.”
Unable to leave nunciature
Kulbokas, 47, who is from Lithuania, is currently bunkering in the nunciature in a residential area of the Ukraine capital.
He told Arroyo that because of the danger of missiles, the upper levels of the building cannot be used. Authorities have asked residents to reduce their movements to only essential ones, he said.
Sleep, prayer, and the celebration of Mass are all held in the same rooms with no windows, he said, adding that the situation is “dramatic.” The government has ordered some of the local shops to stay open, he said, in order that food and other necessities may be available to the people. He said that he has assistants who make the trip to the shops to buy food and other supplies.
Kulbokas also revealed to Arroyo that he has not left his residence for 21 days, because of the frequent attacks on the city. You can watch the full interview in the video below.
‘I will try to get them out’
In the interview, Kulbokas spoke about the solidarity he feels with the pope and the wider Church during this ordeal.
He shared a conversation he had with Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski about the difficulties authorities were having evacuating children from an orphanage in the city, Kulbokas said. Such an undertaking is extremely complicated and risky because of ongoing Russian missile and artillery attacks and the damage that these have done to the city’s infrastructure.
Moved by the dire predicament, Krajewski pledged to take action himself, if necessary.
“Look, Visvalda, if you will see that the situation remains as difficult as it is now for some more hours, then I will come. I will take a car and I will try. I will try to get them out,” the nuncio said the Polish prelate told him. “Even under bombing. Even under shelling. If I die, I die. But at least I will try.”
The exchange made an enormous impression on the nuncio.
Even though he was speaking with a special envoy of Pope Francis, not the pope himself, “I felt his presence,” Kulbokas said.
“He was some 500 or 600 kilometers away from Kyiv, but I was feeling his presence so strongly that it [gave me] courage also.”
Krajewski, who is in charge of the pope’s charitable efforts as papal almoner, will play a prominent role in Pope Francis’ upcoming consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25.
That day, while the pope leads the act of consecration at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Krajewski will do the same in Fatima, Portugal, where the Blessed Virgin Mary first requested Russia’s consecration during her appearances to three children in 1917.
Asked for his thoughts on the consecration, Kulbokas told Arroyo that the war does not just have political and military aspects, but spiritual ones, as well.
The nuncio said he believes that “God wants to tell us something” by allowing this war to occur.
The Blessed Virgin Mary “is the one able to face these satanic deeds,” he said.
Kulbokas added that it is not enough for the pope to consecrate Russia and Ukraine; “all the believers” should join him in consecrating themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, he said.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. / Олег Чупа via Wikimedia (GFDL).
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