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Pope Francis offers condolences after 9 die in northern Italy floods

May 18, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 17, 2023. / Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, May 18, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis offered his condolences Thursday after at least nine people died in devastating floods in northeastern Italy.

The pope sent a condolence telegram to Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna, on May 18 after intense rainfall across the Italian region of Emilia Romagna caused severe flooding and landslides.

Thousands have been evacuated from the worst-hit areas, which include Ravenna, a city famous for its Catholic churches’ sixth-century Byzantine mosaics.

Images from the towns of Faenza and Cesena show cars almost entirely submerged in muddy water. Rescue workers used helicopters and dinghies to help people escape from flooded buildings.

According to local officials, some parts of the region received nearly 20 inches of rain in 36 hours. The heavy rains caused 23 rivers across the region to burst their banks and 120 landslides.

Catholic bishops in Emilia-Romagna have called for the region to remain united in the face of the emergency and committed to doing everything necessary to collaborate with relief efforts to aid those in need. Zuppi has asked for priests to notify Caritas of emergency situations that need to be addressed.

The telegram sent on the pope’s behalf by Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Substitute (Sostituto) of the Vatican Secretariat of State, said: “While assuring fervent prayers of repose for the deceased and expressing condolences to their families, the Supreme Pontiff invokes from God comfort for the wounded and consolation for those suffering consequences from the grave calamity.”

“Pope Francis thanks all those who in these hours of particular difficulty are working to bring relief and alleviate all suffering, as well as the diocesan communities for their expressions of communion and fraternal closeness to the most afflicted populations. The Supreme Pontiff sends apostolic blessing to all as a sign of his spiritual closeness.”

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Pope Francis: Birth rate is a key indicator of a country’s hope

May 12, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis shared a stage with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on May 12, 2023, to speak at a two-day conference on “The General State of the Birth Rate,” held at Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, May 12, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Friday a society’s birth rate is a key indicator of the hope people have in the future.

The pope shared the stage on May 12 with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a two-day conference on “The General State of the Birth Rate,” held at Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican.

“The birth of children, in fact, is the main indicator for measuring the hope of a people,” Pope Francis said. “If few are born it means there is little hope. And this not only has repercussions from an economic and social point of view but also undermines confidence in the future.”

“The General State of the Birth Rate” is a conference for Italian political, business, and organization leaders to reflect on Italy’s demographic crisis, caused by one of the lowest birth rates in Europe: 1.25 births per woman.

The event was organized by the Foundation for Births and the Family Associations Forum and supported by the Italian Ministry for Family, Birth, and Equal Opportunity.

This was the third annual conference and the second time Pope Francis attended. In 2022, he sent a message to be read at the event.

Italy hit a historic low number of births in 2022, with only about 393,000 children born in the country.

The same year, the country saw 700,000 deaths, marking a dangerous decline in population.

The low number of births, Pope Francis said, “is a figure that reveals a great concern for tomorrow.”

He lamented that childbearing and rearing is seen as the burden of families only, and the pressure this puts on young adults today, “who grow up in uncertainty, if not disillusionment and fear.”

Young people “experience a social climate in which starting a family has turned into a titanic effort, instead of being a shared value that everyone recognizes and supports,” he said.

The decline in communal living, together with an increasing self-reliance creates loneliness, Pope Francis said, and one consequence is that only the wealthy have the freedom to live the life they want.

“This is unfair, as well as demeaning,” he added.

The pope also criticized a culture that places pets before human children.

He said at a recent audience, he went to greet a woman of around 50 years old — “like me,” he joked — but was surprised to be asked to bless her dog, which she called, “my baby.”

“I had no patience and scolded the lady,” he said, pointing out the great number of hungry children in the world.

Pope Francis used a walker to move on stage on Friday, referencing the pain he experiences while standing.

At the beginning of his speech, the pope said: “I’m sorry for not standing up while speaking, but I cannot tolerate the pain when I am standing.”

In what appeared to be a reference not only to welcoming the birth of children but also to welcoming migrants, Pope Francis said “a happy community naturally develops desires to generate and integrate, to welcome, while an unhappy society is reduced to a sum of individuals trying to defend what they have at all costs.”

He emphasized again that “the birth rate challenge is a matter of hope,” though, he underlined, hope is not the same as optimism or “a vague positive feeling about the future.”

Hope, he said, “is not an illusion or an emotion that you feel, no; it is a concrete virtue, a life attitude. And it has to do with concrete choices. Hope is nourished by each person’s commitment to the good, it grows when we feel we are participating and involved in making meaning of our own and others’ lives.”

“Hope generates change and improves the future. It is the smallest of virtues — Péguy said — it is the smallest, but it is the one that takes you the furthest. And hope does not disappoint,” Francis said.

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A sculpture of Jesus at Rome’s airport is taking travelers by surprise

April 20, 2023 Catholic News Agency 4
The renowned Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s famous sculpture “Salvator Mundi” (Savior of the World) is on display at Rome’s airport. / Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport

Washington D.C., Apr 20, 2023 / 12:47 pm (CNA).

The next time you are flying through Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport you can see Jesus at Terminal 1.

The renowned Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s famous sculpture Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World) is on display at Rome’s airport. 

Created by Bernini in 1679 and crafted entirely out of marble, Salvator Mundi is a Baroque masterpiece and the last sculpture finished by the master carver before he died in 1680.

The bust depicts Jesus with long, curling hair, looking serenely outward and stretching out his hand as if in blessing.

Salvator Mundi was only rediscovered in 2001 and can normally be seen at Rome’s Basilica of San Sebastiano Fuori le Mura.

The airport gained permission from the Italian Interior Ministry to display the piece for a limited time to commemorate Terminal 1’s grand reopening.

According to a statement by Aeroporti di Roma, the company that manages the Rome area airports, the display opened on April 12 and is part of the airport’s effort “to promote local and national art and culture among Italian and foreign passengers.”

According to The Art Newspaper, Bernini’s famous work will remain on display at the airport for approximately four weeks. 

Located in Fiumicino and servicing the Rome metropolitan area, the Leonardo da Vinci Airport is the busiest in Italy.

The terminal housing the display can accommodate 6 million passengers annually, according to Areoporti di Roma.

Now, all those travelers can catch a glimpse of Jesus and perhaps say a quick prayer on the way to catch their flight.

Considered by many the greatest sculptor of the Baroque period, Catholics may be most familiar with Bernini’s gorgeous, twisted columns and baldachin (canopy) that surround and hover over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Readers may be familiar with Bernini's famous baldacchino in St. Peter's. Ricardo André Frantz|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0
Readers may be familiar with Bernini’s famous baldacchino in St. Peter’s. Ricardo André Frantz|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0

Some of Bernini’s other most famous religious works include The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, the Death of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, and the colonnade enclosing St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

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Pope Francis tells Italian welfare agency not to forget foreign workers

April 3, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis meets with executives and employees of the Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale, Italy’s main welfare agency, April 3, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Apr 3, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has urged Italy’s main welfare agency not to forget the contribution of foreign workers.

“It should not be forgotten that foreign workers who do not yet have Italian citizenship also contribute to the pension system,” the pope said in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on April 3.

“It would be a good sign to be able to express gratitude to them for what they do,” he said. “Social security also reminds us that ‘everything is connected’ and that we are interdependent on each other.”

Francis met 400 employees of the Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale, better known as INPS, to mark the institution’s 125th anniversary.

INPS is the main welfare agency of the Italian public pension system. It serves more than 42 million people, providing retirement pensions and other state welfare such as social security, maternity leave, disability benefits, and workers’ compensation.

“Social life stands because of supportive community networks,” Pope Francis said. “The common good passes through the daily work of millions of people who share the principle of the bond of solidarity among workers.”

He acknowledged Italy’s aging population as he urged the agency to promote dignified, stable work and to fight illegal labor.

The pope appealed to them “to guard a welfare system that is up to the challenges of societies that, like Italy’s, are growing older and older.”

Pope Francis meets with executives and employees of the Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale, Italy's main welfare agency, April 3, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
Pope Francis meets with executives and employees of the Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale, Italy’s main welfare agency, April 3, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media

Dignified work “is always ‘free, creative, participatory, and supportive,’” he said, quoting the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

“Welfare is a form of participation in one’s own and others’ well-being,” he continued. “Setting aside economic resources and ensuring access to health care are valuable assets that can hold together the different seasons of life.”

INPS Director General Vincenzo Caridi said Monday’s meeting was a chance to listen closely to Pope Francis “at a time when the sphere of social work and closeness to the least is (in continuity with the great pontificates that have confronted the challenge of modernity) the cornerstone of his message.”

Caridi said “the tree of the welfare state is nourished by many cultural roots, among them certainly the social doctrine of the Church. His is an invitation, a spur which gives strength to all employees of the Institute — believers and nonbelievers alike — who are called to renew the spirit of service with which they carry out their daily commitment.”

In his speech, Pope Francis used two stories from the Bible to illustrate both a good and a bad model of welfare.

A “bad welfare,” the pope said, is like the greedy man in the parable from the Gospel of St. Luke who builds a bigger warehouse to hold all of his crops, planning to rest, eat, drink, and enjoy himself, “but God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’”

“Those who accumulate only for themselves end up deluding themselves,” Francis said.

An example of “good welfare,” instead, is that of the patriarch Joseph, he said.

As governor of Egypt, Joseph ordered that some grain be put aside from the abundance in order to be prepared for the future, when there may be a period of famine.

“Joseph not only trusts in God’s providence and recognizes it, but [he also] shows foresight for the good of the people,” Francis explained. “He knows how to look forward; he envisions good even when evil seems to prevail; he cares for the people entrusted to him. And this is your vocation: taking care of people in the future.”

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