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Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of Juba and his episcopal coat of arms (top left); Bishop Stephen Chow of Hong Kong and his episcopal coat of arms (top right); Bishop Américo Aguiar of Setúbal, Portugal, and his coat of arms (bottom left);… […]

Bishop Jeffrey Monforton of Steubenville, Ohio gives the homily during Mass with members of the USCCB Region VI at the Basilica of St. John Lateran on Dec. 10, 2019, during their ad Limina Apostolorum visit. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

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Pope Francis speaks at the at the Grotto of Lourdes in the Vatican Gardens on May 31, 2021, against the backdrop of an image of Our Lady, Undoer (or Untier) of Knots. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Sep 28, 2023 / 04:00 am (CNA).
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Pope Francis smiles during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square Sept. 27, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Sep 27, 2023 / 06:52 am (CNA).

To deal properly with the crises it faces, Europe must first have hope, Pope Francis said Wednesday at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“Hope needs to be restored to our European societies,” the pope said Sept. 27, “especially to the new generations.”

“Our societies, many times sickened by individualism, by consumerism and by empty escapism, need to open themselves, their souls and spirits need to be oxygenized, and then they will be able to read the crisis as an opportunity and deal with it positively,” he continued.

During his Wednesday audience with the public, Pope Francis spoke about his Sept. 22-23 visit to Marseille, France, to participate in the “Rencontres Méditerranéennes,” or Mediterranean Encounter, a meeting of bishops, mayors, and young people to confront issues facing the Mediterranean region, including immigration.

The pope spoke at the meeting on its second-to-last day Sept. 23.

“What came out of the Marseille event? What came out is an outlook on the Mediterranean that I would call simply human, not ideological, not strategic, not politically correct nor instrumental; no, human, that is, capable of referring everything to the primary value of the human person and his or her inviolable dignity,” he said.

He also noticed, he added, that there was a hopeful and fraternal outlook, even, surprisingly, from those who “have lived through inhuman situations.”

“This hope, this fraternity must not ‘evaporate;’ no, rather, it needs to be organized, concretized through long, medium and short-term actions so that people, in complete dignity, can choose to emigrate or not to emigrate,” he urged.

“In fact, how can we welcome others if we ourselves do not first have a horizon open to the future?” Francis said. “How can young people, who are poor in hope, closed in on their private lives, worried about managing their own precariousness, open themselves to meeting others and to sharing?”

Pope Francis said he saw a lot of passion and enthusiasm during his visit to Marseille, a port city in southern France, including at the Mass he celebrated on Sept. 23.

He encouraged the continent of Europe to also cultivate this passion and enthusiasm so that the Mediterranean region can be “a mosaic of civilization and hope,” rather than “a tomb” or a “place of conflict.”

“The Mediterranean Sea,” the pope said, “is the complete opposite of the clash between civilizations, war, human trafficking.”

Francis said the Mediterranean Sea is a channel of communication between Africa, Asia, and Europe, and though “the sea is always an abyss to overcome in some way, and it can even become dangerous,” still, “its waters safeguard treasures of life; its waves and its winds carry vessels of all types.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ even departed from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, he noted.

At the end of his audience, Pope Francis recalled that on Sept. 27, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul, a French Catholic priest who co-founded the Congregation of the Mission, or the Vincentians.

“Today’s liturgical memorial of St. Vincent de Paul reminds us of the centrality of love of neighbor,” the pope said. “I urge everyone to cultivate the attitude of caring for others and openness to those who need you.”

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Pope Francis meets with Latin American university rectors on Sept. 21, 2023, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Sep 26, 2023 / 14:18 pm (CNA).
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Newspaper publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai poses during an interview in Hong Kong in 2020. / Credit: Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images

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Pope Francis greets the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus address on Sept. 24, 2023. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 24, 2023 / 07:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Sunday that regardless of one’s stage of life, it is never too late to receive God’s love.

Speaking in his Angelus address on Sept. 24, the pope said that God is seeking us out at every hour of the day and that his “big-hearted” love for us is not based on our merits.

“This is how God is: He does not wait for our efforts to come to us,” Francis said. “He does not give up if we are late in responding to Him. On the contrary, He Himself has taken the initiative and through Jesus came to us to show us His love.”

“And He seeks us at all hours of the day, which, as Saint Gregory the Great states, represent the different stages and seasons of our life up to old age (cf. Homilies on the Gospel, 19).”

“For His heart, it is never too late; He is always looking for us and waiting for us.”

The pope spoke from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square one day after he gave a strong condemnation of euthanasia on his return flight from Marseille in southern France, saying there is such a thing as “bad compassion.”

Pope Francis spent two days in the French city, where he spoke at a meeting of young people and bishops called Mediterranean Encounter with a message that the deepening migrant crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean is “a reality of our times” that calls for wisdom and a collaborative response from European nations.

“Dear brothers and sisters, today we celebrate World Migrant and Refugee Day, under the theme ‘free to choose whether to migrate or to stay,” as a reminder that migrating should be a free choice and never the only one possible,” he said on Sunday.

Reflecting on his trip to France, Pope Francis said that the challenge of creating communities that can welcome and integrate migrants was “at the heart” of the Mediterranean Encounter event.

“It is necessary that every man and every woman be guaranteed the opportunity to live a dignified life, in the society in which they find themselves. Unfortunately, misery, wars, and climate crisis force so many people to flee,” he said.

“Therefore, we are all called to create communities ready and open to welcome, promote, accompany, and integrate those who knock on our doors.”

Pope Francis also offered thanks to the Italian bishops’ conference for their efforts to assist migrants in Italy.

In his Angelus message, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ parable in the Gospel of Matthew about a landowner who gives all of his laborers the full daily wage, even those who were employed late in the day and worked only one hour.

The pope noted that the “ultimate meaning of the parable” is that of “God’s superior justice.”

“Human justice says to ‘give to each his own according to what he deserves,’ while God’s justice does not measure love on the scales of our returns, our performance, or our failures: God just loves us, He loves us because we are his children, and He does so with an unconditional and gratuitous love,” Pope Francis said.

“Brothers and sisters, sometimes we risk having a ‘mercantile’ relationship with God, focusing more on our own skill than on the generosity of his grace,” he said. “Sometimes even in the Church, instead of going out at all hours of the day and extending our arms to all, we can feel like the first in our class, judging others far away, without thinking that God loves them too with the same love He has for us.”

After praying the Angelus prayer in Latin with the crowd, Pope Francis extended an invitation to all to attend an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday, Sept. 30 to pray for the upcoming Synod on Synodality assembly.

“May Our Lady help us to convert to God’s measure: that of a love without measure,” he said.

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Pope Francis speaks during a meeting with local religious leaders at a memorial dedicated to sailors and migrants lost at sea on the first of a two-day visit to Marseille, France, Sept. 22, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

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