Vatican

Vatican City, Apr 4, 2017 / 11:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis spoke about what an ‘integral human development’ looks like, saying that development must include the whole person, both physically and spiritually.

“Development does not consist in having the regulation of more and more goods, for just a material well-being,” he said April 4. “Integrating body and soul also means that no development work can really achieve its purpose if it does not respect the place where God is present to us and speaks to our hearts.”

In Christ “God and man are not divided and separated. God became man to make of human life, both personal and social, a concrete path to salvation,” he reflected.

“So the manifestation of God in Christ – including his acts of healing, liberation, and reconciliation that we are called to propose to the many injured by the roadside – shows the way and the mode of service that the Church intends to offer to the world,” he explained.

“In this sense, the very concept of the person, born and matured in Christianity, helps to pursue a fully human development.”

Pope Francis spoke April 4 in the Vatican’s Synod Hall to participants in a conference hosted by the
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The April 3-4 conference, held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio, on the development of peoples, aimed to discuss the question: “who is man?”

“What does that mean, today and in the near future, integral development, i.e. development of every person and of the whole man?” Pope Francis asked, borrowing the words of his predecessor in Populorum Progressio.

Specifically, Francis said, in the use of the word “integrate,” we can find “a fundamental orientation for the new dicastery,” which was established Jan. 1 of this year.

One major integration that has largely been lost, he said, is that of community and the individual. Especially in the West, we have “exalted the individual until they become like an island, as if one can be happy alone,” he said.

On the other hand, there are “ideological views and political powers have crushed the person,” he said, taking away their personal liberty.

But “the self and the community are not in competition with each other,” he said. They should work together, because it is only within the context of authentic relationships that the “self is able to mature.”

“This applies even more to the family, which is the first cell of society and where we learn to live together,” he said.

The Pope said another form of integration we can improve is the solidarity between those who have too much and those who have nothing.

In considering social integration, we must remember that “everyone has a contribution to offer the whole of society,” he said, “no one is excluded from making something for the good of all. This is both a right and a duty.”

He said another essential aspect for this improved development is integration of the different systems: the economy, finance, labor, culture, family life, and religion.

“None of them can be free-standing and none of them can be excluded from a concept of integral human development,” he said, this is taking “into account that human life is like an orchestra that sounds good if the different instruments agree and follow a score shared by all.”

“The Church never tires of offering this wisdom and her work to the world, in the awareness that integral development is the way of goodness that the human family is called to tread,” the Pope concluded.

“I encourage you to pursue this action with patience and perseverance, trusting that the Lord is with us.”

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Vatican City, Apr 4, 2017 / 05:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis approved a way for the Church to recognize marriages celebrated by priests of the Society of St. Pius X, which before now were not considered valid by Church authorities.

Through a letter published April 4, the Pope has given diocesan bishops, or other local ordinaries, the authorization to grant priests of the SSPX the ability to licitly and validly celebrate the marriages of faithful belonging to the Society.

The authorization is granted under the condition that a diocesan, or otherwise fully regular priest, is delegated to hear and receive the consent of the parties during the marriage rite itself, which can then be followed by the celebration of the liturgy by a priest of the Society.

Francis approved this authorization following a proposal by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” as a way to ensure the validity and lawfulness of the Sacrament and to “reassure the conscience of the faithful,” the commission’s letter explains.

“Despite the objective persistence of the canonical irregularity in which for the time being the Society of St. Pius X finds itself, the Holy Father…has decided to authorize Local Ordinaries the possibility to grant faculties for the celebration of marriages of faithful who follow the pastoral activity of the Society,” the letter states.

If the first provision is not possible, or if no priests of the diocese are able to receive the consent of those marrying, then the Local Ordinary, most commonly the bishop of the area, may then grant the priest of the Society presiding over the Mass the necessary faculties to receive the consent in the marriage rite.

In this case, the priest of the Society is obliged to then send the relevant documents to the Diocesan Curia as soon as possible.

Signed by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the congregation, and by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the commission, it explained the effort as part of the Church’s ongoing initiatives “to bring the Society of St. Pius X into full communion.”

The most recent of these initiatives was the September 2015 announcement by Pope Francis that the faithful would be able to validly and licitly receive absolution from priests of the SSPX during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. This ability was later extended indefinitely by Francis in his apostolic letter “Misericordia et misera” published Nov. 20, 2016.

The SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church after the Second Vatican Council. Its relations with the Holy See became particularly strained in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer consecrated four bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II.

The illicit consecrations resulted in the excommunication of the bishops involved. The excommunications of the surviving bishops were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI and since then negotiations “to rediscover full communion with the Church” have continued between the Society and the Vatican.

In remitting the excommunications, Benedict noted that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry.”

The biggest obstacles for the Society’s reconciliation have been the statements on religious liberty in Vatican II’s declaration Dignitatis humanae as well as the declaration Nostra aetate, which it claims contradict previous Catholic teaching.

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Vatican City, Apr 3, 2017 / 11:23 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has taken in three new Syrian families, some members of which were ISIS prisoners before gaining freedom and fleeing the country.

According to an April 3 Vatican communique, the families – two of whom are Christian – took the place of the families welcomed by the Vatican last year, who with the help of various organizations have now become independent, and have moved out of their Vatican apartments.

The decision to welcome them was made in response to the Pope’s Sept. 6, 2015, appeal for all European parishes, religious communities, monasteries and shrines to house one refugee family. At the time, the Pope said the two Vatican parishes – St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Anne’s parish – would also be hosting one family each.

St. Peter’s Basilica provided an apartment for an Eritrean family, consisting of a mother and her five children.

The family hosted by St. Anne’s parish was a Christian Syrian family, consisting of the parents and two children, who fled from the Syrian capital of Damascus and arrived in Italy the same day Pope Francis made his appeal.

Both families had made their way to Greece, their homes having been bombed, and made it to Italy with the help of the “Humanitarian Corridors” project run by the Sant’Egidio Community and the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy to provide refugees safe passage without risking their lives in the Mediterranean.

Numbering 13 people in total, the new families taking their place arrived at different times: one in February 2016 and two in March of this year.

Of the two families who arrived in March, both suffered “kidnapping and other types of discrimination” because of their Christian faith.

The first family is composed of a mother and her two adolescent children, their grandmother, an aunt and another Syrian woman who lives with them.

The second family consists of a young couple and their newborn daughter, Stella, who was born two weeks ago in the apartment they are now living in.

According to the communique, the mother had been a prisoner of ISIS for “several months,” but now, after arriving in Italy, “has again found peace.”

The third family, who arrived to Italy in February 2016, is Muslim and consists of parents and their two daughters, the eldest of whom is ill.

However, the family has begun a process of integration in which both children attend school and their mother is enrolled in a graduate course for Intercultural Mediators,entering just a few days ago a program for career training.

To date some 70 families, including those hosted by the Vatican, have arrived to Rome with the help of the Humanitarian Corridors project, totaling 145 people between them.

Apart from the assurance of a warm welcome through various parishes, communities and associations, the families are accompanied after arriving by volunteers, who help them in the integration process, beginning with learning the Italian language.

In addition to the families hosted by the Vatican, an additional 21 Syrian refugees – who came back with the Pope after his 2016 trip to Lesbos – receive economic assistance from the Holy See, and in some cases are hosted by religious or private families.

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Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 09:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Sunday Pope Francis encouraged people from earthquake-damaged communities to continue the process of rebuilding with courage and strength, never losing hope in God’s steadfast love.

“Y… […]

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 04:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Sunday, Pope Francis said that each of us carries some kind of tomb inside our heart, whether from sin or suffering, and we can either stay bogged down in misery, focusing only on ourselves, or we can allow Jesus to come into that place and heal it. 

“In front of the big ‘why’ of life we have two paths,” the Pope said April 2, “to stay to watch gloomily the tombs of yesterday and of today, or to bring Jesus to our tombs.”

“Yes, because each of us has a small tomb, some area that is a little bit dead inside the heart: a wound, an injury suffered or done (to us), a bitterness that does not let up, remorse that returns, a sin that you cannot overcome.”

“We identify these today, our little tombs we have inside and invite Jesus there,” he said.

Francis presided over Mass Sunday in the northern Italian town of Carpi, where he was making a day trip.

Often, the Pope said, we can be tempted to hide our weaknesses and sins from God, dwelling on them. “It’s strange, but often we prefer to be alone in the dark caves that we have inside,” he said.

“Instead, invite Jesus; we are tempted to always look to ourselves, brooding and sinking in anguish, licking our wounds, rather than going to him, who says, ‘Come to me you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’”

Pope Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel which tells the story of Lazarus’ death, the sorrow of Jesus, and the miracle of Lazarus’ raising.

“Even Jesus is shaken by the dramatic mystery of the loss of a loved one,” he said. But in the midst of this suffering, he also shows us how to act. “Despite suffering himself, Jesus was not carried away by anxiety.”

Jesus didn’t try to escape the suffering, but he also didn’t get bogged down in pessimism or gloom, Francis said. Instead, he brings hope, proclaiming: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believes in me, though he die, shall live.”

“So he says: ‘Take away the stone’ and to Lazarus shouts loudly: ‘Come out!’” This is what Jesus also says to us: “Get up, get up!” the Pope said.

“In following Jesus we learn not to tie our lives close to the problems that tangle: there will always be problems always, and, when we solve one, promptly another one arrives,” he pointed out.

What we can do, however, is tie ourselves to the one thing that is stable and unchanging – Jesus, he continued. “With him joy dwells in the heart, hope is reborn, pain is transformed into peace, fear into confidence, proof of the gift of love.”

We have to decide which path to take, he said: “the side of the tomb or the side of Jesus.” It doesn’t matter how heavy our past sins, shame or hurt may be, with Christ’s grace, we can roll away the stone that is keeping him from our hearts.

“This is a favorable time to remove our sin, our attachment to worldly vanity, the pride that stops us the soul,” he said.

“Visited and freed by Jesus, we ask for the grace to be witnesses of life in this world that is thirsty, witnesses that arouse and raise the hope of God in hearts weary and weighed down by sadness.”

He concluded: “Our announcement is the joy of the living Lord, who still says, as in Ezekiel: ‘Behold, I will open your graves, I will make you get up out of your graves, O my people.’”

Immediately following Mass, Pope Francis led pilgrims in the Angelus, praying for people in the region of Kasai in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he said there continue to be reports of deadly armed clashes.

The violence has also caused displacement and affected people and property, he said, including causing damage to schools, hospitals and churches.

“I assure you of my closeness to this nation and urge you all to pray for peace so that the hearts of the architects of such crimes do not remain slaves of hatred and violence, which always…destroys.”

The Pope also said he is following what is happening in the countries of Venezuela and Paraguay. “I pray for those people, so dear to me, and I urge everyone to persevere tirelessly, avoiding any violence and in the search for political solutions.”

Francis concluded by thanking everyone for being there at Mass, especially the sick and the suffering who were present, as well as those who helped with the Mass. He also blessed four stones which will be used to form cornerstones of four new diocesan buildings being erected.

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Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 01:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday, Pope Francis moved the responsibility for Catholic shrines to be under the Congregation for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, stating that shrines, as sacred places, are especially suitable to conversion and the strengthening of faith.

April 1 the Pope issued the edict – called a motu proprio – formally moving the competency of shrines from the Congregation for Clergy to the Vatican department on the New Evangelization.

“The large influx of pilgrims, the humble and simple prayer of God’s people alternating in the liturgical celebrations, the fulfillment of so many graces that many believers certify that they have received and the natural beauty of these places allow you to see how the shrines…express an irreplaceable opportunity for evangelization in our time,” Francis states in the letter.

According to the document, titled “Ecclesia in Sanctuarium,” the tasks of the congregation will include: the establishment of new national and international shrines, studying and implementing measures for promoting their role in evangelization, and promoting systematic pastoral care of the shrines and specific training for those who operate them.

They will also be in charge of the promotion of national and international meetings to promote communal pastoral renewal and pilgrimages to various shrines, spiritual guidance for pilgrims, and “cultural and artistic enhancement of the Shrines according to the via pulchritudinis (way of beauty) as a particular mode of evangelization of the Church,” Pope Francis said.

Shrines and other places of pilgrimage “despite the crisis of faith that invests the contemporary world, are still perceived as sacred spaces to which pilgrims go to find a moment of rest, silence and contemplation in the often hectic life of today,” the letter continues.

“A hidden desire creates for many a nostalgia for God; and shrines can be a real refuge to rediscover themselves and regain the necessary strength for their conversion.”

People have made pilgrimages to holy sites since the first century, the Pope said, and even today, in every part of the world, they remain “a distinctive sign of the simple and humble faith of believers.”

The shrine is a “sacred place,” where the celebration of the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist, as well as the witness of charity, “express the great commitment of the Church for evangelization; and therefore it stands as a genuine place of evangelization…” he stated.

The proclamation, which was signed by Pope Francis on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, goes into effect 15 days from its publication.

Also April 1, the Vatican announced the Pope’s appointment of 11 new members to the Congregation for Clergy, including Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, who heads the Center for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is also a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Francis’ appointment of Fr. Zollner to the Congregation for Clergy reinforces his strong commitment to fight abuse, especially at the level of priestly formation.

The other nominations to the department include seven priests, one archbishop and two lay professors.

Their names are: Archbishop Erio Castellucci, Arcchbishop of Modena-Nonantola; Fr. Maurice Monier, Pro-Dean of the Roman Rota; Msgr. Vito Angelo Todisco, Prelate Auditor of the Roman Rota; Fr. Bruno Esposito, O.P., professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas; Fr. George Augustin, S.A.C., dogmatic theologian; Fr. Ennio Apeciti, Rector of the Pontifical Lombard Seminary; Fr. Janusz Kowal, S.I., professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University; Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, S.I., consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization; Professor Luigi Janiri, specializing in psychiatry and psychopathology at the University of the Sacred Heart; Professor Paolo Papanti-Pelletier, judge of the Court of Vatican City State.

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Vatican City, Mar 31, 2017 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Members of EWTN’s Rome Bureau on Friday met Benedict XVI in the Vatican Gardens to explain their work and thank him for his service to the Church, while he in turn thanked them for their efforts.

“Thank you for your work,” the emeritus Pope said March 31 to the six persons present at the encounter, who represented the various programs produced at the bureau.

Had the immense blessing of mtg Benedict XVI today w some colleagues from @EWTN – I can only be #grateful! pic.twitter.com/Wb0pBgXSsG

— Elise Harris (@eharris_it) March 31, 2017

EWTN’s Rome bureau has roughly 25 employees, producing both print and television news.

Members who attended audience were selected to represent each of the entities produced in the office, and included bureau chief Alan Holdren; office manager Emanuele Latini; head of production Pilar Piero; EWTN News Nightly producer Mary Shovlain; CNA correspondent Elise Harris; and ACI Prensa correspondent Alvaro de Juana.

The team met Benedict in the Vatican Gardens at 4:30 in the afternoon, when the emeritus Pope prays his daily rosary. He was accompanied by Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household.

After finishing his prayer, Benedict removed his hat and stood up to greet the team.  

Benedict was clear and alert, and interested in each person as they approched him.

Leading the delegation, Holdren gave a brief introduction to the organization; the emeritus Pope marvelled at the size of the bureau.

Benedict greeted each member of the group individually, learning about their families and their work.

Holdren gave the Bavarian personal letters from all those present. He in turn offered each of them  a medal and commemorative cards of his 2012 visit to Lebanon, the last he took as Roman Pontiff.

He then gave the group his blessing and departed for his residence in the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae monastery.

The audience was granted to mark the one-year anniversary of the March 27, 2016 death of Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN.

She launched the network in 1981, and it today transmits programming to more than 264 million homes in 144 countries. What began with approximately 20 employees has now grown to nearly 400.

The religious network broadcasts terrestrial and shortwave radio around the world, operates a religious goods catalog and publishes the National Catholic Register and Catholic News Agency, among other publishing ventures.

Among the television coverage produced through the Rome office are EWTN’s 30-minute weekly news program “Vaticano,” as well as a portion of “EWTN News Nightly.”

In addition, there are eight correspondents who write print news for Catholic News Agency and two of her sister-agencies, ACI Prensa and ACI Stampa.

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Vatican City, Mar 31, 2017 / 01:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Thursday Vatican official Cardinal Peter Turkson said he hopes President Trump will reconsider some of the decisions he is making in office, particularly his recent executive order curtailing environmental protections – but that he is glad U.S. bishops are offering a “different voice.”

Diverse members of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference have already voiced opposition to some of President Trump’s actions, including on immigration, Cardinal Turkson told journalists Thursday morning.

“This, for us, is a sign that little by little, other positions and political voices will emerge. We hope that Trump himself will rethink some of his decisions,” he said.

Head of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, Turkson spoke to journalists at a breakfast meeting March 30 on a conference the department will hold at the Vatican April 3 and 4.

Cardinal Turkson expressed his gratefulness for the U.S. bishops who are addressing President Trump’s policies, saying things are “a bit worrying,” although Trump is, in fact, just fulfilling the “promises made during the campaign.”

But “we are hopeful that things will change,” he said, especially when Trump begins to see “the dissonance between the reality of things” and promises made during his election campaign.

Otherwise, other world powers, like China, are ready to step in and fill the “space,” he said, noting that China is already making some efforts on climate control, especially given the large amount of smog and air pollution the country faces.

Pope Francis has been very vocal on the importance of protecting the environment throughout his papacy, publishing the first papal encyclical dedicated to the topic, Laudato Si, in 2015.

Shortly after its release he instituted the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation to take place every year on Sept. 1.

In his message for the 2016 day of prayer, Francis said that care of creation should also contribute “to shaping the culture and society in which we live,” adding that economics, politics, society and culture “cannot be dominated by thinking only of the short-term and immediate financial or electoral gains.”

“Instead, they urgently need to be redirected to the common good, which includes sustainability and care for creation.”

The dicastery’s upcoming conference, being held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Development of People), aims to discuss the question: “who is man?” the cardinal said.

The two-day conference includes sessions with presentations on the themes of the body and soul, man and woman, the individual and society, as well as testimonies on serving vulnerable populations.
 
The first day will include a presentation by Cardinal Turkson on the origins and perspective of the dicastery and another by Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on “the Christian anthropological vision, the foundational concept of integral human development.”

The conference will also include time for dialogue and an audience with Pope Francis on April 4.

In other comments to journalists, Cardinal Turkson said that “immigration is like water flowing from the tap,” you can’t just try to dry up the water, you have to turn off the faucet.

This can only be done through long-term plans that promote projects in the countries migrants are fleeing and “prevent the need of people to emigrate,” he said.

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Vatican City, Mar 31, 2017 / 09:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Although the Jubilee Year of Mercy has officially ended, Pope Francis today made a surprise “Mercy Friday” visit to a center for the blind and visually impaired in Rome – showing that he doesn’t think works of mercy are just for special occasions – or years.

Continuing his tradition of performing a spiritual or corporal work of mercy on one Friday a month during the Church’s Jubilee of Mercy in 2016, the Pope went in the afternoon of March 31 to the St. Alessio-Margherita di Savoia Regional Center for the blind in Rome.

According to a March 31 communique from the Vatican, the Pope wished to make this visit as a “follow-up” to the private visits of the Jubilee.

This particular act of mercy, the communique stated, was to guests of the center, which organizes activities “aimed at social inclusion of the blind and visually impaired.”

During his visit, the Pope met with the different guests, some of whom have been blind from birth and others who have no vision or impaired vision due to a serious disease. Some of the guests have multiple disabilities.

Among the guests there are around 50 children who attend the center to receive practical training in life skills and in navigating daily activities, as well as 37 elderly people who are permanent residents of the facility.

Francis also greeted the president and director general of the center, the medical staff and volunteers.

Before leaving, he left a gift and signed a parchment for the center’s chapel, in memory of his visit. He returned to the Vatican around 6:00 p.m.

Pope Francis kicked off his monthly works of mercy in January 2016 by visiting a retirement home for the elderly, sick, and those in a vegetative state, and a month later traveled to a center for those recovering from drug addiction in Castel Gandolfo.

Other visits throughout the year included refugees, children, formerly sex-trafficked women, former priests, infants and the terminally ill.

In December 2016, Pope Francis said in an interview with the official website for the Jubilee of Mercy that he would be making “different gestures” of mercy once a month on Fridays during the Holy Year.

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Vatican City, Mar 30, 2017 / 05:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis issued a message ahead of the 2018 World Meeting of Families (WMOF), saying couples and families should root their relationships in the love of God, which then propels them to joyfull… […]