Here’s what Pope Francis is doing for Holy Week

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2021 / 06:35 am (CNA).- Pope Francis called Wednesday for peace in the Central African Republic following a disputed election.

In his Angelus address on Jan. 6, the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, the pope expressed co… […]

Vatican City, Jan 22, 2017 / 08:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a new interview published Saturday, Pope Francis said he will wait to see what U.S. President Donald J. Trump does before making any judgments, emphasizing God’s own patience with him and his faults.

In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais Jan. 20, the same day as the U.S. presidential inauguration, Pope Francis said he doesn’t like to get ahead of himself “or judge people prematurely.”

“We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion. But being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite unwise. It would be like prophets predicting calamities or windfalls that will not be either,” he said.

“We will see. We will see what he does and will judge.” The world is so upside down, that it needs a fixed point, grounded firmly in reality: “what did you do, what did you decide, how do you move. That is what I prefer to wait and see.”

Asked if he wasn’t worried about things he had heard about Trump, Francis responded again that he is waiting. “God waited so long for me, with all my sins…” he said.

In the wide-ranging interview, the Pope was questioned about issues ranging from immigration to economics to Vatican diplomacy to the Gospel, among other things.

On the issue of immigration Francis was clear about his position, that “everyone does what they can or what they want. It is a very hard judgment.”

The most important thing is that those in dire need are helped and rescued, he said. After that we should welcome migrants and refugees and help them to integrate into their new country.

In the context of 1930s Germany, where the people were “in crisis” and looking for a charismatic leader, someone who could give them a clear identity, “we all know what happened,” he said. But what is important is that people did not talk to one another, there was no conversation.

“Yes,” borders can be controlled, he said. Countries have a right to control “who comes and who goes, and those countries at risk – from terrorism or such things – have even more the right to control them more, but no country has the right to deprive its citizens of the possibility to talk with their neighbors.”

Asked about Vatican diplomacy and its image, including the public thanks of Barack Obama and Raúl Castro on the one hand, and the parties that criticize the Vatican’s interference, on the other, the Pope said that he asks the Lord “that he give me the grace of not taking any measure for the sake of image.”

“Honesty, service, those are the criteria.” Mistakes are sometimes made, your image suffers, “but it doesn’t matter if there was goodwill. History will judge afterwards,” he said.

For him, he said, the clear, guiding principle for both pastoral action and Vatican diplomacy is that they are “mediators, rather than intermediaries.”

“We build bridges, not walls. What is the difference between a mediator and an intermediary?” he said. An intermediary is someone who enters a business agreement, renders a service and then is compensated, “and rightly so, because it is his job.”

The mediator, on the other hand, “is the one who wants to serve both parties and wants both parties to win even if he loses,” the Pope said. “Vatican diplomacy must be a mediator, not an intermediary. If, throughout history, it has sometimes maneuvered or managed a meeting that filled its pockets, that was a very serious sin.”

“The mediator builds bridges that are not for him, but rather for others to cross.”

Asked if his changes to the Vatican, sometimes criticized both by the more traditional sectors of the church and by the more progressive, are a “revolution of normalcy,” or already contained in the “Gospel’s essence,” as he has said, Pope Francis responded simply that he is a “sinner and not always successful.”

“I try – I don’t know if I succeed – to do what the Gospel says. That is what I try,” he said.

“The true heroes of the Church are the saints. That is, those men and women that devoted their lives to make the Gospel a reality,” he said. “The saints are the specific examples of the Gospel in daily life!”

With the emphasis on going out to the peripheries, how would Francis respond to those Catholics that feel that he ignores the people who have remained faithful to the Church and her teachings, was also questioned.

“I know that those who feel comfortable within a Church structure that doesn’t ask too much of them or who have attitudes that protect them from too much contact are going to feel uneasy with any change, with any proposal coming from the Gospel,” he said.

“The novelty of the Gospel however astonishes because it is essentially scandalous,” he continued. “Saint Paul tells us about the scandal of the cross, the scandal of the Son of God become man. But the evangelical essence is scandalous by those days’ criteria. By any worldly criteria, it is an outrageous essence.”

Once questioned by a German journalist about why he never talks about the middle class, “those who pay their taxes…” Francis said he thinks that maybe he is always talking about the middle class, just without calling it that.

“I use a term coined by the French novelist Malègue, who talks about ‘the middle class of sanctity,’” he said.

“I am always talking about parents, grandparents, nurses, the people who live to serve others, who raise their kids, who work… Those people are tremendously saintly!” he said.

“And they are also the ones who carry the Church onward: the ones that earn their living with dignity, that raise their children, that bury their dead, that care for their elders, instead of putting them into an old people’s home: that is our saintly middle class.”

From an economic point of view, the middle class is vanishing more and more, he said. But “the father, the mother, who celebrate their family, with their sins and their virtues, the grandfather, the grandmother,” he continued. “The family. At the center. That is ‘the middle class of sanctity.’”

A final comment reflected that Francis seems to be a very happy Pope. “The Lord is good and hasn’t taken away my good humor,” he said.

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Vatican City, Jun 10, 2019 / 11:08 am (CNA).- Discussing the Syrian civil war Monday, Pope Francis said God hears the cry of orphans and widows, and that his wrath will be visited on those who deal in arms trafficking while speaking of peace.

“I think with sadness, once again, of the drama of Syria and the dense clouds that seem to thicken above it in some areas that are still unstable and where the risk of an even greater humanitarian crisis remains high. Those who have no food, those who do not have medical care, who have no school, orphans, the wounded and widows raise their voices up high,” the pope said June 10 to participants in the plenary assembly of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches.

“The hearts of men may be insensitive, but that of God is not: wounded by the hatred and violence that can be unleashed among his creatures, always able to be moved and take care of them with the tenderness and strength of a father who protects and guides. But sometimes I also think of the wrath of God that will be unleashed against the leaders of countries that talk about peace and sell weapons to carry out these wars. This hypocrisy is a sin.”

Francis’ meeting with ROACO was at the Vatican’s Consistory Hall. The organization unites funding agencies to provide services to members of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

In his address the pope also discussed Iraq, where he said he wishes to visit next year, hoping “it may look ahead through the peaceful and shared participation in the construction of the common good of all the religious components of society, and that it may not fall into the tensions which come from the never-ending conflicts of regional powers.”

Pope Francis then voiced his desire for peace among the people of Ukraine, “whose wounds caused by the conflict we have tried to alleviate with the charitable initiative to which many ecclesial realities have contributed.”

“In the Holy Land, I hope that the recent announcement of a second phase of study of the restoration of the Holy Sepulchre … will be accompanied by the sincere efforts of all local and international actors for a peaceful coming soon living together in respect of all those who live in that land, a sign to all of the blessing of the Lord,” he reflected.

He recalled his condemnation of arms trafficking, saying: “People fleeing, huddled on ships in search of hope, not knowing which ports they will be able to receive, but in Europe they open the ports to boats that have to load sophisticated and expensive weapons, capable of producing devastation that do not spare even children. This is the hypocrisy of which I spoke.”

“We are aware here that Abel’s cry rises up to God, as we remembered in Bari a year ago, praying together for our faithful of the Middle East.”

Though there is lamentation and weeping in the homes of the Eastern Catholic Churches, there is also “hope and consolation” through ROACO’s “tireless work of chariaty,” the pope said.

“This expresses the face of the Church and contributes to making her alive, in particular nurturing hope for the young generations. Young people have the right to be heard announcing the fascinating and demanding word of Christ and … when they meet an authentic and credible witness they are not afraid to follow Him and to question themselves on their vocation.”

He urged the members of ROACO to “ontinue and increase your effort, so that in the countries and situations you support, young people can grow in humanity, free from ideological colonization, with open hearts and minds, appreciating their national and ecclesial roots and desiring a future of peace and prosperity, which leaves no one behind and discriminates against no-one.”

The pope recalled with gratitude the reopening of the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and he urged the spreading of his document on human fraternity adopted in February with the grand imam of al-Azhar.

“And let us all commit ourselves to preserving those realities that have been living the message for years, with particular attention to educational institutions, schools and universities, so precious especially in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, authentic laboratories of coexistence and workshops of humanity to which all can easily have access,” he concluded.

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