Pope Francis: Closed hearts cause suffering in the Church

Vatican City, Mar 23, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After four people died in an apparent terrorist attack in London yesterday, Pope Francis has voiced his sorry and solidarity for the victims and their families, entrusting them and the nation to God’s mercy.

“Deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and of the injuries caused by the attack central London, His Holiness Pope Francis expresses his prayerful solidarity with all those affected by this tragedy,” a March 23 letter signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin read.

The Pope commended the souls of those who died “to the loving mercy of Almighty God,” and prayed for “divine strength and peace upon their grieving families,” while assuring of his prayer for the entire nation.

Francis’ letter comes the day after a deadly March 22 attack on London’s Parliament took the lives of four people.

During the attack, a car apparently plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before crashing into the fence surrounding the Parliament building. The assailant then attempted to enter the Parliament building with a knife, stabbing one police officer before being shot by other officers on the grounds.

According to the Guardian, four people were killed, including the police officer who was stabbed and one man believed to be the assailant. About 20 others were reported injured, some severely.

Nearby government buildings were placed on lockdown while authorities worked to ensure the safety of the area. Scotland Yard said the attack is being treated “as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise.”

The incident marks the first mass-casualty terrorist attack in Britain since the 2005 bomb attack on London that claimed the lives of 52 people when four bombers blew themselves up in the city’s public transportation system.

March 22 also marks the one-year anniversary of the Brussels airport bombings that left more than 30 dead and 300 injured. Those bombings were declared the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium’s history.

The use of a vehicle as a weapon yesterday’s London attack is reminiscent of the methods used last year by terrorists in Nice and Berlin.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, issued a March 23 statement to the priests and parishes of his diocese saying yesterday’s attacks “have shocked us all.”

“The kind of violence we have seen all too often in other places has again brought horror and killing to this city,” he said, and urged pastors to lead their people in prayer, particularly for the victims and their families.

He offered special prayers for victim Aysha Frade, who was killed by the car on Westminster Bridge and whose two young children attend the diocese’s St. Mary of the Angels Primary School.

He also offered special prayers for Frade’s husband and a group of French students who were injured in the attack, as well as police officer Keith Palmer, the officer who died, and his family.

“Let our voice be one of prayer, of compassionate solidarity and of calm,” the cardinal said.

“All who believe in God, Creator and Father of every person, will echo this voice, for faith in God is not a problem to be solved, but a strength and a foundation on which we depend.”

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Pope Francis at the consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica, Aug. 27, 2022 / Daniel Ibáñez / CNA

CNA Newsroom, Aug 27, 2022 / 13:46 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis ended his homily during the Aug. 27 consistory mentioning that one cardinal-elect, Richard Kuuia Baawobr of Wa (Ghana), was not present. Francis asked for prayers for the African prelate, explaining Baawobr had been taken ill.

The Holy Father said Cardinal Baawobr had been hospitalized and, therefore, unable to attend the ceremony. 

“I do not want to end without recalling Cardinal Richard Kuuia Baawobr, Bishop of Wa, who yesterday, upon his arrival in Rome, felt bad and was hospitalized with a heart problem and I think they did some type of operation,” said Pope Francis after his homily for the day’s festivities. 

“Let us pray for this brother who ought to have been here and is hospitalized,” said the Holy Father. “Thank you.”

Elected President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) on July 30, the 63-year-old Baawobr is known in Ghana for “many acts of charity, key among them, his love for people suffering from mental challenges and who have been neglected by their families,” CNA’s sister agency ACI Africa reported in July.

Baawobr also serves as a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, a post he has held since July 2020. 

He is one of two newly created cardinals from Africa, the other – Cardinal Peter Okpaleke – hails from Nigeria’s Ekwulobia Diocese. Another Ghanaian cardinal, Peter Turkson, currently serves as chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

The hospitalization reveals how swiftly numbers for the conclave can change. With the cardinal, today’s consistory brings the total number of cardinal electors from Africa to 17 or 12.8% of the total cardinal electors. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s fastest-growing regions of Catholicism, according to statistics published by the Vatican in the Annuario Pontificio and the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae.

In a July 28 interview with ACI Africa, Baawobr reflected on his mission as cardinal, saying, “It is an occasion to renew our commitment to serve and to serve in collaboration with the Holy Father.”

“It comes down very strongly that we are not alone in this mission. And the Holy Father is inviting us to share, to collaborate with him,” he said and added, “I think from there also I draw the message that wherever we are, if people are needing our collaboration in order to attain a specific goal, we should offer that with joy and humility and simplicity.”

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Vatican City, Mar 9, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Barbara Jatta, the newest director of the Vatican museums, and the first woman to hold the position, said that working with art was a natural path for her to follow – and she can’t imagine a better place to do so.

On her extensive background in art, Barbara Jatta told CNA: “I don’t think I chose it.” Her mother and sister are both restorers, her grandmother was a painter and her grandfather was an architect, she said. “All my family is in the art world…”

“So I grew up in art, looking at art, going to museums with my family. It was really something so natural for me to choose this,” Jatta said.

“I don’t feel I have a career, I have the privilege of working with what I like. With what I really think is important for me to do and I’m doing it in the best place I can ever imagine.”

Asked what she thinks will be the greatest challenge in her new position, she said bringing “harmony in to this place.” She wants to “give the visitors the idea that they are in a privileged place with privileged people that work here.”

“I mean, all the people working here know that they work for the Pope, they work for a mission, rather than just having a simple work. And I would like to focus on this more and more,” she said.

Another challenge Jatta faces is balancing preservation of the art in the museums with accessibility to the public.

“I do think that it’s very important to preserve what we have received from the past,” she said, “and at the same time, sharing it is one of our focuses. So it’s important also to share the beauty in what we have here.”

The museums have recently made other changes as well, including launching an updated website at the end of January that is more user-friendly and includes an “Explore” section, where website visitors can view museum content right from their homes.

Expanding accessibility to the extensive collections of the museums, whether through the website or for in-person visitors is a major focus, Jatta said.

“The idea is to let the people and the visitors arriving spread out in the different museums…and so let them go into the different part of the museums that are not as often visited. We have wonderful parts of the museum that visitors generally do not go to, do not visit,” she said.

And the number of visitors to the museums continues to grow. In 2016, six million people visited the Vatican, she said, but that number is predicted to be even greater in 2017.

In Jan. and Feb. of 2017, “we had an increase of 18,000 people in the two months, compared to the other years,” she noted.

The large number of visitors is excellent for the museums, but not always great for protecting the artworks themselves.

Because of this, “we have a very important program for preservation of the entire spaces of the museum,” Jatta said, “which costs a lot in effort and money, but we do think that it’s a very important part of our organization.”

Why should someone visit? The Vatican museums are a unique place, she said. For instance, it isn’t just one museum, but in fact many, all joined together. “So it’s not only a museum of archeology – you have many other archeology museums in Rome or in other parts of Italy.”

What makes the Vatican museums unique is “the idea of having the different witnesses of the culture, art and faith, that’s an important part, a fundamental part of this museum.”

For example, the ethnological museum has more than 80,000 pieces, from different continents, and all witnessing to the faith, she said. This museum is comprised of pieces that were given as gifts to the popes, especially Pius XI.

“But it really is an ongoing museum that is still receiving items from all over the continents and that’s probably the most important aspect of our museums. The idea that they preserve witnesses of faith.”

Jatta was vice-director of the museums starting in June 2016, but before that, since 1996, she worked and led the prints section of the Vatican Library. “So I was always an art historian working within the Vatican walls,” she said.

She met Pope Francis while in her former job when she presented him with a work of art for the Jubilee of Mercy. “For sure, Pope Francis is very interested in art,” she continued, highlighting how he brought homeless to visit the Sistine Chapel because “he thought that they would never have the opportunity to see it and this is very important.”

He speaks “about art very often, and the sense that beauty and art link people is something very, very important that he tells us…and it’s one of my ideas in leading these museums,” she said.

Mary Shovlain contributed to this story.

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