This Facebook bot lets you ‘Chat with the Pope’

October 24, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2017 / 06:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An initiative from the Vatican this month is inviting people to virtually connect with Pope Francis and learn more about Church missions and how to support them.

MissioBot is an automatic chat system on Facebook Messenger, which helps guide users through a chat experience with words from Pope Francis. Through any computer or smart phone with the Facebook Messenger app, users can learn about mission projects around the world.

The participant then has the opportunity to pray for particular intentions or donate to specific causes, such as orphans or victims of famine. People will also be able to click on “Papal Wisdom” to receive snippets of advice from Pope Francis.

MissioBot is available for the entire month of October in commemoration of World Mission Sunday, Oct. 22.

In a press conference on Saturday, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, emphasized that mission work is an essential aspect of the Christian faith.

“In the Christian faith, there is a pulse that gives life to the body. If the pulse stops, we enter into crisis, shock,” said Cardinal Filoni, adding that the pulse of faith is mission work.

Every Christian is called to be a missionary in some way, he said, pointing to Saint Francis Xavier, who spread the Gospel by traveling to Japan, and Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, who supported missionaries through prayer.

World Mission Sunday was begun in 1926 by the Congregation for Divine Worship and is now promoted by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Mission Societies.

The Pope’s message for the 91st World Mission Day was published by the Vatican earlier this year. Pope Francis said that World Mission Day “is a good opportunity for enabling the missionary heart of Christian communities to join in prayer, testimony of life and communion of goods, in responding to the vast and pressing needs of evangelization.”

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Pope Francis moves meeting to Vatican home because of painful knee

May 2, 2022 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope Francis meets members of the International Federation of Catholic Pharmacists on May 2, 2022, in the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, May 2, 2022 / 07:40 am (CNA).

Due to an ongoing struggle with knee pain, Pope Francis on Monday met a group of Catholic pharmacists at his Vatican residence, instead of the apostolic palace.

“This audience should have been at the apostolic palace, but because of my knee it is here. Excuse me,” the pope said May 2, at the beginning of a meeting in the Santa Marta guesthouse, where he lives.

Pope Francis, 85, has been suffering from an inflamed ligament, causing pain in his right knee and leg. He said on April 30 that his doctor has ordered him not to walk.

During some recent public audiences and liturgies, Francis has taken a smaller role or spent more time seated.

The pope’s movements have been visibly more limited since the start of the year.

While popes usually live in the papal apartments in the apostolic palace, at the start of his pontificate, Pope Francis opted to keep his apartment in the Vatican guesthouse instead.

In his meeting with representatives of the International Federation of Catholic Pharmacists, Pope Francis said the COVID-19 pandemic has placed pharmacists on the response “front lines.”

“Citizens, often lost, have found in you a point of reference for assistance, advice, information, and also — as we well know — to be able to quickly carry out the tests necessary for life and daily activities,” he said.

He encouraged pharmacists to carry out their work “on a human scale,” noting that neighborhood pharmacies can have a character of familiarity not always true of other health care environments.

Pope Francis praised the Catholic pharmacists for creating an association as a means of mutual support, and reminded them that Church associations are “always open to everyone and at the service of all, naturally with respect for the principles of Christian morality, based on the dignity of the human person.”

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