Pope mourns death of Cardinal Montezemolo, long-time Vatican diplomat

November 20, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Vatican City, Nov 20, 2017 / 11:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis sent a telegram Monday for the death of long-time Vatican diplomat Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, who died in Rome Sunday at the age of 92.

His death, the Pope wrote Nov. 20, “raises in my soul a feeling of sincere admiration for an esteemed man of the Church who lived with fidelity his long and fruitful priesthood and episcopate serving the gospel and the Holy See.”

Pope Francis offered his prayers for Cardinal Montezemolo’s welcome, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Paul, “into joy and eternal peace,” and for those who mourn the death of this “zealous pastor.”

The Pope also expressed his gratitude for the cardinal’s many years of “generous work” as an apostolic nuncio, and the wisdom with which he devoted himself to the good of people in countries around the world.

Montezemolo’s final appointment was as Archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, from 2005 to 2009.

In his telegram, Pope Francis noted how the cardinal, in his role as the first archpriest of the basilica,  “gave witness to a particularly intense and expert task.”

“Both from the pastoral point of view and from the organizational and artistic-cultural point of view, (he) aimed at restoring spiritual vitality to the whole structure and new impetus to the ecumenical vocation of that place of worship,” Francis said.

The Pope had visited the cardinal in a nursing home about one year ago, in one of his unexpected and private exits from the Vatican.

His funeral Mass will be said Nov. 21 in St. Peter’s Basilica. It will be celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, vice-dean of the College of Cardinals.

At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis will preside over the rite of Last Commendation and the Valedictus.

Montezemolo was born in Turin Aug. 27, 1925. His father, a colonel in the Italian army, was killed during the Ardeatine Massacre in the Second World War. Many years later, Montezemolo and his sister publicly expressed their forgiveness of those who had killed their father.

As a young man he also fought in World War II before studying and obtaining a degree in architecture. Feeling a calling to the priesthood, he then obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a licentiate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, while working as an architect.

He was ordained a priest in 1954, and in 1959 obtained a degree in canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University.

That same year he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See and for 42 years served as the nunciature secretary in various countries, including the apostolic delegation in Mexico, the apostolic nunciatures in Japan, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and the Secretariat of State, as council for public affairs.

He was appointed under-secretary and then secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace and in 1977 was nominated titular Archbishop of Anglona and Apostolic Pro-Nuncio in Papua New Guinea and Apostolic Delegate in the Solomon Islands.

He was ordained a bishop June 4, 1977 and over the next 24 years was appointed to various apostolic nunciatures, first in Honduras and Nicaragua.

He was then made Apostolic Nuncio in Uruguay. In 1990 he was appointed Apostlic Delegate in Jerusalem, Palestine and Jordan, as well as Apostolic Nuncio in Cyprus.

In 1991 he was transferred to the titular see of Tuscania and from 1994-1998 he served as Apostolic Nuncio in Israel. Finally, from 1998-2001 he served as Apostolic Nuncio in Italy and in San Marino, retiring at the age of 75 in 2001.

Four years later, he was appointed Archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

As an expert in heraldry, the system by which a coat of arms is devised, he contributed to the design of Benedict XVI’s coat of arms. He was elevated to the position of cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of March 24, 2006.

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Pope Francis: We should leave every Mass better than when we went in

April 4, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Apr 4, 2018 / 03:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said the Eucharist is key to living an authentic Christian witness, and that those who leave Mass unchanged, continuing to gossip or hold onto unholy habits, have missed the point.

“While the Mass ends, the commitment for Christian witness opens. We leave the church to go in peace to bring the blessing of God to our daily activities, to our homes, to our work, to the affairs of the earthly city, glorifying the Lord with our lives,” the pope said April 4.

The Mass, he said, is not just a weekly commitment that can be forgotten about once people go out the church doors.

“No. Christians go to Mass to participate in the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, and to live as better Christians,” he said. “If we leave the church gossiping” or talking badly about other people, then “the Mass didn’t enter into my heart, because I am not capable of living Christian testimony.”

“Every time I leave Mass I must leave better than I went in,” he said, adding that the Eucharist should leave a person with a better heart, a better spirit and “a stronger desire to live as a Christian.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims in a rainy St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience, which this week fell during the Octave of Easter and was dedicated to his last round of catechesis on the Mass.

Francis opened with an aside wishing pilgrims a happy Easter and saying the flowers adorning the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica are representative of the joy and happiness that blossom after Christ’s resurrection.

He asked pilgrims to join him in wishing retired Pope Benedict XVI — who he said was watching the audience on television — a happy Easter, and told them to give his predecessor a big round of applause.

In his speech, the pope focused on the concluding rite of Mass, in which believers are told to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

The Mass, particularly with this commission, “finds fulfillment in the concrete choices one makes [and] involves us first-hand in the mysteries of Christ,” he said.

“We cannot forget that we celebrate the Eucharist to learn to become Eucharistic men and women,” he said, explaining that this means allowing Christ to act in and through the choices one makes, taking on his thoughts, feelings and actions.

St. Paul expresses this clearly when he speaks of his own assimilation to Jesus, saying he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him, Francis said, explaining that the apostle’s experience “also illuminates us.”

“In the measure in which we mortify our egoism, meaning we allow what opposes the Gospel and the love of Jesus to die, greater space is created in us for the power of his Spirit,” he said.

And while the liturgy is a prime way to gain great unity with Jesus, Francis noted that the presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine “does not end with the Mass.” Rather, the Eucharist is kept in the tabernacle in order to give communion to the sick who are unable to attend Mass, and it is also kept for moments of “silent adoration” through the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.

“Eucharistic worship outside of the Mass, whether in private or in community, helps us to remain in Christ” and imitate his words and actions, Francis said, adding that Christians are men and women “who allow their soul to grow with the strength of God.”

“Not these small, tight, egoistic souls,” he said, but “great souls” who allow themselves to grow with the strength of the Holy Spirit and after being washed by the body and blood of Christ.

The Eucharist also separates us from sin, he said, because “the more we participate in the life of Christ and progress in his friendship, the more difficult it is to separate ourselves from him with mortal sin.”

Community is also an essential element of the Mass, he said, because the Eucharist “makes the Church,” and ought to lead to an increased commitment in service of the poor, who bear the flesh of Christ.

Pope Francis closed his audience asking pilgrims to give thanks to the Lord “for the path of rediscovering the holy Mass which he has given us to walk together,” and prayed that each person would allow themselves “to be attracted with a renewed faith to this real encounter with Jesus, died and risen for us.”

“May our lives always flourish like this, like Easter, with flowers of hope and good works, that we always find the strength for this in the Eucharist, in union with Jesus.”

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