Young people meet with Pope Francis, Synod Fathers

October 6, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Vatican City, Oct 6, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At the end of the first week of the youth synod Saturday, Pope Francis and over 250 bishops spent the evening listening to testimonies from young people at an event inside the Vatican.

Speaking off-the-cuff at the end of the gathering Oct. 6, the pope told young people the way to “find themselves” is not by looking in the mirror, but by doing, by “going in search of goodness, of truth, of beauty.”

Referencing one testimony, he said a word which struck him was “consistency” and criticized a lack of it in the Church, saying he understand when young people are scandalized by “a Church that reads you the Beatitudes and then falls into the most princely and scandalous clericalism.”

“If you are a Christian, take the Beatitudes and put them into practice,” he said.

Pope Francis spoke to young people and others in a full Pope Paul VI hall, together with the Synod Fathers, for an event called “NOI PER – Unici, solidali, creativi,” organized by the Congregation for Catholic Education.

The Synod of Bishops on young people, faith, and vocational discernment is meeting at the Vatican Oct. 3-28. A pre-synod gathering in March included around 300 youth participants and concluded with a document which was used, in part, to inform the synod’s Instrumentum laboris.

A Sept. press statement on the Oct. 6 event said Pope Francis wanted to meet with young people again, like he did at the pre-synod encounter, but this time together with Synod Fathers, so that they may listen to and consider the thoughts of young people before drafting the final document of the synod.

In his speech, after listening to live and video testimonies, including one from inside a juvenile detention center on the outskirts of Rome, the pope said real power must always be about service, “otherwise it is selfishness, it is dominating, making slaves, not mature people.”

He urged the young people present to remember that they “have no price,” that they are free and cannot be bought or sold. To not let themselves be “enslaved by ideological colonization that puts ideas in your mind.”

Francis also noted the difference between something being “popular” and “populism,” which he said promotes being closed off from others, promoting a mentality of the exploitation of people.

“We win with the embrace, with welcome, with dialogue, with love, which is the word that opens all doors,” he said.

 

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

‘Every page was an act of prayer’: New manuscript reveals devotion of future pope

October 9, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2019 / 08:05 am (CNA).- Newly published manuscripts belonging to Karol Wojtyła have offered a glimpse into the future pope and saint’s deep devotion and prayer throughout his writing process.

The 39 handwritten pages contain Wojtyła’s reflections on St. Paul’s Areopagus address to the Athenians described in the Acts of the Apostles. It is believed that these meditations and catecheses were written in or shortly after 1965, while Wojtya was Archbishop of Krakow. He was made a cardinal in 1967 and elected pope in 1978.

On each page, Wojtyła wrote a little prayer in Latin on the top right corner, such as “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” (Come Holy Spirit) and “Adoro te devote latens Deitas” (I devoutly adore you hidden God), a Eucharistic Hymn written by St. Thomas Aquinas. 

On the top of the first page he wrote, in Latin, the full quote of St. Louis de Montfort from which he had taken his episcopal motto, Totus Tuus: “I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart.”

The writings have been published in a book titled “Christ, the Church and the World: Catechesis of the Areopagus.”

Speaking at the launch of the publication, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re reflected that the inscription of a prayer on each page was a discipline Wojtyła continued as pope, even while drafting encyclicals.

“When he wrote Redemptoris Hominis, before every page, before the beginning, he wrote in Latin: ‘Totus Tuus Ego Sum,’ The second page: ‘Et omnia mea tua assunta,’ like this he continued,” Re said. 

Cardinal Re worked with St. John Paul II as sostituto, or deputy, at the Secretariat of State from 1989 – 2000 and later as the prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. He said that when the Polish pope wrote Redemptoris Mater about the Virgin Mary, he wrote out the Litany of Loreto with a different title of Mary on each subsequent page. 

“That’s why, in a certain sense, every page that he wrote it was an act of prayer,” Re said in Italian. “It reveals to us a little of  … the great spirituality, devotion that he had.”

Re said he was always impressed with the “intensity” of St. John Paul II’s prayer: “He had a great capacity for concentration. When he gathered himself for prayer whatever happened around him did not disturb him. He was so immersed in God, so concentrated on God.”

The retired cardinal remembered that when faced with a decision or problem, the pope would respond, “We need to pray more about this.”

The manuscripts were first published in Polish in 2018 to mark the 40th anniversary of Wojtyła’s election as Archbishop of Krakow. No decision has yet been made about publication in English or Spanish.

Wojtyla began writing the meditations on St. Paul’s speech at the Areopagus following two trips to Athens in the mid-1960’s. Within the text, he references documents from Vatican Council II, including Nostra Aetate, Dei Verbum, and Gaudium et Spes. 

Dr. Marta Burghardt, who conducted historical and philological analysis of the original manuscripts, concluded that the Wojtyla wrote several passages of conciliar texts and Scripture from memory. 

Burghardt said it is still unknown to whom, if anyone, Wojtyła was writing these reflections on St. Paul or whether they were intended for a series of speeches or publication. 

“The depth of these texts perfectly reflects his extraordinary conception of the world from the point of view of communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz wrote in the introduction to the book, published by the Vatican library. Dziwisz served as St. John Paul II’s personal secretary throught his time as a bishop and pope.

“In this particular historical moment we all feel again the need for a profound and general catechesis on the truths of the faith, of a catechesis that completely introduces us into the mystery of God’s work in our human history,” Dziwisz said.

[…]

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*