Pope Francis makes surprise visit to Alzheimer’s patients

Vatican City, Apr 23, 2020 / 08:45 am (CNA).- Pope Francis marked the feast of his namesake on Thursday with a gift of ventilators and other medical equipment to countries with medical systems overwhelmed by the coronavirus outbreak.

Ventilators were … […]

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Peace is often misunderstood today as a subjective psychological idea, Pope Francis said Wednesday, stressing that true peace is found in Christ’s sacrificial love.

“Those who have learned and exercise the art of peace are called children of God, they know that there is no reconciliation without the gift of one’s own life, and that peace must always be sought,” Pope Francis said April 15.

The pope said that there is a widespread sense today that “peace” means “a sort of inner tranquility,” but this idea is deficient and can hinder personal growth.

“This is a modern, psychological and more subjective idea. Peace is commonly thought to be quiet, harmony, internal balance. This … meaning is incomplete and cannot be absolutized, because restlessness can be an important moment of growth in life,” he explained.

“Many times it is the Lord himself who sows uneasiness in us to go to meet him, to find him,” he said.

“It can happen that inner tranquility corresponds to a domesticated conscience and not to a true spiritual redemption,” he warned.

Speaking via livestream due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis quoted Christ’s words in the Gospel of John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”

“Many times the Lord must be a ‘sign of contradiction’, shaking our false certainties, to bring us to salvation,” Francis said. 

“And at that moment there seems to be no peace, but it is the Lord who puts us on this path to reach the peace that He himself will give us,” he added.

Jesus is the prince of peace, who fulfilled the Hebrew concept of shalom  by reconciling all things and making “peace with the blood of his cross,” the pope said.

Pope Francis explained that the biblical notion of shalom means “abundance, prosperity, well-being.”

“When in Hebrew we wish shalom, we wish for a beautiful, full, prosperous life, but also according to truth and justice, which will be fulfilled in the Messiah, prince of peace,” he said.

He said that peace is not “the fruit of one’s own abilities,” but a “manifestation of the grace received from Christ.”

Pope Francis’ meditation on peace was a part of an ongoing weekly catechesis on the Beatitudes. 

This week, the pope focused on the seventh Beatitude given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter five of the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

The pope said that this beatitude, the seventh one, is the most active.

“Love by its nature is creative — love is always creative — and seeks reconciliation at any cost,” he said.

In his message to Polish pilgrims, the pope noted that next weekend is Divine Mercy Sunday, and quoted St. Faustina’s diary: “Humanity will not find peace until it turns to the source of my mercy.”

“True shalom and true inner balance flow from the peace of Christ, which comes from his Cross and generates a new humanity, embodied in an infinite host of inventive and creative saints, who have always devised new ways to love,” the pope said.

“The saints build peace. This life as children of God, who because of the blood of Christ seek and find their brothers, is true happiness. Blessed are those who go this way,”  Pope Francis said.

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Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger celebrates the special “pro eligendo summo pontifice” (to elect Supreme Pontiff) Mass at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City on April 18, 2005. / Credit: MARCO LONGARI/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Apr 1, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis said he was “used” in the 2005 conclave in an effort to block the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, though he supported the candidacy of the man who soon became Pope Benedict XVI. 

“He was my candidate,” Francis said of his predecessor in excerpts from the forthcoming book “The Successor,” published by the Spanish newspaper ABC on Easter Sunday.  

In the book, Pope Francis told Spanish journalist Javier Martínez-Brocal that his name, then-Cardinal Jose Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, was put forward as part of a “complete maneuver” by an unnamed group of cardinals to manipulate the conclave’s outcome. 

“The idea was to block the election of [Ratzinger],” he explained. “They were using me, but behind them they were already thinking about proposing another cardinal. They still couldn’t agree on who, but they were already on the verge of throwing out a name.” 

Francis said that at one point of the conclave, which began on April 18, 2005, he was receiving 40 of the 115 total votes. If cardinals continued to support him, Ratzinger would not have reached the necessary two-thirds threshold to be elected, likely prompting a search for an alternative candidate. 

Francis said that he realized the “operation” was afoot on the second day of voting and told the Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillón to not “joke with my candidacy” and cease supporting him, “because I’m not going to accept” being elected. 

Austen Ivereigh, the pope’s English-speaking biographer, has previously written that Bergoglio, “almost in tears,” had begged not to be elected. 

Ratzinger, who had been the longtime prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II, was elected that same day. 

Pope Francis did not say who this group of conclave manipulators consisted of nor who they planned to introduce as a third candidate, but the Argentinian prelate said that the group of cardinals “did not want a ‘foreign’ pope.” 

Several accounts from the time have claimed that a group of liberal European cardinals, known as the Saint Gallen Group, attempted to manipulate the outcome of the 2005 conclave. Three members of the group, German Cardinals Walter Kasper and Karl Lehmann and Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, also participated in the 2013 conclave that elected Francis. According to Ivereigh, they advocated for Bergoglio after first securing his assent, a claim the cardinals have denied. 

According to Universi Dominici Gregis, an apostolic constitution governing papal conclaves, cardinal electors must refrain from “any form of pact, agreement, promise, or other commitment of any kind which could oblige them to give or deny their vote to a person or persons” under threat of automatic excommunication. 

Conclave proceedings are, by definition, secretive, as the term is derived from a Latin word that means a “locked room.” But in “The Successor,” Francis said that while cardinals are sworn to secrecy regarding conclave proceedings, “the popes have license to tell it.” 

Pope Francis also revealed that while others were putting his name forward in the hopes of forcing a stalemate, he believed Ratzinger “was the only one at that time [who] could be pope.” 

“After the revolution of John Paul II, who had been a dynamic pontiff, very active, with initiative who traveled … there was a need for a pope who maintained a healthy balance, a transitional pope,” the Holy Father said of his predecessor, who served from 2005 to 2013. 

Francis also said that he left Rome happy that Ratzinger had been elected and not himself. 

“If they had chosen someone like me, who makes a lot of trouble, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything,” he said. “At that time, it would not have been possible.” 

Nonetheless, Pope Francis added that the papacy “wasn’t easy” for Benedict XVI, who “encountered a lot of resistance within the Vatican.” 

Pope Francis was also asked what the Holy Spirit was saying to the Church through the election of Benedict XVI. 

“’I am in charge here,’” Francis said of the Spirit’s response. “’There is no room for maneuver.’” 

“The Successor” is part of a flurry of Francis-focused books being released in the 87-year-old Jesuit’s 11th year as pontiff, which also includes “Life: My Story Through History,” the pope’s first autobiography. 

The new book, which focuses on the relationship between Pope Francis and Benedict XVI, is set to be published in Spanish on Wednesday, April 3, with no details yet available on an English edition. 

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