At Fatima, 24 countries consecrated to Jesus and Mary amid the coronavirus pandemic

Pope Francis delivers a message at his general audience on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jan 31, 2024 / 09:36 am (CNA).
Pope Francis dedicated his Jan. 31 general audience to the subject of wrath, characterizi… […]

Vatican City, Apr 11, 2020 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis urged Christians to be “messengers of life in a time of death” as he celebrated the Easter Vigil in a nearly empty St. Peter’s Basilica amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In his homily April 11, he said: “How beautiful it is to be Christians who offer consolation, who bear the burdens of others and who offer encouragement: messengers of life in a time of death!” 

He continued: “Let us silence the cries of death, no more wars! May we stop the production and trade of weapons, since we need bread, not guns. Let the abortion and killing of innocent lives end.” 

“May the hearts of those who have enough be open to filling the empty hands of those who do not have the bare necessities.”

With the Vatican under lockdown, the congregation consisted of only a small number of clergy and lay people, who stood spaced apart as a precaution against spreading COVID-19. Officials confirmed an eighth case of the disease among Vatican employees April 8, but have reported no deaths.

St. Peter’s, the largest church in the world, is normally packed for the Easter Vigil. This year, vast parts of the basilica were completely empty and silent. Microphones picked up the smallest sounds from the liturgy.

This year’s Easter Vigil liturgy was scaled back. The preparation of the Paschal candle was omitted due to “the health emergency in progress”, the Vatican said, as was the lighting of candles among the faithful. 

Instead, the basilica was lit up gradually until it was fully illuminated at the Gloria, when the bells of St. Peter’s tolled. No baptisms took place, only a renewal of baptismal promises. 

The pope celebrated the Vigil at the Altar of the Chair, which was flanked by the miraculous crucifix of San Marcello and the Byzantine icon of Mary, Salus Populi Romani.

In his homily, the 83-year-old pope noted that in St Matthew’s Gospel the women found Jesus’ tomb empty “after the Sabbath”.

“This is how the Gospel of this holy Vigil began: with the Sabbath,” he said. “It is the day of the Easter Triduum that we tend to neglect as we eagerly await the passage from Friday’s cross to Easter Sunday’s Alleluia. This year however, we are experiencing, more than ever, the great silence of Holy Saturday.”

“We can imagine ourselves in the position of the women on that day. They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly. They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts.”

“Pain was mixed with fear: would they suffer the same fate as the Master? Then too there was fear about the future and all that would need to be rebuilt. A painful memory, a hope cut short. For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour.”

But the women did not allow themselves to be paralyzed, the pope observed. 

“Jesus, like a seed buried in the ground, was about to make new life blossom in the world; and these women, by prayer and love, were helping to make that hope flower,” he said. “How many people, in these sad days, have done and are still doing what those women did, sowing seeds of hope! With small gestures of care, affection and prayer.”

The pope said that the Resurrection gave believers a fundamental right: “the right to hope”. This is not mere optimism, he explained, but a gift from heaven.

He then referred to signs currently displayed in windows throughout Italy which proclaim “Andrà tutto bene” (“All will be well”).

“Over these weeks, we have kept repeating, ‘All will be well’, clinging to the beauty of our humanity and allowing words of encouragement to rise up from our hearts,” he said. 

“But as the days go by and fears grow, even the boldest hope can dissipate. Jesus’ hope is different. He plants in our hearts the conviction that God is able to make everything work unto good, because even from the grave he brings life.”

He urged listeners undergoing suffering not to give in to despair.

He said: “Dear sister, dear brother, even if in your heart you have buried hope, do not give up: God is greater. Darkness and death do not have the last word. Be strong, for with God nothing is lost!”

More than 107,000 people had died from COVID-19 worldwide as of April 11, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

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Tommaso Di Ruzza, director of the AIF, speaks at a briefing on the authority’s annual report, alongside Alessandro Gisotti and Rene Bruelhart, May 21, 2019. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.

Vatican City, Apr 28, 2022 / 09:05 am (CNA).

The former director of the Vatican’s internal financial watchdog said on Wednesday that he acted correctly to investigate a London property deal and had no power to stop it.

He also said that Pope Francis wanted his office to support the Vatican Secretariat of State’s negotiations in the final part of the deal.

Tommaso Di Ruzza was questioned during an April 27 hearing in the ongoing Vatican trial to prosecute 10 people on criminal charges mostly related to the Secretariat of State’s purchase of an investment property in London.

Di Ruzza worked in the Vatican from 2011 and was director of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority (AIF) from 2016 to January 2020. The AIF was renamed the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority (ASIF) in December 2020.

Di Ruzza and former AIF president René Brülhart have been charged with abuse of office for allegedly failing to stop an agreement that “should have been considered suspicious,” according to Vatican prosecutors.

The prosecutors argue that the AIF would have known that a payment of 15 million euros ($15.8 million) made to businessman Gianluigi Torzi, a sum allegedly received through extortion, was not legitimate.

When Torzi brokered the last part of the London property deal, he sold the Secretariat of State the 30,000 majority shares in the holding company through which the building was purchased, while retaining the 1,000 shares with voting rights.

In around four hours of questioning on Wednesday, Di Ruzza explained why he did not step in to stop the last part of the deal.

Di Ruzza said that the decision about what to do about Torzi was up to the Secretariat of State, not the AIF, and the secretariat decided the best path forward was to exit the contract with Torzi.

He said that he did not report the payment to Vatican prosecutors because of a lack of sufficient evidence of suspicious activity under Vatican and international norms, though his office went on to conduct “in-depth investigations” of the transaction.

Di Ruzza also testified that Pope Francis had asked him to support the secretariat’s efforts to regain control of the London property from Torzi, echoing testimony given by Brülhart during another hearing earlier this month.

During questioning on April 5, Brülhart said that both Pope Francis and Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, the Secretariat of State’s second-in-command, wanted the deal with Torzi to be concluded “under any circumstances.”

Other witnesses in the trial have also said that Pope Francis approved the Secretariat of State’s payment which concluded the negotiations with Torzi.

The trial will continue on May 5 with the questioning of Cardinal Angelo Becciu.

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