‘Thank God I’m healing’: Cardinal with coronavirus sends Easter message

Vatican City, Nov 16, 2017 / 12:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis sent a message Thursday to a conference on climate change, telling participants the problem is something that can’t be ignored, but must be met with a proactive desire to develop effective solutions.

“I would like to reiterate my urgent invitation to renew dialogue about the way in which we are building the future of the planet,” the Pope said Nov. 16.

“We need a solution that unites everyone, because the environmental challenge that we are living, and its human roots, involves and touches us all,” he said, noting that unfortunately many of the efforts to seek concrete solutions “are often frustrated by various motives that range from negating the problem to indifference, comfortable resignation or blind trust in technical solutions.”

Francis said we have to avoid falling into the “perverse attitudes” of denial, indifference, resignation, and trust in inadequate solutions, which “certainly do not help honest research and sincere dialogue on building the future of our planet.”

Pope Francis offered his words in a message to Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji, for the U.N. COP-23 Climate Change conference taking place Nov. 6-17 in Bonn, Germany, and which is being presided over by the government of Fiji.

He noted how the gathering is taking place two years after the Paris Climate Agreement was reached, which reached a consensus on the need to develop “a shared strategy to counteract one of the most concerning phenomenons that our humanity is living: climate change.”

The Paris Agreement was an international climate accord reached in 2015 after representatives of more than 150 countries met for COP 21, or the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Signatories pledged on various levels to help reduce global carbon emissions and aim to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius, as compared to average temperatures from the pre-industrial age, by the end of the 21st century.

When the agreement was initially reached, Pope Francis hailed it as “historic” and said it would require “a concerted and generous commitment” from members of the international community. Over 190 countries have signed on to the agreement.

However, United States President Donald Trump decided earlier this year to pull out of the accord, arguing that the requirements would harm the U.S. economy and jobs.

In his message to the COP-23 conference, Pope Francis said the challenge of climate change requires the commitment of every country, some of whom “must try to assume a guiding role,” with due consideration for vulnerable populations.

He noted how in this year’s conference participants are trying to implement a new phase of the Paris agreement, which is “the process of defining and building guidelines, rules and institutional mechanisms so that it can truly be effective and capable of contributing to the achievement of the complex objectives it proposes.”

In coming up with solutions, the Pope cautioned against limiting them only to the economic or technical dimensions, because “technical solutions are necessary but insufficient.”

Rather, he said “it’s essential and desirable to also keep in attentive consideration the ethical and social aspects and impacts of the new paradigm of development and progress in short, medium and long-term.”

To this end, Francis emphasized the need to focus on an education and lifestyle that are based on an integral ecology capable of assuming “a vision of honest research and open dialogue” where the various aspects of the Paris Agreement are intertwined.  

The agreement, he said, calls for “serious responsibility to act without delay as freely as possible from political and economic pressures, overcoming particular interests and behaviors,” and requires a “responsible awareness” of our common home.

Pope Francis closed his message voicing his hope that the work done in the conference would be animated by the same “collaboration and proactive” spirit of the COP-21 conference in 2015.

“This will accelerate awareness-raising and the consolidation of the will to make effective decisions to counteract the phenomenon of climate change while at the same time fighting poverty and promoting a true integral human development.”

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Pope Francis gives the weekly Angelus address on Aug. 27, 2023. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Aug 27, 2023 / 05:35 am (CNA).
Christ is with us and walking beside us in our daily journey through life, including our struggles to be holy, Pope Fra… […]

Vatican City, Apr 18, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed for those caring for people with disabilities during the coronavirus crisis at his morning Mass Saturday. 

Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, Casa Santa Marta, April 18, he said he had received a letter from a religious sister working as a sign language interpreter for deaf people. She told him about the difficulties facing healthcare workers, nurses and doctors looking after disabled patients affected by COVID-19. 

“So let us pray for those who are always at the service of these persons with various disabilities,” he said.

The pope made the comments at the start of the Mass, which was livestreamed due to the pandemic. 

In his homily, he reflected on the day’s first reading (Acts 4:13-21), in which the religious authorities ordered Peter and John not to teach in the name of Jesus. 

The apostles refused to obey, the pope said, replying with “courage and frankness” that it was impossible for them to remain silent about what they had seen and heard. 

Ever since then, he explained, courage and frankness have been the hallmarks of Christian preaching. 

The pope recalled a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews (10:32-35), in which lukewarm Christians are urged to remember their early struggles and regain their confidence and candor.

“You cannot be Christian without this frankness: if it does not come, you are not a good Christian,” he said. “If you don’t have the courage, if to explain your position you slide into ideologies or casuistic explanations, you lack that frankness, you lack that Christian style, the freedom to speak, to say everything.”

Peter and John’s frankness confounded the leaders, elders and scribes, he said.

“Really, they were cornered by frankness: they didn’t know how to get out of it,” he observed. “But it didn’t occur to them to say, ‘Could this be true?’ The heart was already closed, it was hard; the heart was corrupt.”

The pope noted that Peter was not born brave, but had received the gift of parrhesia — a Greek word sometimes translated as “boldness” — from the Holy Spirit. 

“He was a coward, he denied Jesus,” he said. “But what happened now? They [Peter and John] answered: ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.’” 

“But where does this courage come from, this coward who has denied the Lord? What has happened in this man’s heart? The gift of the Holy Spirit: frankness, courage, parrhesia is a gift, a grace that the Holy Spirit gives on the day of Pentecost.” 

“Just after receiving the Holy Spirit they went to preach: a little brave, something new for them. This is consistency, the sign of the Christian, of the true Christian: he is courageous, he says the whole truth because he is consistent.”

Turning to the day’s Gospel reading (Mark 16:9-15), in which the risen Christ reproaches the disciples for not believing reports of his resurrection, the pope noted that Jesus gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit which enables them to carry out their mission to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

“The mission comes precisely from here, from this gift which makes us courageous, frank in proclaiming the word,” he said.

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching online in a prayer of spiritual communion.

The Pope recalled that tomorrow he would offer Mass at Santo Spirito in Sassia, a church near St. Peter’s Basilica, at 11 a.m local time. 

Finally, those present sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

In his homily, the pope clarified that Christians should be both courageous and prudent. 

“May the Lord always help us to be like this: courageous. This does not mean imprudent: no, no. Courageous. Christian courage is always prudent, but it is courage,” he said.

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