Vatican confirms ‘individual measures’ taken against staff in financial investigation

There was a candlelit path to the altar holding the Eucharist during adoration in St. Peter’s Square on March 14, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Mar 15, 2023 / 09:30 am (CNA).

The Vatican held its first monthly eucharistic adoration in the area in front of St. Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday night.

The March adoration was led by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, OFM Conv, who is the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica. The holy hour was offered for Pope Francis in light of his 10th anniversary as pope.

Several hundred adorers gathered at the Vatican to take part in the hour of prayer, which included music, Scripture readings, and prayers interspersed with moments of silence.

Large orange candles created a visual pathway to the Eucharist, which was displayed in a gold monstrance set on an altar.

Adoration concluded with Benediction.

The eucharistic adoration, a new pastoral initiative of St. Peter’s Basilica, will take place the second Tuesday of every month from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

It is open to the public.

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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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Vatican City, Jan 28, 2018 / 04:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At Mass in the Basilica of St. Mary Major Sunday, Pope Francis said that when we go through difficult times or have problems or worries, Mary is our shield, guarding our faith and protecting us from evil.

“Where the Madonna is at home the devil does not enter; where there is the Mother disturbance does not prevail, fear does not win,” the Pope said Jan. 28.

“Who of us does not need this, who of us is not sometimes upset or restless? How often the heart is a stormy sea, where the waves of problems overlap, and the winds of worry do not cease to blow! Mary is the sure ark in the midst of the flood.”

Pope Francis celebrated a special Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major for the Feast of the transfer of the icon of Salus Populi Romani.

Salus Populi Romani (Protectress of the Roman People) is the title of an ancient Byzantine icon of Mary and the Child Jesus, traditionally held to be painted by St. Luke the Evangelist and to have arrived in Rome in the 6th century.

It was first canonically crowned in 1838 by Pope Gregory XVI and a second time in 1954 by Pope Pius XII. It has a long history of devotion by the Roman people, as well as by popes. It resides in the Pauline, also called Borghese, Chapel in St. Mary Major.

Francis has a special devotion to the image. His first visit as pontiff was to the Basilica of St. Mary Major to pray before the image following his election.

The image has been undergoing extensive restoration in the Vatican Museums, and the Mass also served as the image’s official unveiling following the work.

In his homily, Pope Francis said that it is “a great danger to faith, to live without a mother, without protection, letting ourselves be carried away by life like leaves by the wind.”

Just like persecuted people once took refuge under the cloak of the noble, high-ranking women of their village, in “turbulent moments” we must take shelter under the mantle of Mary, “the highest woman of mankind,” for our own protection.

“Her coat is always open to welcome us and gather us,” he said. “The Mother guards faith, protects relationships, saves in bad weather and preserves from evil.”

As Christians, we cannot be neutral or detached from our Mother, he continued. “Because without a Mother we cannot be children. And we are, first of all, children, beloved children, who have God for a Father and the Madonna for a Mother.”

To illustrate his point, Francis recalled a story of a woman who sat beside the bed of her son in the hospital. He was in pain after an accident, and the mother remained by his bed day and night.

Once she complained to a visiting priest that God never allowed one thing to a mother, which is to suffer in place of her child.

“Here is the mother’s heart,” the Pope said. “She is not ashamed of the wounds, of the weaknesses of her children, but she wants (to take) them on herself.”

And this is how it happens every time, he said. Whether we lack hope, or joy, or our strength is exhausted; whatever our problem, our Mother intervenes.

“And she never, never despises our prayers; she does not let even one fall. She is a Mother, she is never ashamed of us, she only waits to be able to help her children.”

“Let’s make the Mother the guest of our daily life, the constant presence in our home, our safe haven,” he concluded. “Let’s entrust (ourselves) to her every day. Let’s invoke her in every turbulence. And let’s not forget to come back to her to thank her.”

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