Pope Francis: the devil seeks to destroy the Church through envy

Vatican City, Dec 20, 2019 / 07:40 am (CNA).- Pope Francis and the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres recorded a video message together at the Vatican Friday in which the two leaders urge the importance of religious freedom, human dignity, and environmental protection.

“We must not remain indifferent to the human dignity trampled on and exploited, to attacks against human life, whether it is yet to be born or that of every person in need of care,” Pope Francis said in the video message recorded with the the UN Secretary General at the Vatican Apostolic Palace Dec. 20.

“We cannot, we must not turn away when the believers of various faiths are persecuted, in different parts of the world. The use of religion to incite hatred … cries out for God’s justice,” the pope said.

The UN Secretary General added: “Tragically we see Jews being murdered in synagogues, their gravestones defaced with swastikas; Muslims gunned down in mosques, their religious sites vandalized; Christians killed at prayers, their churches torched. We need to do more to promote mutual understanding and tackle rising hatred.”

“Our meeting is especially meaningful during this Christmas season. This is a time of peace and goodwill and I am sad to witness Christian communities – including some of the world’s oldest – unable to celebrate Christmas in safety,” Guterres said.

Antonio Guterres, former prime minister of Portugal, has served as the UN Secretary General since 2017. He first met Pope Francis at the Vatican as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2013, and again as secretary general during the pope’s 2015 visit to UN headquarters in Geneva.

“You are a messenger for hope and humanity – for reducing human suffering and promoting human dignity,” the UN Secretary General told the pope.

He thanked Pope Francis for being a “clear moral voice” and for promoting interfaith relations, particularly through the Abu Dhabi declaration on human fraternity with the Grand Imam of Al- Azhar.

“This declaration is extremely important when we see such dramatic attacks on religious freedom and the lives of believers,” he said. “The United Nations has also launched a Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites and a strategy to combat hate speech.”

In August, the UN General Assembly inaugurated the first International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief to be marked each year on Aug. 22.

UN Secretary General also thanked Pope Francis for highlighting the issue of climate change in his encyclical Laudato Si.

“To promote love of people and care for our planet. To uphold our common humanity and protect our common home. Our world needs that more than ever. Coming to Rome from the COP25 in Madrid, I call on all countries around the globe to commit to carbon neutrality by 2050, in line with what the scientific community tells us is necessary to rescue the planet,” Guterres said.

Pope Francis said that the need to reduce polluting emissions is  “urgent and necessary” for an integral ecology. “​Let’s do something before it’s too late,” he said.

In a 40-minute private meeting at the Vatican, the two leaders discussed “the crisis of multilateralism” in addressing global issues such as migration, human trafficking, climate change, and disarmament, according to the Holy See Press Office.

They also focused on the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and current conflict situations and humanitarian emergencies.

Following the meeting, the UN Secretary General also met with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Richard Gallagher.

“Confidence in dialogue between people and between nations, in multilateralism, in the role of international organizations, in diplomacy as a tool for understanding and understanding, is indispensable for building a peaceful world,” the pope said in the video message.

“Christmas, in its genuine simplicity, reminds us that what really matters in life is love,” he said. “These are days when our eyes are turned to the heavens to entrust to God the people and situations that we most cherish.”

[…]

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2019 / 05:10 am (CNA).- The head of the Vatican’s Christian unity office says inculturation of the Gospel is a necessary part of evangelization, but also requires discernment of what in that culture may need “purification.”

“Evangelization always needs inculturation, so that the Gospel will be understood in different cultures,” Cardinal Kurt Koch told EWTN News Oct. 23.

“But I think we must see two things,” he continued, “first of all, inculturation, and on the other side purification of the culture, because not all things in other cultures are good.”

“We have different challenges and different problems and we must have a clear discernment of spirit of what we can accept and receive from these cultures for the better understanding of the Gospel; and on the other hand we must purify something in this culture.”

The Swiss cardinal previously served as bishop of Basel from 1996 to 2010, when he was appointed president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Vatican’s office dedicated to ecumenism. 

Koch is participating in this month’s Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazonian region because of his position as head of a Vatican dicastery. The Amazon synod, a three-week long meeting on the Church’s life and mission in the region, will end Oct. 27.

Koch said he has had the impression during the Amazon synod that “bishops speak above all about inculturation and not much about purification.”

The cardinal added that he has asked the group what are the elements of the native Amazonian cultures which need purified but “I haven’t received a clear answer.” 

The need for inculturation has been one of the prominent topics of the Amazon synod. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that inculturation is a necessary step on the Church’s mission of evangelizing the world.

“Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ, continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are ‘a sign of God’s presence in the world,’ and leads to the foundation of local churches. It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people’s culture,” paragraph 854 states.

In paragraph 1207, the Catechism explains that “it is fitting that liturgical celebration tends to express itself in the culture of the people where the Church finds herself, though without being submissive to it.”

“Enculturation,” or “inculturation” when in reference to Christianity, means having a deference in Church practice, specifically in the liturgy, to the local circumstances of a culture.

The Catechism also says, in paragraph 1149, that “the liturgy of the Church presupposes, integrates and sanctifies elements from creation and human culture, conferring on them the dignity of signs of grace, of the new creation in Jesus Christ.”

Fr. Mark Morozowich, the dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, explained to CNA in March the principles that govern such “inculturation.”

“The Church has always enculturated the liturgy,” he said.

“This is something we’ve done through the centuries in every single place from the very beginning.”

Starting with the first ministry of the apostles, he said, “the Church lived Jesus Christ, proclaimed his cross, death, and resurrection. The Church proclaimed Jesus Christ being present body and soul in the elements of the Eucharist.”

He said that there have been, and continue to be, some regional differences in the matter used in the celebration of the Eucharist, but those differences are limited by the Church’s doctrinal teaching.

The Mass is not, Morozowich said, about enacting an exact historical recreation of the last supper, “but at the same time the Church has said there are some core elements of this reality of the presence of this way the [Christian] community has celebrated throughout its lifetime.”

[…]

Vatican City, Aug 17, 2020 / 10:10 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has donated ventilators and ultrasound scanners to hospitals in coronavirus-ravaged Brazil.

In a Aug. 17 press statement, papal almoner Cardinal Konrad Krajewski said that 18 Dräger inten… […]