Vatican City, Oct 12, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican confirmed Monday that four Swiss Guards have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Responding to journalists’ questions Oct. 12, Holy See press office director Matteo Bruni said that the four members of the world’s smallest but oldest standing army had been placed in isolation following positive tests at the weekend.
“In these hours, the necessary checks are being carried out among those who may have been in direct contact with them,” he said.
Citing new measures issued last week by the Governorate of Vatican City State, he explained that all guards would wear face masks both indoors and outdoors, regardless of whether they were on duty. They would also observe all other rules intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Bruni added that, in addition to the four members of the corps responsible for protecting the pope, three other residents or citizens of Vatican City State tested positive for the virus.
All three people had mild symptoms and were isolating at home, he said.
Italy was one of Europe’s worst-hit countries during the first wave of the pandemic. More than 354,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 36,166 have died in the country as of Oct. 12, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The Italian government is preparing to introduce further restrictions following a new spike in cases.
Earlier this month, 38 new recruits to the Swiss Guards — known for their distinctive blue, red, orange, and yellow uniforms — were sworn in at a ceremony at the Vatican.
The ceremony usually takes place on or close to May 6, but due to the coronavirus restrictions in Italy at that time, it was moved to Oct. 4.
He told them: “The time you will spend here is a unique moment in your existence: may you live it with a spirit of brotherhood, helping one another to lead a life rich in meaning and joyfully Christian.”
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Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves. / Office of Communication Society of Jesus.
Rome Newsroom, Nov 30, 2022 / 04:46 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has appointed a Spanish layman to lead the Secretariat for the Economy following the resignation of Father J… […]
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 2, 2023 / 05:15 am (CNA).
On Palm Sunday, Pope Francis said Jesus voluntarily took on the pain and abandonment of his Passion and Crucifixion so that he could be with us in whatever sorrow or difficulty we might be experiencing.
Jesus “experienced abandonment in order not to leave us prey to despair, in order to stay at our side forever,” the pope said during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square April 2.
“He did this for me, for you,” he said, “because whenever you or I or anyone else seems pinned to the wall — and we have seen someone pinned to the wall — you see someone lost in a blind alley, plunged into the abyss of abandonment, sucked into a whirlwind of ‘whys’ without answer, there can still be some hope…”
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Pope Francis presided over the Palm Sunday Mass one day after being discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
The pope was admitted to the hospital for three days beginning March 29 for treatment for a bronchitis infection, the Vatican said.
An estimated 60,000 people were at the papal Mass, according to the Vatican Gendarmes.
In his homily, Francis spoke in a soft voice as he emphasized that whatever situation of abandonment we find ourselves in, Jesus is at our side.
The pope also said that we will find Jesus in those who are abandoned, recalling the death in November last year of a homeless man from Germany, who was found under the colonnade of St. Peter‘s Square.
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Jesus “wants us to care for our brothers and sisters who resemble him most, those experiencing extreme suffering and solitude,” he said. “Today, brothers and sisters, there are entire peoples who are exploited and abandoned; the poor live on our streets and we look the other way, we turn around; there are migrants who are no longer faces but numbers; prisoners are disowned; people written off as problems.”
Pope Francis said these people are “Christs” for us: “People who are abandoned, invisible, hidden, discarded with white gloves,” such as the unborn, the isolated elderly, the forgotten sick, the abandoned disabled, and the lonely young.
“Jesus, in his abandonment, asks us to open our eyes and hearts to all who find themselves abandoned,” he said.
Pope Francis entered St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile April 2. He was driven to the central obelisk for the blessing of the palms and the proclamation of a reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew and the singing of Psalm 23.
Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
The blessing followed the procession of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, and laypeople carrying palm fronds, olive branches, and the large weaved palms called “parmureli” to commemorate Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. Pope Francis has not led the procession since 2019.
For the start of Mass, the pope was again driven in the popemobile from the obelisk to the altar in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, which will lead in to the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, and concludes with the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection beginning at the Easter Vigil.
On Palm Sunday, the Mass includes the reading of the Lord’s Passion from the Gospel of St. Matthew.
In his homily on April 2, Pope Francis focused on a line from the Gospel and repeated in the Psalm — Jesus’ cry of abandonment to the Father — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
“‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ In the Bible, the word ‘forsake’ is powerful,” the pope said.
An estimated 60,000 people attended Pope Francis’ Mass for Palm Sunday April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
He noted how one might feel forsaken “at moments of extreme pain: love that fails, or is rejected or betrayed; children who are rejected and aborted; situations of repudiation, the lot of widows and orphans; broken marriages, forms of social exclusion, injustice and oppression; the solitude of sickness.”
“In a word, in the drastic severing of the bonds that unite us to others,” he said. “There [Jesus] tells us this word: abandonment. Christ brought all of this to the cross; upon his shoulders, he bore the sins of the world. And at the supreme moment, Jesus, the only begotten, beloved Son of the Father, experienced a situation utterly alien to his very being: the abandonment, the distance of God.”
“But, why did it have to come to this? For us. There is no other answer: Us,” Francis underlined. “He became one of us to the very end, in order to be completely and definitively one with us.”
At the end of his homily, Pope Francis remained in silence for over two and a half minutes before the singing of the Creed.
Jesus, the pope said, “has endured the distance of abandonment in order to take up into his love every possible distance that we can feel. So that each of us might say: in my failings — each of you has fallen many times — and I can say in my failings, in my desolation, whenever I feel betrayed or I have betrayed someone, when I feel cast aside or I have cast aside others, or when I feel forsaken or have forsaken others, we can think that Jesus was abandoned, betrayed, cast aside.”
An estimated 60,000 people attended Pope Francis’ Mass for Palm Sunday April 2, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
In our failures, we can remember that Jesus is at our side, Pope Francis said. “When I feel lost and confused, when I feel that I can’t go on, he is with me, he is there. In the thousand fits of ‘why…?’ and with many ‘whys’ unanswered, he is there.”
At the conclusion of Mass, Pope Francis led the Angelus, a traditional prayer honoring Mary.
In a brief message before the prayer, he invited Catholics to live Holy Week “as the tradition of God’s holy faithful people teaches us, that is, accompanying the Lord Jesus with faith and love.”
“Let us learn from our Mother, the Virgin Mary,” he said. “She followed her Son with the closeness of her heart; she was one soul with him and, although she did not understand everything, together with him she surrendered herself fully to the will of God the Father.”
“May Our Lady help us to be close to Jesus present in the suffering, discarded, abandoned people. May Our Lady take us by the hand to Jesus present in these people,” he said. “To all, happy journey toward Easter.”
From the popemobile, Pope Francis greeted those gathered in the square and in the adjoining thoroughfare after the Mass.
The full text of Pope Francis’ homily for Palm Sunday 2023 can be read here.
Vatican City, May 22, 2018 / 02:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will meet for three days next month with victims of a Chilean priest who committed sexual abuse as well as abuse of power and conscience, in an effort to respond to the country’s clerical sex abuse crisis.
The Holy See press office stated May 22 that Pope Francis will receive a second group of victims of Fr. Fernando Karadima and his followers at the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse June 1-3.
The group of nine includes five priests who were victims of abuse of power, conscience, and sexuality; two priests who have been assisting the victims; and two lay people.
Most of those coming to the Vatican participated in Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta’s investigation of abuse cover-up by the hierarchy in Chile, whick took place in February. The others worked with the investigation after the archbishop’s time in Chile.
“With this new meeting, scheduled a month ago, Pope Francis wants to demonstrate his closeness to abused priests, to accompany them in their pain and to listen to their valuable views to improve the current preventive measures and the fight against abuses in the Church,” the Holy See press office said.
The meeting will conclude the pope’s first round of meetings with the victims of abuses which occurred at Karadima’s Sacred Heart parish in Santiago.
“These priests and lay people represent all the victims of abuses by clerics in Chile, but it is not ruled out that similar initiatives may be repeated in the future.”
The visit will include various meetings “which will take place in an atmosphere of trust and confidentiality.” Pope Francis will say Mass for the group June 2, after which there will be a group meeting, followed by individual conversations.
“The Holy Father continues to ask the faithful of Chile – and especially the faithful of the parishes where these priests carry out their pastoral ministry – to accompany them with prayer and solidarity during these days.”
Francis had met with three more of Karadima’s victims, Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton, and Andres Murillo, at the Vatican April 27-30. Cruz, who has same-sex attraction, told a Spanish newspaper May 20 that the pope had told him to accept himself and his attraction, because God made him that way.
Karadima was convicted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2011 of abusing minors, and sentenced to a life of prayer and penance. He has not been sentenced by civil courts because of Chile’s statue of limitations.
A sacerdotal association which Karadima had led, the Priestly Union of the Sacred Heart, was suppressed within a year of his conviction.
Attention to Karadima’s abuse has heightened since the 2015 appointment of Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid to the Diocese of Osorno. Barros had been accused of covering up Karadima’s abuses.
Pope Francis initially defended Barros, saying he had received no evidence of the bishop’s guilt, and called accusations against him “calumny” during a trip to Chile in January. He later relented, and sent Scicluna to investigate the situation in Chile.
After receiving Scicluna’s report, Francis apologized, said that he had been seriously mistaken, and asked to meet the country’s bishops and more outspoken survivors in person.
He met with Chile’s bishops May 15-17. As a result, each of them tendered letters of resignation, which Pope Francis has yet to accept or reject. The pope also gave the bishops a lettter chastising them for systemic cover-up of clerical abuse and calling them to institute deep changes.
On May 19, Bishop Alejandro Goić Karmelić of Rancagua suspended several priests after allegations of sexual misconduct were raised against them. He also apologized for not following up when the accusations were first brought to his attention.
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