Saad Hariri, Prime Minister-designate of Lebanon, meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican, April 22, 2021. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Apr 22, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis met the prime minister-designate of Lebanon in a private meeting at the Vatican on Thursday.
Pope Francis told Saad Hariri that he is close to the Lebanese people as they live “a time of great difficulty and uncertainty,” according to a message from Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office.
During the encounter April 22, which lasted around half an hour, Pope Francis again expressed his desire to visit Lebanon as soon as conditions allow.
According to Bruni, Pope Francis said he hoped that “Lebanon, with the help of the international community, will once again embody ‘the strength of the cedars, the diversity which from weakness becomes strength in the great reconciled people,’ with its vocation to be a land of encounter, coexistence, and pluralism.”
Hariri was prime minister of Lebanon for two terms, from 2009 to 2011 and from 2016 to January 2020, when he suddenly resigned. After two prime ministers resigned in 2020 after failing to form governments, Hariri was re-appointed prime minister by Lebanese President Michel Aoun on October 22, 2020. To date, Hariri has still not been able to form a government in the Middle Eastern country and remains prime minister-designate.
Hariri also met for an hour with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
/ Vatican Media
In their meeting, Pope Francis recalled the responsibility of political forces to commit themselves to helping Lebanon as it faces multiple challenges.
Lebanon is suffering under 18 months of financial and economic crisis, which also impacts the country’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A devastating explosion at Beirut’s port on August 4, 2020, caused an estimated $15 million in property damage and left 300,000 people homeless. More than 200 people died in the blast and thousands were injured.
Pope Francis spoke about Lebanon during his return flight to Rome from Iraq last month.
Lebanon “has the weakness of the diversity which some are still not reconciled to, but it has the strength of the great people reconciled like the strength of the cedars,” he said.
The pope said March 8 that he promised Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai, leader of the Maronite Church, that he would visit Lebanon in the future.
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Galway Bishop Michael Duignan said in a statement on Friday that the news of the stabbing of a Catholic chaplain was “deeply shocking and upsetting.” / Credit: Olliebailie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Ascension of Jesus Christ. Giotto di Bondone, 1305. public domain. / null
CNA Newsroom, May 17, 2023 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
Tomorrow is Ascension Thursday, the day the Church marks 40 days since Jesus’ resurrection and the day he ascended into h… […]
Pope Francis stands on an altar erected outside the Parliament Building in Budapest’s Kossuth Lajos’ Square during a public outdoor Mass on April 30, 2023. / Vatican Media
CNA Staff, Apr 30, 2023 / 05:47 am (CNA).
During an outdoor Mass in Budapest on Good Shepherd Sunday, Pope Francis called on Hungarians to be “open and inclusive,” reflecting on how Jesus wants his flock to share the abundant life they’ve received from him.
“Though we are diverse and come from different communities, the Lord has brought us together, so that his immense love can enfold us in one embrace,” the pope said in his April 30 homily, speaking in bright sunshine to more than 50,000 people gathered in and around the Hungarian capital’s picturesque Kossuth Lajos Square.
“[A]ll of us are called to cultivate relationships of fraternity and cooperation, avoiding divisions,” he said, “not retreating into our own community, not concerned to stake out our individual territory, but rather opening our hearts to mutual love.”
Prior to Mass, held outside the city’s majestic neo-Gothic Parliament building, the pope was transported in his wheelchair to a specially constructed altar platform flanked by banners in the colors of the Vatican and Hungarian flags and simply adorned with a towering wooden crucifix.
Pope Francis and Cardinal Peter Erdő, the archbishop of Budapest (left) are shown at the outdoor Mass held in Budapest, Hungary, on April 30, 2023. Erdő was the principal celebrant of the Mass; since the pope’s knee injury has impeded his mobility, he has called on cardinals to take his place at the altar. Vatican Media
Cardinal Peter Erdő, the archbishop of Budapest, was the principal celebrant of the Mass; since the pope’s knee injury has impeded his mobility, he has called on cardinals to take his place at the altar.
In his homily, Francis zeroed in on “two specific things that, according to the Gospel, [the Good Shepherd] does for the sheep. He calls them by name, and then he leads them out.”
“The history of salvation does not begin with us, with our merits, our abilities, and our structures. It begins with the call of God,” the pope said.
“[T]his morning, in this place, we sense the joy of our being God’s holy people. All of us were born of his call.”
Pope Francis said he spoke especially “to myself and to my brother bishops and priests: to those of us who are shepherds.” He called on the faithful to be “increasingly open doors: ‘facilitators’ — that’s the word — of God’s grace, masters of closeness; let us be ready to offer our lives, even as Christ … teaches us with open arms from the throne of the cross and shows us daily as the living Bread broken for us on the altar.”
Seeing closed doors is “sad and painful,” the pope said. He referred specifically to the “closed doors of our selfishness with regard to others; the closed doors of our individualism amid a society of growing isolation; the closed doors of our indifference towards the underprivileged and those who suffer; the doors we close towards those who are foreign or unlike us, towards migrants or the poor.”
The pope’s plea was, “Please, let us open those doors! Let us try to be — in our words, deeds, and daily activities — like Jesus, an open door.”
As open doors, the Lord of life can enter our hearts, Pope Francis assured, with “words of consolation and healing.”
Pope Francis speaks during a public outdoor Mass in Kossuth Lajos Square in Budapest, Hungary, on April 30, 2023. Vatican Media
Speaking to his Hungarian hosts, he urged them to be “open and inclusive” and “in this way, help Hungary to grow in fraternity, which is the path of peace,” an apparent reference to the country’s contested migration policies.
While the pope has praised the country for being a leader in assisting persecuted Christians in other countries and welcoming more than a million war refugees from neighboring Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s curbing of migrants from the Middle East and Africa is generally seen as being at odds with the pope’s call to openness. During the migrant crisis of 2015, Orbán sealed Hungary’s southern border with Serbia, closing off the main land route into Europe.
Pope Francis ended his homily with a reminder that Jesus “calls us by name and cares for us with infinitely tender love. He is the door, and all who enter through him have eternal life. He is our future, a future of ‘life in abundance.’
“Let us never be discouraged,” the pope said. “Let us never be robbed of the joy and peace he has given us. Let us never withdraw into our own problems or turn away from others in apathy. May the Good Shepherd accompany us always: with him, our lives, our families, our Christian communities and all of Hungary will flourish with new and abundant life!”
In his Regina Caeli reflection after the Mass, the pope referenced the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
“Blessed Virgin, watch over the peoples who suffer so greatly. In a special way, watch over the neighboring, beleaguered Ukrainian people and the Russian people, both consecrated to you,” he said.
“You, who are the Queen of Peace, instill in the hearts of peoples and their leaders the desire to build peace and to give the younger generations a future of hope, not war, a future full of cradles not tombs, a world of brothers and sisters, not walls and barricades.”
Ending his three-day visit to Budapest, the pope is scheduled to deliver a speech on culture and academics Sunday afternoon at the Péter Pázmány Catholic University. He then will have a farewell ceremony at 5:30 p.m. local time before departing on his return flight to Rome.
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