Catholics in Poland to hold ‘day of solidarity’ with people of Afghanistan

Visit to the United States – April 15- 20, 2008 / Vatican Media

Washington D.C., Jan 6, 2023 / 12:55 pm (CNA).
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31, was remembered as “brilliant,” yet “humble” and “warm” in a discussion yesterday with s… […]

Rome, Italy, Mar 2, 2018 / 10:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday, Pope Francis continued his surprise “Mercy Friday” initiative with a visit to a home that keeps children with their mothers, who might otherwise be separated because of imprisonment.

Called “Leda’s House,” the home allows women who might have otherwise been imprisoned or put under house arrest for minor crimes to be rehabilitated while continuing to care for their children with supervision.

Located in the EUR neighborhood of Rome, the houses opened just one year ago and is the first of its kind in Italy. It currently houses five young mothers, between 25 and 30 years old, and their children. Most come from Rome, though one is from elsewhere in Italy and another is from Egypt.

According to a Vatican press release March 2, the women, children, and staff of the home all greeted Pope Francis with amazement. He spent some time speaking with the women and children before giving the kids giant chocolate Easter eggs.

According to the Vatican, the gift was “welcomed with great joy by the children, who invited him to have a snack with them.”

Today, #PopeFrancis continued his surprise “Mercy Friday� initiative with a visit to a home that keeps children with their mothers, who might otherwise be separated because of imprisonment.
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The women shared their appreciation of the opportunity to raise their children, despite the challenges. The Pope also left some gifts for the women, including a signed parchment to remember his visit.

During his visit, Francis was welcomed by Lillo Di Mauro, the head of the overseeing governmental department, along with the head of “Leda’s House,” who both highlighted the intense difficulties of children whose parents are imprisoned.

To avoid embarrassment, the children may make up stories about their incarcerated parents, they said, or they may become “aggressive and unmanageable,” although they are not bad children.

“The stay in the structure,” according to the Vatican’s press release, “allows mothers to accompany and take their children back to school, and to carry out activities useful for learning a profession, in view of future reintegration into the world of work and society.”

The women are able to continue living in a home environment and raising their children, while accompanied by staff and educators.

Pope Francis’ visit to “Leda’s House” is a continuation of his “Mercy Friday” custom, which he began during the Jubilee of Mercy, in 2016.

Originally planned once per month for the duration of the jubilee year, the Pope has continued these visits as a means of practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. He has met with refugees, children, women freed from sex trafficking, and the terminally ill, among others.

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Pope Francis’ General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Mar 29, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Wednesday spoke against a comfortable Christianity that keeps Jesus at arm’s length, rather than inviting him into the heart to change it.

“If one of us says, ‘Ah, thank you Lord, because I am a good person, I do good things, I do not commit major sins…’ this is not a good path, this is the path of self-sufficiency, it is a path that does not justify you, it makes you turn up your nose,” the pope said during his weekly public audience March 29.

He called this attitude being “an elegant Catholic, but an elegant Catholic is not a holy Catholic, he is elegant.”

“The true Catholic, the true Christian is one who receives Jesus within, which changes your heart,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square.

“This,” he continued, “is the question I ask you all today: What does Jesus mean for me? Did I let him enter my heart, or do I keep him within reach, but so that he does not really enter within? Have I let myself be changed by him? Or is Jesus just an idea, a theology that goes ahead…”

At his Wednesday general audience, the pope continued his reflections on evangelization and apostolic zeal with a catechesis centered on St. Paul’s transformation from a persecutor of Christians to a great evangelist.

St. Paul “was a man who was zealous about the law of Moses for Judaism, and after his conversion, this zeal continued, but to proclaim, to preach Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis explained. “Paul loved Jesus. Saul — Paul’s first name — was already zealous, but Christ converts his zeal.”

To better explain zeal, the pope referenced St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that passion, from a moral perspective, is neither good nor bad: it depends on if it is used virtuously or sinfully.

“In Paul’s case, what changed him is not a simple idea or a conviction: it was the encounter, this word, it was the encounter with the risen Lord — do not forget this, it is the encounter with the Lord that changes a life — it was the encounter with the risen Lord that transformed his entire being,” the pope said.

“Paul’s humanity,” he added, “his passion for God and his glory was not annihilated, but transformed, ‘converted’ by the Holy Spirit.”

The pope noted that part of the change that takes place in Paul is his conversion from feeling righteous before God, and thus authorized to persecute, to arrest, and even to kill — to someone who, enlightened by God, recognizes himself to be a “blasphemer and persecutor.”

After recognizing what he had done, Paul becomes truly capable of loving, Francis said.

“If Jesus did not enter your life, it did not change,” he said. “You cannot be Christian only from the outside. No, Jesus must enter and this changes you, and this happened to Paul. It is finding Jesus, and this is why Paul said that Christ’s love drives us, it is what takes you forward.”

“This is zeal, when one finds Jesus and feels the fire, like Paul, and must preach Jesus, must talk about Jesus, must help people, must do good things,” he explained. “When one finds the idea of Jesus, he or she remains an ideologue of Christianity, and this does not justify, only Jesus justifies us. May the Lord help us find Jesus, encounter Jesus, and may this Jesus change our life from within and help us to help others.”

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