Pope Francis dedicated nearly all of his Angelus address on Oct. 1 to the war in Ukraine. / Vatican News
Rome Newsroom, Oct 2, 2022 / 06:32 am (CNA).
Pope Francis made a direct appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin for an immediate ceasefire on Sunday, imploring him to end the “spiral of violence and death” in Ukraine.
Speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace on Oct. 2, the pope dedicated nearly all of his Angelus address to the war in Ukraine.
“I deeply deplore the grave situation that has arisen in recent days … It increases the risk of nuclear escalation, giving rise to fears of uncontrollable and catastrophic consequences worldwide,” Pope Francis said.
“My appeal is addressed first and foremost to the president of the Russian Federation, imploring him to stop this spiral of violence and death, also for the sake of his people,” he said.
The pope also appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be “open to serious proposals for peace” and to the international community to “do everything possible to bring an end to the war without allowing themselves to be drawn into dangerous escalations.”
He said: “After seven months of hostilities, let us use all diplomatic means, even those that may not have been used so far, to bring an end to this terrible tragedy. War in itself is a mistake and a horror.”
The pope’s five-minute speech on the war in Ukraine from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square was a departure from his typical Sunday routine. The pope usually gives a reflection on the Church’s Sunday Gospel reading before praying the Angelus, a traditional Marian prayer, and speaking about his prayer intentions.
Pope Francis underlined that he chose to devote his entire reflection to Ukraine because the course of the war has “has become so serious, devastating, and threatening that it has caused great concern.”
“I am saddened by the rivers of blood and tears spilled in these months,” he said.
“I am grieved by the thousands of victims, especially children, and the destruction that has left many people and families homeless and threatens vast territories with cold and hunger. Such actions can never be justified, never!”
The pope has frequently mentioned Ukraine in his prayers at the end of his public audiences since the war began in February. Recently in a conversation with Jesuit priests during his trip to Kazakhstan, the pope said that he had attempted to help a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.
“In the name of God and in the name of the sense of humanity that dwells in every heart, I renew my call for an immediate ceasefire,” Pope Francis said in his appeal.
“Let there be a halt to arms, and let us seek the conditions for negotiations that will lead to solutions that are not imposed by force, but consensual, just and stable. And they will be so if they are based on respect for the sacrosanct value of human life, as well as the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each country, and the rights of minorities and legitimate concerns.”
At the end of his Angelus address dedicated to Ukraine, the pope said that he has also been praying for the people of Florida and Cuba hit by Hurricane Ian.
“May the Lord receive the victims, give consolation and hope to those who suffer, and sustain the solidarity efforts,” he said.
Francis added that he was praying for the victims of a stampede at the end of a soccer match in Indonesia, where at least 174 people died, according to the Associated Press.
Pope Francis also offered a reminder to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square that a new light display on the life of St. Peter will be projected on the Vatican basilica each night for the first two weeks of October. Andrea Bocelli is slated to sing at the show’s inauguration on the night of Oct. 2.
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San Sebastian, Spain, Jul 8, 2018 / 04:33 pm (ACI Prensa).- Fr. Juan Pablo Aroztegi became the youngest priest in the diocese of San Sebastian, Spain, when he was ordained last weekend by Bishop José Ignacio Munilla at Good Shepherd Cathedral.
According to reports in various local media, Aroztegi, age 35, began to discern his vocation after an agnostic friend asked him why he was a Christian.
Until then, he had not questioned why he was following Jesus Christ, nor what he wanted to do with his life. He was working as an industrial engineer at a software company in Pamplona at that time, but after a profound reflection, he decided to join the seminary.
He described the decision to enter the seminary as one of the “greatest moments of freedom” in his life. When he told the agnostic friend who had questioned him that he was becoming a seminarian, the friend replied that he has been expecting it.
“Your friends know you and can intuit your decisions. It’s ironic that an agnostic friend made me question my Christian life and my vocation,” Aroztegi said.
While the majority of his friends are non-believers, the new priest said that they have respect for his faith and his decision. Some of them attended his ordination Mass last Sunday.
“The conversations I had with some of them to tell them of my decision was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I felt free and I was open about who I am. We spoke about important issues we had never dealt with before,” he recalled.
His family was also surprised when he announced his decision to pursue the priesthood, although he had always lived his faith “in a very natural way.”
Fr. Aroztegi said that he always went to Mass with his family on Sundays, but had never imagined that he would become a priest, instead assuming that he would marry and have a family.
“[Priesthood] didn’t even cross my mind,” he told Diaro Vasco. “Certainly the best things that have happened to me in life have been unexpected.”
“In that sense I am in expectation of everything that awaits me in priestly life. I sincerely hope for an intense and exciting life, with good moments, and others with the cross and suffering as in any other path in life.”
Looking to the future, Aroztegi said he would like to follow the example of some priests who have been important in his life.
“I admire the priests who aren’t looking for success or applause, but help whoever needs it without anyone knowing about it. I am drawn to the priest who is humble in every sense, the one who sees himself as just another Christian, a disciple of Jesus who is on his way just like anybody else. The priest who is a man of God, prays for his people and seeks nothing more than the things of God. And above all I am drawn to the priest who creates unity, who knows how to be with others,” he said.
He also explained that one of the challenges of a priest is “to form Christian communities where one can live the greatness of life in Christ,” and so he encourages “going to the essential, to what’s important in life, to love and be loved,” and said that if Christianity is lived with authenticity, it is “truly attractive.”
Aroztegi told Diaro Vasco news that in the days leading up to his July 2 ordination, he was “calm and excited” because “what at the beginning was like a flame of fire within me, small but which I could not doubt, during those years was getting stronger.”
“I arrived at [the ordination] peaceful because I felt very free. And at the same time, the emotion is great. I am excited about everything it means, and because I will be able to give myself totally to that which I feel called.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
A close-up of the copy of Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà, usually kept at the Vatican Museums. / Ela Bialkowska/OKNO studio.
Rome Newsroom, Mar 7, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).
As war rages in Ukraine and the pandemic lingers, Michelangelo’s celebrated Vatican Pietà — and two lesser-known figures he also sculpted — can be deeply meaningful to a pain-wracked world, says a priest and art historian.
Michelangelo Buonarotti’s Pietà depicts a larger-than-life Virgin Mary as she mourns her crucified Son, Jesus, lying limp in her lap. The masterpiece, carved out of Carrara marble, was finished before the Italian artist’s 25th birthday.
Over the course of more than 60 years, Michelangelo created two more sculptures on the same theme — and a new exhibit in the Italian city of Florence brings the three works together for the first time.
The Three Pietà of Michelangelo exhibit at Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
The exhibit opened at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo on Feb. 24, and includes the Florentine Pietà, also called the Deposition, which Michelangelo worked on from 1547 to 1555, and exact casts, or copies, of the Vatican Pietà and Milan Pietà — which could not be moved from their locations.
Msgr. Timothy Verdon, the director of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, told CNA by phone that the gallery wanted to do something to show its solidarity with a Feb. 23-27 meeting of mayors and Catholic bishops.
“The images of suffering that the Pietà always implies I think will deeply touch people. I think that visitors will be moved to see these works,” he said. The image of the Pietà evokes “the personal suffering of mothers who hold their children not knowing if their children will survive.”
A close-up of the copy of Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà, usually kept at the Vatican Museums. Ela Bialkowska/OKNO studio.
The 75-year-old Verdon is an expert in art history and sacred art. He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, but has lived in Italy for more than 50 years.
“So many of the issues that face the Mediterranean world today are forms of suffering,” he said, “and so this ideal series of images of the God who becomes man [and] accepts suffering, and whose Mother receives his tortured body into her arms, these are deeply meaningful.”
“All human situations of suffering and exclusion invite a comparison with the suffering of Christ, the death of Christ. And [the Pietà] condenses and concentrates a devout reflection on that,” the priest said.
The lesser-known Pietàs
Many years after Michelangelo completed the Pietà displayed in St. Peter’s Basilica, he began his Florentine Pietà, which depicts Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, and the Virgin Mary receiving the body of Christ as it is removed from the Cross.
The 72-year-old Michelangelo worked on the sculpture for eight years before eventually abandoning it in 1555.
Michelangelo’s Florentine Pietà, part of the permanent collection at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy.
He probably began the Rondanini Pietà, which is in Milan, in 1553. Michelangelo continued to work on the piece until just days before his death in 1564.
According to a press release from the city of Florence, “near his own death, Michelangelo meditated deeply on the Passion of Christ.”
One way this is known is because shortly before his death, Michelangelo gave a drawing of the Pietà to Vittoria Colonna, the Marquess of Pescara, on which he wrote: “They think not there how much of blood it costs.”
The line, from Canto 29 of Paradiso, one of the books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, is also the subtitle of the Florence exhibition.
A perfect cast of Michelangelo’s unfinished Rondanini Pietà, on display at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
Bringing the three Pietàs together into one exhibit gives the viewer the chance to see “the full range of Michelangelo’s reflection on this subject across 60-some years,” Verdon explained.
Not only is the Renaissance artist’s stylistic evolution on display, but also his spiritual development.
“We know that [Michelangelo] was a religious man,” Verdon said. “His interpretation of religious subjects, even in his youth, is particularly sensitive and well informed.”
According to the priest, Michelangelo seems to have had a range of theological influences.
“His older brother was a Dominican friar and in Michelangelo’s old age we’re told that he could still remember the preaching of Savonarola,” Verdon said.
Girolamo Savonarola was a popular Dominican friar, preacher, and reformer active in Renaissance Florence. He spoke against the ruling Medici family and the excesses of the time, and in 1498 he was hanged and his body burned after a trial by Church and civil authorities.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “In the beginning Savonarola was filled with zeal, piety, and self-sacrifice for the regeneration of religious life. He was led to offend against these virtues by his fanaticism, obstinacy, and disobedience. He was not a heretic in matters of faith.”
“That’s an interesting page in cultural history,” Verdon said, “because the early Pietà is done in effect shortly after the Savonarola period, or in the Savonarola period.”
“So we’re talking about an artist to whom this subject means a great deal, and which he is also equipped to treat.”
The Three Pietà of Michelangelo exhibit at Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
The artist’s last Pietàs were created, instead, in the context of the Counter-Reformation.
The council, he explained, “had to rebut the heretical ideas of Protestant reformers, and so it insists, in a decree on the Eucharist published in 1551, that indeed in the bread and wine, Christ’s Body and Blood are truly present.”
“So Michelangelo, who was personally religious, and who, especially in his later period, worked exclusively for the Vatican, was therefore very close to the changes occurring in Catholic thought, Catholic theology, Catholic devotion,” Verdon said.
The exhibit “really gives us the opportunity to gauge the evolution of a theme from one time to a very different one, from the end of the 15th, to the mid- 16th century.”
The St. Peter’s Basilica Pietà
Verdon said that the Vatican Pietà is the only one of the three to remain in the place it was intended for — above an altar in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The sculpture was originally created for the 4th-century Constantinian basilica, the “Old St. Peter’s Basilica,” which was replaced by the Renaissance basilica standing today.
In Michelangelo’s Pietà, the Virgin Mary holds her Son as she did at his birth. . Paweesit via Flickr.
Viewing art in a church is not the same as viewing it in a museum, the art historian noted.
“Obviously it is different, especially for the fact that the Vatican Pietà has remained on an altar, above an altar, and so the body of Christ depicted by Michelangelo would have been seen in relation to the sacramental body of Christ in the Eucharist.”
“This was true of the first situation in the Old St. Peter’s, the work was on an altar, and it’s true of the present collocazione [position],” he said.
“And actually,” the priest continued, “the same thing was true of both of the other Pietàs. They were intended by Michelangelo to go on an altar in a chapel in a Roman church where he expected to be buried. We think the church was Santa Maria Maggiore.”
“So the relationship of the image of Christ’s body with the Eucharistic Corpus Christi is very important,” he said.
The Three Pietà of Michelangelo exhibit at Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
The copies of the Vatican and Milan Pietàs are on loan from the Vatican Museums, and will be in Florence for the Three Pietàs exhibit through Aug. 1.
“And in our museum, in the Florence Opera del Duomo Museum, we have put the Pietà, our Pietà, on a base that evokes an altar, as the very specific Church meaning [of an altar] has to do with the Sacrament,” Verdon said.
Justice has wider context than resolution of specific issues. At times compromise, even if not perfect insofar as satisfying grievances is the best response. We’re approaching nuclear war because both sides are resolute in obtaining objectives that cancel the other. It’s most likely only a negotiated agreement [or a less committed settlement] will avoid nuclear response by Russia. Pope Francis is correct.
This notion that the freedom of the world is at stake in defeating Russia, is overblown rhetoric, a false proposition based on ideology not fact – ideology of a Leftist leaning Ukraine regime, and duped conservative, intellectually myopic allies [including Leftists] in the US. Russia, ironically, is a more traditionally moral Christian entity than corrupt, despotic Ukraine. Ukraine, a nation with heavy Biden family investment and history of US political subversion.
American military hierarchy seem intent on the defeat of Russia oblivious to the realistic threat of Russia’s nuclear response, and America’s own sordid history that includes backing by cadre of conservative politicians and intellectual neocons.
Russia has certainly been the aggressor lately, but I think there’s much more going on behind the scenes.
I had family members traveling in Europe this past summer & the sentiment of some Poles was that they wished both the Ukraine & Russia would just go away. Neither side was supported by them & Poland has had some sad history with Ukrainians in the past.
The West seems willing to punish Putin right down to the last Ukranian life. When & if the war spirals outside of the Ukraine, then we might see some sincere efforts from the West at peacemaking.
Sadly his Holiness doesn’t seem to understand that Putin is immune to appeals to morality, reason and logic. He is frothing at the mouth insane and is hellbent on reabsorbing Ukraine into his empire regardless of cost to either country. Only a decisive military defeat of his legions will put an end to this nightmare.
The nature of the problem is not Russia-Ukraine or Ukraine-Russia. It arises from a particular blinkered ambition among certain groupings in the west including inside Poland. It wants to dress itself up a some sort of “Great Cause” framed from an idea -an idol- of a victory in WWII: nonsensical albeit very deadly and profitable.
Recently it did a media vaunt caricaturizing Putin as being a set product of history and mischief, as a calculating character driven from old communist imperialisms.
The problem will not solve according to wrong assessment; rather, left unchecked, the western groupings will spread it to other regions using other stooge countries and skewed historicisms drawn from those places made to look very important.
‘ Based on the respect for the sacrosanct value of human life as well as the sovergnity and territorial integrity of each country , rights of minorities ‘ –
The Holy Spirit speaking – as to what is at the root of the war …how both realms are well connected – as breeching of ‘territories ‘ , concerns of ‘minorities’ ..
We can dream that both countries would use the occasion to take steps to collaborate – for a culture of life in own lands , that all else will be added …Zelensky too from a background that could connect the dots ..and for nations world over to take note ..Mercy !
[ UK U-turn | Bloomberg Surveillance 10/03/2022
……. Oct 3, 2022 Tom Keene, Jonathan Ferro and Lisa Abramowicz have the economy and the markets “under surveillance” as they cover the latest in finance, economics and investment, and talk with the leading voices shaping the conversation around world markets. This show is simulcast worldwide on Bloomberg Television and Radio. ]
Justice has wider context than resolution of specific issues. At times compromise, even if not perfect insofar as satisfying grievances is the best response. We’re approaching nuclear war because both sides are resolute in obtaining objectives that cancel the other. It’s most likely only a negotiated agreement [or a less committed settlement] will avoid nuclear response by Russia. Pope Francis is correct.
This notion that the freedom of the world is at stake in defeating Russia, is overblown rhetoric, a false proposition based on ideology not fact – ideology of a Leftist leaning Ukraine regime, and duped conservative, intellectually myopic allies [including Leftists] in the US. Russia, ironically, is a more traditionally moral Christian entity than corrupt, despotic Ukraine. Ukraine, a nation with heavy Biden family investment and history of US political subversion.
American military hierarchy seem intent on the defeat of Russia oblivious to the realistic threat of Russia’s nuclear response, and America’s own sordid history that includes backing by cadre of conservative politicians and intellectual neocons.
Russia invaded Ukrainian territory.
Putin is a monster.
Zelensky wants NATO.
NATO wants USA money.
USA has Joe Biden.
Vote Republican.
In short, had Donald Trump been reelected we might never have seen any of this. He knows how to make deals with people like Putin. Mr. Biden does not.
Russia has certainly been the aggressor lately, but I think there’s much more going on behind the scenes.
I had family members traveling in Europe this past summer & the sentiment of some Poles was that they wished both the Ukraine & Russia would just go away. Neither side was supported by them & Poland has had some sad history with Ukrainians in the past.
The West seems willing to punish Putin right down to the last Ukranian life. When & if the war spirals outside of the Ukraine, then we might see some sincere efforts from the West at peacemaking.
Sadly his Holiness doesn’t seem to understand that Putin is immune to appeals to morality, reason and logic. He is frothing at the mouth insane and is hellbent on reabsorbing Ukraine into his empire regardless of cost to either country. Only a decisive military defeat of his legions will put an end to this nightmare.
The nature of the problem is not Russia-Ukraine or Ukraine-Russia. It arises from a particular blinkered ambition among certain groupings in the west including inside Poland. It wants to dress itself up a some sort of “Great Cause” framed from an idea -an idol- of a victory in WWII: nonsensical albeit very deadly and profitable.
Recently it did a media vaunt caricaturizing Putin as being a set product of history and mischief, as a calculating character driven from old communist imperialisms.
The problem will not solve according to wrong assessment; rather, left unchecked, the western groupings will spread it to other regions using other stooge countries and skewed historicisms drawn from those places made to look very important.
Unfortunately, if Putin had wanted the Pope’s input, he probably would have asked before he invaded. Miracles can happen though.
‘ Based on the respect for the sacrosanct value of human life as well as the sovergnity and territorial integrity of each country , rights of minorities ‘ –
The Holy Spirit speaking – as to what is at the root of the war …how both realms are well connected – as breeching of ‘territories ‘ , concerns of ‘minorities’ ..
We can dream that both countries would use the occasion to take steps to collaborate – for a culture of life in own lands , that all else will be added …Zelensky too from a background that could connect the dots ..and for nations world over to take note ..Mercy !
This afternoon on Bloomberg Surveillance, Jeffrey Sachs goes counter to the narrative and Bloomberg anchors run into a muddle -from 1:51:36.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbt-CsSRJl8&t=6696s
[ UK U-turn | Bloomberg Surveillance 10/03/2022
……. Oct 3, 2022 Tom Keene, Jonathan Ferro and Lisa Abramowicz have the economy and the markets “under surveillance” as they cover the latest in finance, economics and investment, and talk with the leading voices shaping the conversation around world markets. This show is simulcast worldwide on Bloomberg Television and Radio. ]