A sculpture of Jesus at Rome’s airport is taking travelers by surprise

Belkız, 61, was born into a Muslim family in Turkey. After reading books on materialist philosophy in her youth, she became an atheist at 15 but eventually became a Christian and then a Catholic. / Credit: Nathalie Ritzmann

ACI MENA, Aug 21, 2… […]

Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. / Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Feb 2, 2023 / 05:45 am (CNA).

To bring about peace, “prayer is the most powerful weapon there is,” Pope Francis told thousands of young adults and catechism teachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.

The meeting in Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, the capital city of the DRC, took place on Feb. 2, the third day of the pope’s visit to the central African country. On Feb. 3, Francis will fly to Juba, South Sudan, for the second leg of his peace pilgrimage.

Pope Francis on Thursday interacted with an enthusiastic crowd of about 65,000 young people and adults, some of whom traveled days to be present for the papal visit.

“Yes, prayer conquers fear and enables us to take our future into our hands. Do you believe this?” the pope said. “Do you want to make prayer your secret, as refreshing water for the soul, as the one weapon you carry, as a traveling companion on each day’s journey?”

During the second half of his speech, the pope was repeatedly drowned out by the energetic audience, which broke out in cheering, singing, and dancing despite the hot weather.

In his talk, Francis used the imagery of the hand to speak about the future of the DRC.

“God has placed the gift of life, the future of society and the future of this great country in those hands of yours,” he said.

“Dear brother, dear sister, do your hands not seem small and frail, empty and unsuited to so great a task? It’s true,” he said. “Let me tell you something: your hands all look alike, they all look alike, but none of them is exactly the same. No one has hands just like yours, and that is a sign that you are a unique treasure, an unrepeatable and incomparable treasure.”

He invited those present in the stadium to open and close their hands while meditating on whether they wanted to choose peace or violence.

“Notice how you can squeeze your hand, closing it to make a fist. Or you can open it, to offer it to God and to others,” he said.

“You who dream of a different future: from your hands, tomorrow can be born, tomorrow can be born from your hands, from your hands peace so lacking in this country can at last come about.”

Bishop Donatien Bafuidinsoni Maloko-Mana from the Diocese of Inongo, in western DRC, was at the meeting.

He told EWTN News that people from his diocese traveled in boats on the Congo River for two to four days to arrive in Kinshasa.

Bafuidinsoni said the Congolese people were disappointed last year when the pope’s visit was canceled, but “now that the pope is here it’s a big joy for us all.”

Even those who are following the trip from home “are really happy,” he added. “It’s a message of joy, of peace, and of hope for all.”

Sister Asterie Neema, 29, is from Rutshuru in eastern Congo, where, she told EWTN News, they are under the control of an armed group called M23.

Neema said her older brother was killed in 2022 by unidentified rebels in front of his 12- and 7-year-old children.

In her 29 years of life, she said, her region of the DRC has never seen peace. Neema added that she has forgiven her brother’s killers, but she hopes for peace in her country.

Not everyone in the audience was Catholic. Two young Muslim men also attended the youth gathering with Pope Francis.

Yassine Mumbere, from Butembo in eastern DRC, told EWTN News that he came to the event because all young people were invited. He also studied at a Catholic school.

The 35-year-old Muslim Scout leader said he hopes the pope’s trip will help bring peace to the DRC’s eastern region.

In his speech, Pope Francis encouraged those present to be careful of the temptation to point fingers at people, or to exclude others because of “regionalism, tribalism, or anything that makes you feel secure in your own group, but at the same time is unconcerned with the life of the community.”

“You know what happens: first, you believe in prejudices about others, then you justify hatred, then violence, and in the end, you find yourself in the middle of a war,” he said.

To create a concrete sign of community, Francis invited the crowd to hold hands with those beside them and to sing a song together: “Imagine yourselves as one Church, a single people, holding hands.”

“Yes, brother and sister, you are indispensable and you are responsible for your Church and for your country,” he said after the song. “You are part of a greater history, one that calls you to take an active role as a builder of communion, a champion of fraternity, an indomitable dreamer of a more united world.”

After Pope Francis spoke against corruption — inviting everyone to shout together, “Go away, corruption!” — the stadium broke out in loud singing and cheering.

The event’s emcee had to invite the crowd to quiet down before the pope could continue speaking.

Francis also drew attention to two Congolese martyrs and their examples of faith: Blessed Isidore Bakanja and Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite.

Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Family, was killed during the civil war in 1964 at the age of 24. Anuarite was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his visit to the DRC, then known as the Republic of Zaire, in 1985.

Blessed Isidore Bakanja was a Catholic convert at the age of 18. He became a catechist and was devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He died in 1909, around the age of 21 or 22, after succumbing to an infection caused by a beating and other torture he received at the hands of a European manager for refusing to remove his brown scapular at work. Bakanja was beatified in 1994 by Pope John Paul II.

Statues of the two blesseds were present at the youth meeting, where people in the crowd shouted and held signs asking the pope to make them “santi subito!”

The pope pointed to another example of virtue from the DRC, Floribert Bwana Chui, who was killed in 2007 in Goma.

The 26-year-old man, who worked as a customs manager, was killed for refusing to cooperate with corruption; specifically, he did not allow the passage of expired food products.

“He could easily have turned a blind eye; nobody would have found out, and he might even have gotten ahead as a result,” Francis said. “But, since he was a Christian, he prayed. He thought of others and he chose to be honest, saying no to the filth of corruption.”

“Now I want to tell you something important,” he added. “Listen closely: If someone offers you a bribe, or promises you favors and lots of money, do not fall into the trap. Do not be deceived; do not be sucked into the swamp of evil. Do not be overcome by evil!”

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Bologna, Italy, Aug 8, 2019 / 10:03 am (CNA).- The first image to greet visitors to the basilica containing the tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna, Italy is a mosaic of the saint next to a dog carrying a flaming torch in its mouth.

This is not a depiction of a pyromaniacal game of fetch, but a reference to a dream which foretold the 13th-century preacher’s mission in the world — to be the bearer of Divine fire across Europe, illuminating the darkness of heresy and sin with truth and charity.

“When St. Dominic’s mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth, running around the world and setting everything on fire. She went to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great preacher, who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words,” Dominican Fr. Ezra Sullivan, lecturer at the Angelicum University in Rome, told CNA.

“In fact, the word ‘Dominican’ is a play on the Latin, Domini canes, which means ‘dogs of the Lord,” Fr. Thomas Petri, dean of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, explained.

Throughout history St. Dominic has been depicted in paintings and statues standing beside a canine companion.

“One source recounts that the dog Blessed Jane saw in her vision was a greyhound. That seems right to me,” Petri said. “St. Dominic should be associated with breeds that are fast and useful for herding.”

“Imitating Christ himself, St. Dominic is a hound nipping at your heels to bring you to God,” he added.

“In the early thirteenth century, the Church was experiencing increasing devotion among the lay faithful that was unmatched by the clergy. At a time when bishops, priests, and monks were living extravagantly and rarely preaching, St. Dominic came to see that the Church needed priests who lived in poverty but who were also preachers of grace and truth, especially in the face of heretical cults that were leaching the faithful away from the Church of Jesus Christ,” Petri explained.

St. Dominic Guzman was born in Caleruega, Spain on Aug. 8, 1170. Throughout his life, he is said to have converted some 100,000 people through his preaching missions. He spread the devotion to the rosary, and played a key role in doctrinal debates combating the Albigensian heresy, a revival of Manichaeism, which had taken hold in southern France.

Dominic founded the Order of Preachers – the Dominicans – in France in 1216, adapting the Rule of St. Augustine in obedience to the pope, with an emphasis on study and community life in poverty. He died in Bologna, Italy after several weeks of illness on Aug. 6, 1221.

Benedict XVI said in Feb. 2010 that St. Dominic “reminds us that in the heart of the Church, a missionary fire must always burn.”

“Saint Dominic was given the grace not only to have a fervent zeal and love for Jesus Christ, especially Christ crucified, but also the wisdom to preach the Gospel with force and conviction,” Petri said.

Fr. Sullivan noted: “It was also said that ‘he always spoke either about God or to God,’ and therefore his words were like fiery darts that always hit their targets.”

St. Catherine of Siena, a third order Dominican, is frequently quoted as saying, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

However, Fr. Petri explained that a more accurate translation of what St. Catherine wrote in a letter in her dying days is, “If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only there.”

She wrote this to her follower Stefano Maconi because she was “concerned that he was tepid in his devotion and pleaded with him to go to Rome to light the fire of Divine charity there amid the turmoil of schism and infidelity the city was experiencing,” Petri said.

St. Catherine of Siena spoke of cultivating the ‘Divine fire’ as “cultivating the charity of God in one’s soul,” he explained.

“The way we cultivate charity is by committing ourselves to be with Christ in prayer, in study, at work, in the home, and at every other moment in our day,” he said.

“Most especially, however, such communion with Christ is nourished and strengthened by receiving the Sacrament of Charity—the Holy Eucharist—in which the One who is Charity itself comes into us and lights our souls aflame in love for him and for our neighbor.”

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