Pope Francis greets pilgrims at his Wednesday general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican on Feb. 28, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Feb 28, 2024 / 07:44 am (CNA).
Pope Francis, still visibly suffering from a “cold,” visited a Rome hospital for diagnostic tests on Wednesday following his weekly general audience, at which an aide read the Holy Father’s prepared remarks.
The Holy See Press Office later confirmed the hospital visit, adding that the pope already had returned to the Vatican.
“I still have a bit of a cold, which is why I asked Monsignor [Filippo] Ciampanelli to read today’s catechesis,” Pope Francis said at the start of the morning general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall. He arrived at the hall in his wheelchair shortly before 9 a.m. and did not walk to his chair with a cane as he typically does.
The pope also had an aide read his prepared remarks at an earlier morning meeting Wednesday with members of the Synod of Bishops of the Patriarchal Church of Cilicia of the Armenians.
On Saturday, Feb. 24, the 87-year-old pontiff canceled his audiences for the day due to what the Vatican described as a “mild flu-like condition.” He delivered the Angelus address the following day from the window of the Apostolic Palace without any obvious signs of illness. He cleared his schedule on Monday again as a “precautionary measure” due to “mild flu symptoms,” the Holy See Press Office said.
On Monday Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, spoke to journalists at an event in Rome, noting that the pope “had this flu episode but he recovered.”
“I was supposed to go to him this evening, but I’m here, the hearing had not been suspended. So it means that he has recovered and resumed his normal activity,” Parolin said at the time.
Focus on envy, vainglory
During the Wednesday general audience, the pope continued his ongoing catechetical series on vice and virtue, focusing this time on envy and vainglory.
Reflecting on the universal fascination of these closely associated vices, Pope Francis observed that envy is an “evil” that has been studied both under a Christian theological lens as well as by “philosophers and wise men of every culture.”
The pope’s reflection noted that envy sits at the matrix between “hate and love,” where “one desires evil for the other, but secretly desires to be like him.” The pope observed that this vice is predicated upon a “false idea of God,” noting that it arises when “we do not accept that God has his own ‘math,’ different from ours.”
The pope’s reflection then turned to vainglory, which is tied to “the demon of envy.” When taken together they are “characteristic of a person who aspires to be the center of the world, free to exploit everything and everyone, the object of all praise and love,” he noted.
“Vainglory,” the pope’s reflection continued, “is an inflated and baseless self-esteem. The vainglorious person possesses an unwieldy ‘I.’ He has no empathy and takes no notice of the fact that there are other people in the world besides him.” For the pope, those who display this vice see human relations through a transactional lens and struggle with a mistaken sense of self-aggrandizement.
“His person, his accomplishments, his achievements must be shown to everyone: He is a perpetual beggar for attention. And if at times his qualities are not recognized, he becomes fiercely angry,” the pope observed.
The pope’s reflection closed by noting that the antidote to overcoming the internal weakness brought on by these twin vices is accepting the grace of God.
“And his conclusion should also become ours: ‘I will therefore gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me,’” Pope Francis concluded, quoting from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.
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Vatican City, Apr 15, 2020 / 08:05 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed for the elderly who are afraid of dying alone at his morning Mass on Wednesday.
“Let us pray today for the elderly, especially for those who are isolated or in nursing homes. They are afraid, afraid of dying alone,” Pope Francis said before Mass on April 15.
The pope said that the elderly are “our roots, our story, our history,” and asked the Lord to be close to them as the world faces the coronavirus pandemic.
As COVID-19 has led to the deaths of more than 125,000 people worldwide, dioceses have sought creative solutions to bring the sacraments to the elderly and the dying. In Chicago, a team of 24 priest volunteers — all under age 60 — administer sacramental anointing of the sick to Catholics with the coronavirus.
In his homily, Pope Francis said that God is faithful to his promises. “Our faithfulness is nothing but a response to God’s faithfulness,” he said.
“Our God is a God who works overtime,” the pope said. “Like that shepherd who, when he returns home, realizes that he is missing a sheep and goes, goes back to look for the sheep that has been lost there.”
“God’s faithfulness always precedes us, and our faithfulness is always the answer to that fidelity that precedes us,” he said.
Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, Casa Santa Marta, the pope said that God is patient with his people, as he was with the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus in the Gospel of John.
“God’s faithfulness is a patient faithfulness: he has patience with his people, listens to them, guides them,” the pope said.
At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis dedicated a moment of prayer to Mary as the “Regina Coeli” Marian antiphon for the Easter season was sung in Latin:
“Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
For he whom you did merit to bear, alleluia,
Has risen, as he said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.”
Alfred Magero, Matthew Njogu, and Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi are three Catholic fathers from Africa who recently shared insights about being a present dad, protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and being a model of family values for their children with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. / Credit: Photos courtesy of ACI Africa
ACI Africa, Jun 17, 2024 / 12:37 pm (CNA).
On the occasion of Father’s Day 2024, a day focused on the celebration of fatherhood, four Catholic men from different African countries recently shared their experiences of impacting the lives of their children.
The Catholic fathers — who hail from Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria — talk about the importance of “being present,” of protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and of being a model of family values for their children, who they believe someday will become parents as well.
Tony Nnachetta, 68: Fatherhood is a full-time enterprise
Tony Nnachetta shares a moment with Pope Francis. The married father of four is a parishioner in the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Tony Nnachetta is a married father of four who attends the Church of the Assumption Parish in Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Lagos. Nnachettahas been a parishioner there for 40 years, and he was wed there 38 years ago. A member of the Grand Knights of St. Mulumba, he originally hails from the Archdiocese of Onitsha.
I got married to my friend after we dated for four years. I was looking forward to fatherhood and I was mentally prepared for it. Here are the lessons I have learned along my fatherhood journey.
First, being a father means you watch your children grow and become independent. You watch them get to a point in their lives where they can engage in a debate with you and even disagree with you.
Fatherhood is a long process. You would be fortunate to go through the entire process and maybe see your children’s children. I have seen mine achieve excellence in school and even leave home and go across the world as they sought to become independent.
Wherever your children go, what is important for them is what they take away from home — what they take from mommy and daddy. I have always told mine to “remember the child of who you are.” This means that they are not allowed to break the Christian values in our family.
I taught them to always stand for the truth and never to flow with the tide. We have encouraged them to always say what they mean. These days, they have jokingly turned around the statement and they tell me, “Remember the dad of who you are,” and we laugh about it.
You can’t always be there to take the bullet for them, but you can support them through prayers. Our family relies a lot on the intercession of the saints. We call ourselves a family of Jesuits because the school my children went to is under the patronage of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Fatherhood is a full-time engagement. It is not like you can be a father in the morning and take a break in the evening. You worry about your children even when they are grown and have left your home. They preoccupy you everywhere. You wonder whether they are warm and if they have had their meal. But all this brings a father immense joy.
Young fathers in Africa are overburdened by poverty. Because of poverty they don’t have a way to help their families. Others are scared to enter the marriage institution. Poverty has made young men weak and helpless. Some are leaving their young families and going to faraway places outside the continent to make a living.
Poverty is eroding family values because some fathers do what they do, including stealing, for their children to survive. In doing so, they are setting a bad example for their children …
It is important for our leaders to confront this situation. They must accept that they have let us down.
Matthew Njogu, 75: Tips on being a present dad
Matthew Njogu is the moderator of the Catholic Men Association at St. Austin’s Msongari Parish of Kenya’s Archdiocese of Nairobi. His children are now adults. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Fathers need to be present in the lives of their children. For a long time, it was assumed that it was the mother’s responsibility to take care of the young children; fathers kept off. But being absent in the lives of your children hurts your relationship with them. They end up growing up without you having any impact on their lives.
Unfortunately, some fathers assume that fatherhood ends at providing material things… They don’t pay attention to their children’s growth milestones. And when they eventually try to establish a connection, they find that the children are already all grown without knowing anything about their fathers.
Simple things like dropping your children off at school help you connect with them. While stuck in traffic on the way to school, you can talk about things that will help you understand your child and for him to know you.
Always try as much as possible to have dinner with your children and help them with schoolwork. And always try to make up for the time you don’t spend with them.
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi, 53: Raising a Christ-like family
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyia runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two, though he tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Nkamanyi runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two children ages 16 and 20. He tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many,” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Here are his insights into nurturing a Christ-like family.
It is the joy of every responsible young man to be called “daddy” or “papa.” Having a Christ-like family is the greatest gift for a father; a family like that of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.
My appeal for Catholic fathers is to hold their families firmly, to provide for them, and to protect them from all dangers in the contemporary society, where values are being eroded.
I don’t believe that being a father is a challenging task. God already gave us the innate potential to be fathers. I believe that God can’t give you a role that you can’t perform.
It is unfortunate that many young men are choosing to be absentee fathers. From what I have seen, many children raised by a single parent end up adopting wayward behaviors.
Alfred Magero, 48: Being a present dad in a low-income setting
Alfred Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Catholic Parish of in the Nairobi Archdiocese. The father of three has been married for 29 years. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Parish of the Archdiocese of Nairobi. The father of three has been married for 29 years and shares his experience and that of other Catholic dads raising their children in a low-income neighborhood.
I am raising my children to become God-fearing adults. This is not an easy task in the community in which we live, where there is a lot of poverty, drunkenness, and other characteristics typical of a low-income [neighborhood].
Many fathers rarely interact with their children since their main focus is to provide for their families. They leave for work before their children wake up and come back at night when the children have already gone to bed.
The young men and boys we are raising are experiencing a different environment from ours when we were growing up. With the whole world brought to them on the palm of their hand by a simple tap on the phone, this generation is dangerously exposed. They need us, their fathers, to constantly give them direction. They need us to be their role models.
They need us to constantly remind them that they are in Africa and that they should not adopt alien cultures, especially those bound to destroy the family.
As fathers, we must remind our young ones to uphold African values that kept the family unit and the society glued together. Africans knew the importance of loving and caring for each other. Unfortunately, this value is being eroded, and in its place, now we have individualism. Older men in families would educate young men to be responsible adults. Unfortunately, we no longer have this kind of education.
Most Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh, North Carolina / Jason Schronce / Shutterstock
CNA Newsroom, Jan 3, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Every Jan. 3, the Church celebrates the Most Holy Name of Jesus.“This is that most holy name longed for by … […]
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