Pope Francis: Family dialogue defeats digital distraction

A prayer meeting organized by the Taizé community. / Credit: Christian Pulfrich, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED, Wikimedia

CNA Staff, Dec 29, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis urged young people attending the 46th European Meeting organized by the ecumeni… […]

Pope Francis, pictured in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 14, 2017. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

Vatican City, Jul 11, 2022 / 05:21 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Monday invited young people to learn the story of Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector who was imprisoned and killed for refusing to fight for the Nazis in World War II.

“Despite cajoling and torture, Franz preferred to be killed than to kill. He considered the war totally unjustified. If all the young men called to arms had done as he did, Hitler would not have been able to carry out his diabolical plans. To triumph, evil needs accomplices,” the pope said in a communication published July 11.

Francis’ message was sent to the EU Youth Conference, taking place in Prague, Czech Republic, July 11-13. The theme of the 2022 conference, which is for teens and young adults from the European Union, is “Working Together for a Sustainable and Inclusive Europe.”

The pope invited young people, in light of the war in Ukraine, “to get to know the extraordinary figure of a young objector, a young European with ‘a broad outlook,’” Franz Jägerstätter, who was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007.

“Franz was a young Austrian who, because of his Catholic faith, made a conscientious objection to the injunction to swear allegiance to Hitler and go to war,” Pope Francis said.

He explained that because of his “profound convictions,” when called to fight, Franz refused; “he felt it was unjust to kill innocent lives.”

The husband and father of four girls was eventually executed for his refusal to fight. Pope Francis pointed out that he was killed “in the same prison where his contemporary Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi, was also imprisoned and met the same tragic end.”

These two men were killed because they remained faithful to the ideals of their faith, he said.

The pope invited young people “to look upwards and beyond, to keep seeking the real meaning of your life, where you come from and where you are going, and the Truth, because we cannot live authentically if we do not seek the Truth.”

Though Ukraine is not part of the European Union, Francis urged the young adults taking part in the conference to commit themselves to promoting peace and the end of the war.

He said “it is legitimate to rebel” in cases like this, “where, as usual, a few powerful people decide and send thousands of young people to fight and die.”

The pope recalled that someone once said that “if the world were ruled by women, there would not be so many wars, because those who have the mission of giving life cannot make death choices.”

“In a similar vein, I like to think that if the world were ruled by young people, there would not be so many wars,” he added. “Those who have their whole life ahead of them do not want to ruin it and throw it away, but to live it to the full.”

He closed his message by asking young people to be “generous in generating new lives, always and only as the fruit of love.”

“The love of husband and wife, the love of family and children, but also love of Europe, so that it can be for everyone a land of peace, freedom and dignity,” he said.

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Vatican City, Jun 29, 2017 / 12:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Saints Peter and Paul are pillars of the Church and a reminder that God is with us always, Pope Francis said Thursday in St. Peter’s Square.

“The Fathers of the Church liked to compare the holy apostles Peter and Paul to two columns, on which the visible building of the Church rests. Both sealed with their own blood their testimony to Christ of preaching and service to the nascent Christian community,” he stated during his June 29 Angelus address on the saints’ feast.

He reflected on St. Peter’s deliverance from prison by an angel “so that he could complete his evangelizing mission, first in the Holy Land and then in Rome, putting all his energy at the service of the Christian community.”

St. Paul similarly experienced hostility to his mission, the Pope said, from both civil authorities and his fellow Jews, “from which he was freed by the Lord.”

“These two ‘deliverances’, of Peter and of Paul, reveal the common path of the two apostles, who were mandated by Jesus to announced the Gospel in difficult and in certain cases hostile circumstances.”

They both, through “their personal and ecclesial stories, demonstrate and say to us, today, that the Lord is always at our side, walking with us, never abandoning us,” said Pope Francis.

“Especially at the moment of trial, God touches our hand, comes to our aid, and frees us from the threats of our nemeses. But let us recall that our true nemesis is sin, and the Evil One who drives us to it.”

He said that “when we reconcile with God, especially in the sacrament of Penance, we receive the grace of pardon, we are freed from the chains of evil, and are lightened from the burden of our errors. Thus can we continue our journey of as joyous announcers and witnesses to the Gospel, demonstrating that we ourselves first received mercy.”

Pope Francis concluded his address by praying for Rome, the city of the martyrdom of both Saints Peter and Paul.

“May the goodness and the grace of the Lord sustain all the Roman people, for they live in fraternity and concord, resplendent in the Christian faith, witnessed to with intrepid love by the holy apostles Peter and Paul.”

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