Vatican Christmas concert will support refugees in Iraq, Uganda

Vatican City, Jan 20, 2017 / 08:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama officially announced the dates of the next World Youth Day, which is set to take place in January, rather than July as is usual, due to the weather.

He made the announcement during a Jan. 20 news conference in the country’s capital, Panama City, during which he also reiterated the gratitude of the Panamanian Church to Pope Francis for choosing Panama to host WYD in 2019.

According to a communique from the archdiocese, the bishop explained that the decision to choose Jan. 22-27 for the dates of the gathering, rather than holding it in July as is traditionally done, was done for reasons primarily linked to the climate and weather.

Speaking directly to youth, Ulloa said “you are the true protagonists of this World Youth Day. Panama awaits you with an open heart and with open arms to share the faith, to feel that you are the Church!”

Pope Francis announced Panama as the setting for the next WYD at the closing Mass of the July 26-31, 2016, international gathering in Krakow.

“I am happy to announce that the next World Youth Day – after the two that will be held on the diocesan level – will take place in 2019 in Panama,” the Pope said making the July 31 announcement.

In a news conference after the announcement of Panama as the next location was made, the country’s bishops said the decision is a reflection of his attention to the peripheries and voiced their hope to be a “bridge” for those who come from all continents.

“I think that it will be an occasion a revitalization of the Church in general, and for the youth in particular … not just from Panama, but from Central America and all of Latin America,” Cardinal José Luis Lacunza Maestrojuán of David told CNA July 31.

Panama, he said, will be an opportunity for a demographically young Latin America to “charge their battery” in living the Christian life.

He noted how the decision to hold the 2019 WYD in Panama comes just a year after he was named the country’s first cardinal, jesting that Pope Francis “made a lot of mischief, the first of which was appointing me cardinal. It was a great mischief!”

Now Panamanians “have the opportunity to show what we really are,” he said, explaining that while Pope Francis might have made “this mischief” in giving Panama the task of organizing the 2019 event, “with a big smile gives us this challenge to go forward.”

Due to its geographical location, Panama serves as “a bridge” connecting North, South and Central America, he said.

Given the fact that many youth from Central America will be able to arrive to Panama by land at a low cost, the cardinal said that though he’s not 100 percent sure, “this must be one of the reasons why Pope Francis elected Panama to be the host.”

[…]

Vatican City, Feb 16, 2017 / 04:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis warned in his homily Thursday that envy, greed, and hate in the heart will breed war, violence, and murder in the world.  

“War begins in here and finishes out there. The … […]

Pope Francis meets with priests of Rome’s 17th prefecture in the Parish of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità in Villa Verde in Rome on Nov. 16, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Nov 17, 2023 / 11:24 am (CNA).

Pope Francis met with priests of Rome’s 17th prefecture — which sits on the eastern edge of the metropolitan area — in the Parish of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità in Villa Verde on Thursday evening to discuss pressing pastoral needs and material challenges. 

The pope’s visit reflects his call to reach out to the “peripheries” of society, a theme that has been central to his pontificate. The 17th prefecture includes the neighborhoods of Rome’s fifth municipal district such as Tor Bella Monaca, Torre Angela, and Torre Gaia; it is one of the poorest areas of the city.

During the one-and-a-half-hour conversation, the pope took time to meet the 40 priests gathered there and to discuss the main pastoral needs of the parish and the prefecture, including “work, the sacraments, poverty, hospitality, assistance to socially weaker groups, [and] evangelization,” Vatican News reported. 

Bishop Riccardo Lamba, auxiliary bishop of Rome’s eastern sector, said the meeting was characterized by “a very open, cordial, and familiar dialogue” and that the pope “encouraged everyone to continue with the good work they already do, to continue being among people, to continually propose the Gospel even if there are difficulties,” RomaSette reported. 

“He said to continue to have this synodal style in the parishes, which implies continuous collaboration between laypeople and priests,” the bishop said. 

At the end of his meeting the pope visited the Villaggio dell’ospitalità (Hospitality Village), a complex adjacent to the parish that consists of 12 apartments and provides emergency housing for both Italian and foreign families.

At that complex he met with several families, including a Ukrainian family that had fled from the ongoing war in the country a month ago. 

“At the moment, seven families live in the village and then people waiting to reunite with their husbands, wives, or children, for a total of 12 apartments, which were built when the parish complex was built,” said Father Rocco Massimiliano Caliandro, pastor of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità, according to RomaSette. 

“With the help of a group of volunteers and with the support of the whole community, we try to stay close to these families both humanly and materially, offering them not only accommodation but also the possibility of taking food from a warehouse we have here in the parish,” he continued. 

Caliandro said the visit reflected the pope’s pastoral priorities centered on the care of the most vulnerable. 

“[The pope] made one word resonate in reference to all the themes touched upon in the meeting with us priests and it is ‘taking risks,’ compromising with people, always making sure that people prevail,” he said.

This was not the pope’s first visit to impoverished Roman neighborhoods. On Sep. 29 the Holy Father visited the Parish of Santa Maria della Salute in Rome in the Primavalle neighborhood in Rome’s fifth municipality. Like others on the “periphery,” the neighborhood deals with a high rate of poverty, crime, and homicide. 

[…]