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Pope Francis speaks at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 22, 2024. An altar painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Francesco de Rhoden inside the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Rome, Italy. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA. [L] CNA file photo [R]

Vatican City, Jun 5, 2024 / 05:40 am (CNA).

Pope Francis will prepare a reflection on the Sacred Heart of Jesus for a world “that seems to have lost its heart,” he announced Wednesday.

“I am happy to prepare a document that brings together the valuable reflections of previous magisterial texts and a long history going back to the Sacred Scriptures to re-propose today to the whole Church this devotion, full of spiritual beauty,” he said at the end of his weekly audience with the public June 5.

The pontiff said he intends to publish the document in September, and asked for prayers as he prepares the reflection.

“I believe it will do us much good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love, which can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal, which says something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart,” he said.

The pope noted that the Church dedicates the month of June to the Sacred Heart, and pointed out that last December 27 was the 350th anniversary of the first appearance of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. The December anniversary began a period of celebration that will extend to June 27, 2025, he explained.

The solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus will be celebrated this year on June 7, the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost. The following day, the Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

After his announcement, Pope Francis added a heartfelt appeal to pray for Mary’s intercession for peace in the world.

“The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which the Church is preparing to celebrate in the coming days, reminds us of the need to respond to the redemptive love of Christ, and invites us to entrust ourselves with confidence to the intercession of the Mother of the Lord,” he said.

“We ask the Lord, through the intercession of his Mother, for peace,” the pope prayed, pausing before adding, “peace in the tormented Ukraine, peace in Palestine, Israel, peace in Myanmar.”

“We pray that the Lord will give us peace and that the world will not suffer so much from war. May the Lord bless everyone. Amen.” he concluded.

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Italian Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu (right) waits prior to the start of a consistory during which 20 new cardinals are to be created by the Pope, on Aug. 27, 2022 at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. ( / Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Mar 10, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

Prior to the start of his trial on financial malfeasance charges, Cardinal Angelo Becciu tried to get Pope Francis to confirm that he had authorized the financial transactions that led to Becciu’s prosecution.

The pope refused.

“I regret to inform you that I cannot comply with your request,” the pope wrote back.

The correspondence between the two, which took place in July 2021, was read and displayed in a Vatican court March 9 — an unexpected turn of events coming during the 50th hearing of the trial.

Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi obtained the three letters directly from the “sovereign authority,” that is, Pope Francis himself.

In one letter, dated July 20, 2021, Becciu asked the pope to confirm that he had given the go-ahead for an investment by the Secretariat of State in a luxury property in London in 2013. Not only that, Becciu also asked the pope to acknowledge that he had personally approved the hiring of an intermediary, Cecilia Marogna, to help secure the release of Sister Cecilia Narvaez, the Colombian nun kidnapped in Mali in 2017 and freed in 2021.

In a style that seems more legalistic than Pope Francis’ usual writing, the pope wrote back on July 21 to say that Becciu’s letter surprised him. Instead of granting the confirmation that Becciu sought, the pope emphasized that the proposal for the purchase of the property in London “immediately seemed strange to me.” For that reason, he wrote, “I suggested that a prior consultation be carried out with the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and with Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, prefect of the SPE, for the insights of their respective competences.”

The phone call and new letter

On July 24, Cardinal Becciu telephoned Pope Francis and secretly recorded their conversation. In the phone call, Becciu complained that the pope’s letter of July 21 was like a verdict issued against him. He asked for it to be annulled, telling the pope that the tone of his letter was “entirely juridical” rather than that of a spiritual father.

Becciu asked the pope if he remembered that he gave him “the authorization to free the nun” and then told the pope that it would be enough for him if the pope said he authorized him to carry out particular operations. The pope responded by asking to send in writing “explanations and what he would like me to write.”

Becciu wrote to the pope again on July 24. In that letter, he thanked the pope for the phone call and said he he heard Francis “like a true father willing to listen to the pain of a son.”

Enclosed with the letter were two declarations that he asked the pope to sign, one regarding the London property deal and the other concerning the nun’s release.

Concerning the London property, Becciu appealed to the pope to affirm that he had considered “the proposal interesting.”

On July 26, Pope Francis responded again. He wrote that he had not clarified his “negative position” on the declarations that the cardinal wanted him to sign.

“Evidently and surprisingly, you misunderstood me,” Francis wrote.

“I regret to inform you,” he added, “that I cannot comply with your request to formally declare ‘nothing’ and therefore to ‘disregard’ the letter I had written to you.”

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Lauren Handy and Terrisa Bukovinac outside the medical examiner’s office in Washington, D.C., April 8, 2022. / Katie Yoder/CNA

CNA Staff, Feb 6, 2024 / 17:40 pm (CNA).
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