Pope Francis at Sunday Angelus: ‘We must not be slaves to any earthly power’

Vatican City, Apr 19, 2017 / 05:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday the Vatican announced the appointment of Msgr. Thomas Robert Zinkula as the new leader of the Davenport diocese in Iowa, and Fr. John P. Dolan as a new auxiliary bishop for San Diego.

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The logo of the 2025 Jubilee. The Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization is organizing the Catholic Church’s next Holy Year around the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Sep 17, 2022 / 05:12 am (CNA).

The Vatican will hold a contest to choose the original musical composition for the official hymn of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year.

The Dicastery for Evangelization announced the sacred music writing competition Sept. 17. The contest will open for submissions early next year.

Entries, the dicastery said, should set to music a text in Italian by the theologian Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri. After the winning music is chosen next year, the evangelization office will translate the text into other major languages.

The text is titled “Pilgrims of Hope,” after the theme of the 2025 Jubilee. The refrain, translated into English by CNA, is: “Living flame of my hope, May this song reach up to Thee! Eternal womb of infinite life, On my way I trust in Thee.”

According to the regulations set out by the Vatican, the musical composition should include a score for voice and organ, and be able to be sung both by church congregations and by four-part church choirs.

The competition will be open for submissions from Jan. 16 to March 25, 2023, and the winner will be chosen by a judging committee in collaboration with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. Full regulations can be found on the webpage of the 2025 Jubilee.

The logo for the 2025 Jubilee Year was also chosen after a worldwide competition, and unveiled in June.

A Jubilee is a special Holy Year of grace and pilgrimage in the Catholic Church. An ordinary Jubilee typically takes place every 25 years, though a pope may call for additional Jubilees, as Pope Francis did with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy from 2015-2016.

The last ordinary Jubilee was the Great Jubilee of 2000, which was held under Saint Pope John Paul II and had the theme “Christ Yesterday, Today, Forever.”

In its announcement of the hymn-writing competition Saturday, the Dicastery for Evangelization said that “the Sacred Scriptures are steeped in song, and the Psalms are a striking example: the prayers of the people of Israel were written to be sung, and it was in song that the most human events were presented before the Lord.”

“The tradition of the Church has continued this, making music and song one of the lungs of its liturgy,” the dicastery said.

The evangelization office, which is responsible for organizing the Jubilee, said “many themes of the Holy Year are woven into the text” of the hymn prepared by Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, who is the former dean of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and the Family in Rome.

“The motto, ‘Pilgrims of Hope,’” it said, “is best echoed biblically in some pages from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 9 and Isaiah 60). The themes of creation, fraternity, God’s tenderness and hope in our destination resonate in a language, which although not ‘technically’ theological, is in substance and in the allusions, so that it rings eloquently in the ears of our time.”

The full lyrics of what will become the official hymn of the 2025 Jubilee can be found below. It has been translated into English from the Italian original by CNA.

Pilgrims of Hope

Living flame of my hope
may this song reach up to Thee!
Eternal womb of infinite life
on the way I trust in Thee.

Every tongue, people and nation
finds light in your Word.
Sons and daughters scattered and fragile
are embraced in your beloved Son.

Living flame of my hope
may this song reach up to Thee!
Eternal womb of infinite life
on the way I trust in Thee.

God watches us, tender and patient:
the dawn of a new future rises.
New Heavens Earth made new:
the Spirit of Life moves walls.

Living flame of my hope
may this song reach up to Thee!
Eternal womb of infinite life
on the way I trust in Thee.

Lift up your eyes, move with the wind,
speed up your step: God comes, in time.
See the Son who became Man:
thousands upon thousands find the way.

Living flame of my hope
may this song reach up to Thee!
Eternal womb of infinite life
on the way I trust in Thee.

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Vatican City, Mar 8, 2019 / 10:25 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Friday that global development goals need to be supported by ethical objectives stemming from personal conversion and recognition of one’s failures.

“The economic and political objectives must be supported by ethical objectives, which presuppose a change of attitude, the Bible would say a change of heart,” the pope said March 8 at the Vatican’s Clementine Hall.

“Already St. John Paul II spoke about the need to ‘encourage and sustain an ecological conversion,’” he said, referencing a 2001 catechesis of one of his predecessors. “Religions have a key role to play here.”

Francis emphasized that “for a correct transition to a sustainable future, it is necessary to recognize ‘one’s own mistakes, sins, vices or negligence,’ ‘to repent of heart, to change from within,’ to be reconciled with others, with creation and with the Creator,” as he wrote in his 2015 encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’.

“Indeed, we should all commit ourselves to promoting and implementing the development goals that are supported by our deepest religious and ethical values,” he urged. “Human development is not only an economic question or concerns only experts, but is above all a vocation, a call that requires a free and responsible response.”

The pope addressed Vatican officials, religious representatives, and members of international organizations participating in a March 7-9 conference on “Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Listening to the cry of the earth and the poor.”

The conference was hosted by the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

The SDGs are 17 global goals covering social and economic development issues, including poverty, hunger, education, energy, and the environment. The goals were set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 as a part of what is called the “2030 Agenda” resolution.

In his speech to conference participants Friday, Pope Francis praised the SDGs and 2030 Agenda as “a great step forward for global dialogue, in the sign of a necessary ‘new universal solidarity.’”

“As my predecessor St. Paul VI highlighted, talking about human development means referring to all people – not just a few – and to the whole human person – not just to the material dimension,” he said.

Urging people to look for concrete answers and commitments, he noted he was pleased conference participants were seeking the input of religious persons in the discussion of the implementation of sustainable development objectives.

“In the case of religious people, we need to open the treasures of our best traditions with regard to a true and respectful dialogue on how to build the future of our planet,” he said.

The pope also underlined the importance of including in the discussion the voices of indigenous people, who he said, though a very small percentage of the world’s overall population, “take care of almost 22 percent of the earth’s surface” and “protect about 80 percent of the planet’s biodiversity.”

“Their voice and their concerns should be at the center of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and at the center of the search for new roads for a sustainable future,” he stated, adding that he and other bishops will be discussing the topic at the Synod of Bishops on the pan-amazon region, being held in October.

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