Pope Francis appoints Chicago auxiliary bishop to lead Milwaukee Archdiocese

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus address on Aug. 4, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Aug 4, 2024 / 10:03 am (CNA).

During his first Angelus address of the month, Pope Francis asked his listeners on Sunday to seek the path of charity, “which keeps nothing for itself but shares everything.”

“Material things do not give fullness to life. They are important but they do not fill life. Only love can do that,” the Holy Father said to crowds of local and international pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 4.

Reflecting on Sunday’s Gospel reading (John 6:24-35) — which recounts how many people followed Jesus because they were looking for bread to eat and not because they believed in him or his miracles — the pope challenged his listeners to ask themselves: “What kind of relationship do I have with material things? Am I a slave to them? Or do I use them freely as instruments to give and receive love?”

Alongside the virtue of charity, Pope Francis said gratitude and generosity are essential qualities that enable a Christian to grow in the love of God and others.

“Am I able to say thank you? Thank you to God and my brothers and sisters for the gifts I have received? And do I know how to share them with others?” he asked.

During his address, the pope also spoke about how a selfish and disordered attachment to money and material goods can be a source of conflict and division within families.

“How sad, on the other hand, when they [families] fight over inheritance. I’ve seen many cases of this. It’s sad,” he said. “For money, they don’t speak to each other for years!”

With a prayer to Mary, the Holy Father petitioned the Mother of God “to teach us to make everything an instrument of love” for the good of others.  

On Sunday the Holy Father asked pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square to pray for justice through the intercession of the newly beatified 18th-century Maronite historian Patriarch Estephan Douaihy and for the people suffering in Lebanon, the Holy Land, Palestine, and Israel due to violent conflict.

The pontiff also expressed his concern about the ongoing political unrest and protracted humanitarian crises occurring in Venezuela and Myanmar and asked for prayers for those who have recently died or are left homeless in India due to torrential rains and floods. 

Before departing from the window in the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square from which the pope prays his Sunday Angelus with the public, he asked the crowds of waving and cheering pilgrims to pray for him.   

“I continue to pray for you, please do the same for me. I wish you all a lovely Sunday, but please don’t forget to pray for me!” he said. 

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Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Apr 6, 2024 / 08:57 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has transferred the vicar of Rome Cardinal Angelo De Donatis to a different post as head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vati… […]

Vatican City, Aug 17, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis invited participants in an annual Catholic festival Monday to join him “in witnessing to the experience of the beauty of God.”

In a message on behalf of the pope for this year’s Meeting for Friendship among Peoples in Rimini, Italy, Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin highlighted the role of beauty in attracting people to the Christian faith.

“The Pope therefore invites you to continue to collaborate with him in witnessing to the experience of the beauty of God who became flesh so that our eyes may marvel at his face and our eyes may find in him the wonder of living,” the cardinal wrote in the message dated Aug. 5 and released by the Holy See press office Aug. 17.

Parolin noted that the theme of this year’s meeting, which takes place Aug. 18-23, is “Devoid of wonder, we remain deaf to the sublime,” taken from American Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 1955 book “God in Search of Man.” 

The meeting, which usually attracts around 800,000 people and is organized by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation, is being held online this year because of the coronavirus crisis, which has claimed more than 35,000 lives in Italy as of Aug. 17.

According to the official program, the opening session will feature Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, who was named a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope Francis in July. The final day will include a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Italian bishops’ conference.

The cardinal said that this year’s theme would offer “a precious and original contribution at a dizzying moment in history.” He noted that the pandemic had enabled many to rediscover wonder.

“In the past few months we have experienced that dimension of amazement that takes the form of compassion in the presence of suffering, fragility and the precariousness of existence,” he said in the message, addressed to Bishop Francesco Lambiasi of Rimini.

“This noble human sentiment has prompted doctors and nurses to face the grave challenge of the coronavirus with unwavering dedication and admirable commitment. The same sentiment, full of affection for their students, has enabled many teachers to embrace the fatigue of distance learning, ensuring the completion of the school year. And equally it has allowed many to find in the faces and in the presence of family members the strength to face discomfort and difficulties.”

Parolin described the Rimini Meeting, which has taken place annually since 1980, as a “powerful reminder” of the need to cultivate wonder.

“Amazement is the way to grasp the signs of the sublime, that is, of that mystery that constitutes the root and foundation of all things,” he wrote.

The cardinal recalled that a group of artists had written to Pope Francis, thanking him for praying for them at Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Casa Santa Marta, during the coronavirus lockdown. 

“Artists make us understand what beauty is, and without beauty the Gospel cannot be understood,” the pope had said.

Quoting Msgr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation, Parolin wrote: “For this reason the theme that characterizes the meeting launches a decisive challenge to Christians, called to testify to the profound attraction that faith exerts by virtue of its beauty: ‘the attraction of Jesus,’ according to an expression dear to the Servant of God Luigi Giussani.”

The cardinal concluded by saying that the pope imparted his Apostolic Blessing to participants in this year’s meeting and asked them to continue to pray for him.

Recalling that St. John Paul II once declared that “It is worth being a man, because You, Jesus, have been a man,” Parolin said: “Isn’t this amazing discovery perhaps the greatest contribution that Christians can offer to sustain the hope of men? It is a task from which we cannot refrain, especially at this narrow hairpin bend in history. It is the call to be transparent images of the beauty that changed our lives, concrete witnesses of the love that saves, especially with regard to those who now suffer most.”

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