Vatican City, Nov 7, 2018 / 12:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Edwin O’Brien, Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, told journalists Wednesday that the order of knighthood is committed to providing good educational opportun… […]
Vatican City, Nov 7, 2018 / 04:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis spoke of the need for creative entrepreneurship in the face of “scandalous poverty” Wednesday, stressing the importance of generosity with one’s possessions.
“If there is hunger on earth, it is not because food is missing!” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square Nov. 7.
“What is lacking is a free and far-sighted entrepreneurship, which ensures adequate production, and a solidarity approach, which ensures fair distribution,” he continued.
“Possession is a responsibility,” Francis stressed. “The ownership of a good makes the one who owns it an ‘administrator of Providence.’”
“The possession of goods is an opportunity to multiply them with creativity and use them with generosity, and thus grow in love and freedom,” he said.
Quoting the catechism, Pope Francis said, “Man, using created goods, must consider the external things that he legitimately possesses, not only as his own, but also as common, in the sense that they can benefit not only him but also others.”
The pope’s remarks on entrepreneurship and ownership came during a reflection on the seventh commandment, “Thou shall not steal.” In recent months, Pope Francis has dedicated his weekly general audiences to a series of lessons and reflections on the Ten Commandments recorded in the scriptural books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.
“‘Do not steal’ means: love with your goods, take advantage of your means to love as you can. Then your life becomes good and possession becomes truly a gift. Because life is not the time to possess, but to love,” Francis said.
In a departure from his prepared remarks, he said, “If I can give … I am rich, not only in what I possess, but also in generosity.”
“In fact, if I cannot give something, it’s because that thing has me — I’m a slave!” he added.
Pope Francis reflected upon St. Paul’s letter to St. Timothy, which says, “For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.”
Christ “enriched us with his poverty,” Pope Francis said.
“While humanity struggles to get more, God redeems him by making himself poor: the Crucified Man has paid for all an inestimable ransom from God the Father, ‘rich in mercy,’” he continued.
The love of money leads to vanity, pride, and arrogance, the pope warned, adding that “the devil enters through the pockets.”
During his general audience, the pope greeted pilgrims from around the world, including a particular greeting for the participants of the first International Men’s Meeting in Rome.
The pope also mentioned that this weekend will mark the 100th anniversary of the independence of Poland and said, “May you always be accompanied by the protection of Mary Queen of Poland and the blessing of God!”
Vatican City, Nov 6, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The Russian Orthodox Church announced that it has withdrawn from a Vatican sponsored Commission for Catholic – Orthodox Theological Dialogue, in response to a dispute between Orthodox patriarchs in Mos… […]
Vatican City, Nov 5, 2018 / 06:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis strongly condemned anti-Semitism, recalling the living memory of the Holocaust in Europe, during a meeting with rabbis at the Vatican Monday.
“As I have often repeated, a Christ… […]
Vatican City, Nov 4, 2018 / 05:13 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis expressed sorrow for the victims of an attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt in his Angelus address Sunday.
Islamic militants ambushed a bus carrying Coptic Christian pilgrims to a desert monastery south of Cairo on Friday, killing seven and leaving 19 injured.
“I pray for the victims, pilgrims killed just because they are Christians, and I ask Holy Mary to console their families and the whole community,” Pope Francis said Nov. 4.
The Coptic Orthodox Church held funerals on Saturday for six of the victims, who were killed while on pilgrimage to Saint Samuel the Confessor monastery in Egypt’s Minya province. The Islamic State claims to be behind Friday’s attack.
“Love for God and love for neighbor are inseparable,” Pope Francis said Sunday. “It would be an illusion to claim to love our neighbor without loving God; and it would be just as illusory to claim to love God without loving our neighbor.”
“My neighbor is the person I meet along my journey,” the pope said. I cannot “pre-select” my neighbor, he stressed, “This is not Christian.”
“Today’s Gospel invites all of us to be attentive not only towards the urgencies of the poorest brothers, but above all to be attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for the meaning of life and tenderness,” Francis told the 20,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
“We can say that the hungry not only needs a plate of soup, but also a smile, to be heard, and even a prayer, maybe done together,” the pope continued.
Pope Francis expressed gratitude for the beatification of Blessed Mother Clelia Merloni on Saturday.
Mother Merloni was a 20th century Italian religious sister whose life was marked by both suffering and evangelical initiative.
As foundress of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Merloni was “a woman fully abandoned to God’s will, zealous in charity, patient in adversity and heroic in forgiveness,” Pope Francis said.
“Let us give thanks to God for the luminous Gospel witness of this new Blessed and let us follow her example of goodness and mercy.”
Vatican City, Nov 3, 2018 / 07:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a Mass offered for the repose of the souls of bishops and cardinals who died this year, Pope Francis prayed for “the intercession of all those who lived unassuming lives, content to prepar… […]
Vatican City, Nov 2, 2018 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- Mother Clelia Merloni, a 20th-century Italian religious sister and founder of the women’s institute of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, will be beatified in Rome on Saturday.
With her beatif… […]
Vatican City, Nov 1, 2018 / 07:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- If a Christian wants to reach heaven, he or she should ask themselves if they are living for the pleasures of the world, or if they are striving after holiness with all their strength, Pope Francis… […]
Vatican City, Oct 31, 2018 / 04:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Faithful married love, in which a husband loves his wife like Christ loves the Church, is “revolutionary,” Pope Francis said Wednesday.
The pope focused his remarks at the general audience on spousal fidelity in every vocation.
“A call to love … manifests itself in fidelity,” Pope Francis said Oct. 31 in St. Peter’s Square.
“This letter of St. Paul is revolutionary to say a husband should love like Christ loves the Church,” the pope continued, in a departure from his prepared remarks. “It’s a revolution. Always on the way of love.”
Pope Francis’ comments came as a part of a weekly catechesis on the Ten Commandments. This Wednesday, the pope reflected on the Sixth Commandment, “Do not commit adultery.”
“Who then is the adulterer, the lustful, the unfaithful?” asked the pope. “He is an immature person, who … interprets situations based on his own well-being and satisfaction.”
“The human body is not an instrument of pleasure, but the place of our call to love, and in authentic love there is no room for lust and for its superficiality. Men and women deserve more!” he continued.
“This command is for everyone, it is a paternal Word of God addressed to every man and woman,” the pope said.
“Let us remember that the path of human maturity is the path itself of love that goes from receiving care to the ability to offer care, from receiving life to the ability to give life,” he added
The Holy Father stated twice, “every Christian vocation is spousal.”
“In the priesthood one loves God’s people with all the paternity, tenderness and strength of a husband and a father,” the pope explained.
“The Church does not need aspirants to the role of priests, but men to whom the Holy Spirit touches the heart with unconditional love for the Bride of Christ,” he said.
We start from Christ’s “fidelity, his tenderness, his generosity,” Pope Francis said, and from there “we look with faith at marriage and every vocation, and we understand the full meaning of sexuality.”
Vatican City, Oct 30, 2018 / 10:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has invoked diplomatic immunity in refusing to deliver a French court summons to the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, in a case against a French cardinal.
The Holy See informed the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September that it would not notify Cardinal Ladaria of an order to testify before the Lyon court regarding a letter he sent while secretary of the CDF.
A Vatican court ruled that the summons was not valid, since the letter was sent in Ladaria’s capacity as a minister of Vatican City State and is protected under international law.
The Spanish cardinal was first called to testify last spring in a case against Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon and six other officials of the Archdiocese of Lyon, who are being prosecuted for allegedly failing to report accusations of abuse by a priest to the police.
The accused abuser, Fr. Bernard Preynat, was charged with having committed sexual abuse against minors from 1986 to 1991, though prosecutors dropped his case in 2016. Preynat was removed from ministry by Cardinal Barbarin in 2015.
Victims of Preynat are the plaintiffs in the trial, which is scheduled to begin in January 2019, after two postponements after a lack of response from Ladaria. The court decided last month to continue without his testimony.
In Ladaria’s letter to the Archbishop of Lyon, which was found in a police search of the archdiocesan offices, he advised Barbarin to take disciplinary action against Preynat, “while avoiding public scandal.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers want Ladaria to testify as to whether the direction to prevent scandal was intended as an injunction to avoid going to court, in which case they accuse the CDF prefect of being complicit in failing to report the allegedly abusive priest to authorities.
Cardinal Barbarin has maintained his innocence of the charges brought against him, though he acknowledges the action he took, after learning of abuse allegations in 2007, was “belated.”
© Catholic World Report