Vatican

No Picture
News Briefs

Pope Francis explains what is the most dangerous attitude in Christian life

April 10, 2019 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2019 / 03:49 am (CNA).- Pope Francis warned Wednesday that pride is the most dangerous attitude in the Christian life, pointing out that even the holiest of people have received everything from God.

“None of us loves God as He loved us. It is enough to put oneself before a crucifix to grasp the disproportion,” Pope Francis said April 10.

“Before God we are all sinners,” Francis said. “If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us,” he said quoting the first epistle of John.

The pope said that pride is “the most dangerous attitude of every Christian life,” warning that arrogance can “also infect people who live an intense religious life.”

“There are glaring sins that make noise, and there are also devious sins, which lurk in the heart without us even realizing it. The worst of these is pride,” Francis said.

The sin of pride divides people and makes us presume to be better than others, he explained. “We always remain children who owe everything to the Father.”

Pope Francis said that when we go through difficult days, we must always remember that life is a miracle that God has created from nothing.

 “In this life we ​​have received so much: existence, a father and a mother, friendship, the wonders of creation,” he said.

“If you love, it is because someone next to you has awakened you to love, making you understand how in it lies the meaning of existence,” he explained.

Pope Francis called this principle the “mystery of the moon,” which has no light of its own, but reflects the light of the sun.

“We love because we have been loved, we forgive because we have been forgiven,” he said. “None of us shines with our own light.”

The pope said that understanding this can give us a greater empathy for others.

“Let’s try to listen to the story of some person who made a mistake: a prisoner, a convict, a drug addict,” Francis said. Without neglecting to consider personal responsibility, he said, you can ask yourself whether these mistakes are the result of a “story of hatred and abandonment that someone carries with him.”

Pope Francis reflected on a line, “Forgive us our trespasses” as a part of his ongoing catechesis on the “Our Father” prayer.

“Lord, even the holiest among us does not cease to be your debtor. O Father, have pity on us all,” Pope Francis prayed.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

Vatican updates norms for Anglican ordinariates

April 9, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 9, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The Vatican updated Tuesday the complementary norms of the constitution governing personal ordinariates, a structure by which Anglicans may enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.

The complement… […]

No Picture
News Briefs

Pope Francis to host ‘spiritual retreat’ for leaders of war-torn South Sudan

April 4, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 4, 2019 / 12:23 pm (CNA).- The Vatican will host a “spiritual retreat” for South Sudan’s president and opposition leader as they navigate the peace process in the war torn country, a Vatican spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

Following a five-year civil war and a tenuous peace deal signed in September, the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar will meet in Rome April 10.

“It will be a spiritual moment and above all an invitation to realize the responsibility that political leaders and authorities have,” Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said April 3.

Parolin confirmed that Pope Francis will also be present and participate in the retreat.

Pope Francis previously discussed the implementation of the peace agreement and the return of refugees with the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir during a private audience on March 16.

The following week, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher,  traveled to South Sudan, where he and a Vatican delegation visited a refugee camp outside the South Sudanese capital.

The years-long civil war has left 2.1 million people displaced within South Sudan, and another 2.5 million refugees in neighboring countries, according to the United Nations.

Gallagher also met with the bishops of South Sudan, who have been outspoken in their serious concerns about the peace agreement signed September 12, calling the treaty “fatally flawed” because it does not address the root causes of the conflict.

“Parties are not creating conditions sustainable for peace which would thereby prevent the outbreak or relapse of violent conflict again,” the bishops wrote in a statement released in March.

In his meeting with Kiir, Pope Francis once again expressed his wish to someday visit South Sudan as “a sign of closeness to the population and encouragement for the peace process,” the Vatican said. A prior trip to the war torn country was cancelled in 2017 due to security concerns.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in South Sudan’s civil war, which began shortly after South Sudan became an independent country in 2011. The fighting primarily took place between those forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebel groups led by Riek Machar, the former vice president.

Pope Francis called on Catholics to pray for South Sudan in his general audience last week. “It’s good for us to stop for a while and think about hungry children,” he said March 27.

“We think of the children who are in countries at war: the starving children of Yemen, the hungry children in Syria, the hungry children in many countries where there is no bread, in South Sudan. We think of these children and thinking of them we say together, aloud, the prayer: ‘Father, give us this day our daily bread’,” Pope Francis said.

[…]