(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met on Tuesday with participants in the World Meeting of Popular Movements which is holding a conference here in Rome to discuss problems facing the poor, the unemployed and those who’ve lost their land. The group chose to hold their three-day conference here because of Pope Francis’ particular attention to the struggles of the poor.
Listen to our report :
“This meeting of Popular Movements is a sign, a great sign,” Pope Francis told his audience. “You came to be in the presence of God, of the church… [to speak about] a reality that is often silenced. The poor not only suffer from injustice, but they also fight against it.”
The Holy Father also emphasized that it is not sufficient to be content with “illusory promises,” and that anesthetizing or taming problems at hand does not solve them. He called for solidarity amidst trying times. “Solidarity is a word that…means more than some generous, sporadic acts. It is to think and act in terms of the community…It is also to fight against the structural causes of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and [loss of] land, housing, and social and labour rights. It is to confront the destructive effects of the ‘Empire of Money:’ forcible displacements and migrations, human and drug trafficking, war, violence, and all of these realities that many of you suffer and that we all are called to address and transform. Solidarity, understood in its most profound sense, is a way of making history, and that is what the Popular Movements movement is doing,” he said.
Pope Francis spoke about the monopolization of land, deforestation, appropriation of water, and inadequate agrochemicals, which have deprived many farmers of sufficient land. He pointed out that in rural communities, land is ingrained in lifestyle and culture. For these afflicted farmers, separation from land is not purely physical, it is also “existential and spiritual,” he said. Additionally, the Pope said the need for agricultural reform is ingrained in the Church’s social doctrine. “Please,” he urged, “continue to fight for the dignity of rural families, for water, for life and for all that can benefit from the fruits of land.”
Also on the agenda were the problems of housing and employment. Insisting that every family has a right to a home, the Pope said, “Today there are many families without housing, either because they never had it or because they lost it for various reasons.” The Holy Father stressed that this was unacceptable; that in neighbourhoods families grow and plant their foundations. It is a shame, he said, that in large cities there is an abundance of neglect in regards to housing “millions of our brothers and neighbours, including children.”
The Pope went on to renounce the use of euphemisms to soften the harsh realities that plague society today. Specifically, he referred to the use of the term, “street situation,” which is used to describe the homeless. “We live in cities that build towers, malls, and businesses, but abandon the parts where the marginalized reside – the peripheries.”
Lastly, the Pope spoke about the growing problem of unemployment in Europe and around the world. “Today, the phenomenon of exploitation and oppression has taken on a new dimension,” he said. “The centre of our whole social and economic system needs to be about the person, the image of God, created for the universe.” Instead, we live in a world that is largely infatuated with the attainment of wealth, and that the economy is prioritized over the human person. He pointed out that the unemployment of the youth in Italy has reached 40%; and that in some parts of Europe, that number is even higher. “We need to change this,” he said. “We need to return to making human dignity the centre [of society]… and we need to create the alternative societal structures that we need.”
“I want to unite my voice with yours in this fight,” Pope Francis said to the group. “I know that among you are persons of different religions, professions, ideas, cultures, and continents. We are practicing here a culture of meeting that is removed from xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance that we so often see.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met on Tuesday with participants in the World Meeting of Popular Movements which is holding a conference here in Rome to discuss problems facing the poor, the unemployed and those who’ve lost their land. The group chose to hold their three-day conference here because of Pope Francis’ particular attention to the…
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(Vatican Radio) In a private meeting with leaders of the inter-denominational Ark Community, Pope Francis said Christians should not wait for theologians to reach agreement, but should walk, pray and work together now. His words came during an October 10th encounter at the Casa Santa Marta with members of the community founded by Evangelical leader…
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(Vatican Radio) In a private meeting with leaders of the inter-denominational Ark Community, Pope Francis said Christians should not wait for theologians to reach agreement, but should walk, pray and work together now. His words came during an October 10th encounter at the Casa Santa Marta with members of the community founded by Evangelical leader Tony Palmer who was killed in a road accident last July. Palmer became friends with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he worked in Buenos Aires as international ecumenical officer of the Communion of Episcopal Evangelical Churches, a growing movement of charismatic and evangelical Christians seeking reconciliation between their divided communities.
Philippa Hitchen reports:
In an i-phone recording of the meeting , published on the Ark Community website, Pope Francis thanks Palmer’s widow and the new leader of the community, Archbishop Robert Wise, for carrying forward the dream of walking together in communion. “We are sinning against Christ’s will” the Pope says, “because we continue to focus on our differences,” but “our shared baptism is more important than our differences.”
While the devil, the “father of lies” divides us, the Pope continues, we are called to preach the Gospel in every corner of the earth, with the certainty that He is with us. “We each have in our Churches excellent theologians,” the Pope says, “but we shouldn’t wait for them to reach agreement.”
The Pope goes on to talk about spiritual ecumenism where Christians are being persecuted and killed in the Middle East, Africa or elsewhere, not because they are Pentecostal, Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic or Orthodox but “because they believe in Jesus Christ.” He mentions also a Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor who were killed on the same day by the Nazis for teaching the Catechism to children.
The Pope concludes his off-the-cuff remarks by recalling the vision of Tony Palmer to achieve his desire of walking together “so we can eat together at the banquet of the Lord.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Tuesday exhorted Christians to feel they are an integral part of the Church. Speaking during his homily at Mass in Casa Santa Marta, the Pope said that Jesus does not seek out man’s sins, but looks to his heart, and he invited all believers not to hover on the threshold of the Church, but to come right in.
Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni :
Jesus did the “work” 2000 years ago when he chose twelve pillars upon which to build His Church, and positioned himself as the basis and the corner stone.
Jesus, Pope Francis said, opened the doors of that Church to all, without distinction, because Christ is interested in loving and in healing the hearts of men, not in weighing up their sins.
Reflecting on the Gospel reading of the day that tells of the birth of the Church “built upon the foundation of the Apostles with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone” through whom the whole structure is held together, the Pope recalled the “actions” carried out by Jesus when he founded the Church: retiring in prayer, choosing his disciples and simultaneously welcoming and healing the crowd:
“Jesus prays, Jesus calls, Jesus chooses, Jesus sends his disciples out, Jesus heals the crowd. Inside this temple, this Jesus who is the corner stone does all this work: it is He who conducts the Church. As St Paul says, this Church is built on the foundations of the Apostles; he chose twelve of them. All of them sinners. Judas was not the one who sinned the most: I don’t know who sinned the most… Judas, poor man, is the one who closed himself to love and that is why he became a traitor. And they all ran away during the difficult time of the Passion and left Jesus alone. They are all sinners. But He chose”.
Jesus – Pope Francis said – wants us “inside” the Church. Not like guests or strangers, but with the “rights of a citizen”. We are not just passing through – he continued – it is where we have our roots. It is where our life is:
“We are citizens, fellow citizens of this Church. If we do not enter into this temple to be part of this building so that the Holy Spirit may live in us, we are not Church. We are on the threshold and look inside: “How lovely… yes this is beautiful…” Those Christians who do not go beyond the Church’s reception: they are there, at the door…’ Yes, I am Catholic, but not too Catholic…”
This is an attitude that has no sense in respect to the total love and mercy that Jesus has for every person. Proof of this is in Christ’s attitude towards Peter, who had been put at the head of the Church. Even though the first pillar was to betrays Jesus, Jesus responds with forgiveness, keeping it in its place:
“For Jesus, Peter’s sin was not important: he was looking at his heart. To be able to find this heart and heal it, he prayed. Jesus who prays and Jesus who heals. It is something he does for each of us. We cannot understand the Church without Jesus who prays and heals. May the Holy Spirit help us understand that this Church has its strength in Jesus’s prayer that can heal us all”.
(from Vatican Radio)…