(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis sent a message offering his support for a conference at the United Nations in New York discussing modern slavery and human trafficking. The conference (on April 7th) was organized by the Santa Marta Group and in his message to the participants the Pope encouraged them to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and communication which are essential for ending the suffering of the victims of those who are trafficked.
Please find below the Pope’s message sent to Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See’s permanent Observer to the United Nations in New York:
“I extend greetings to you and to all those gathered to discuss the grave issue of modern slavery and human trafficking, which continues to be a scourge throughout the world today. I am grateful to you and the members of the “Santa Marta Group” for your efforts in organizing this conference, and to the Member States and various governmental, civic and religious organizations committed to combatting this crime against humanity. As you reflect on the multifaceted issues which contribute to modern slavery and human trafficking. I encourage you to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and communication which are essential to ending the suffering of the many men, women and children who today are enslaved and sold as if they were a mere commodity. In this way, solutions and preventative measures can be promoted which will allow this evil to be addressed at every level of society. In your discussions, I hope also that you will keep before you the dignity of every person, and recognize in all your endeavours a true service to the poorest and most marginalized of society, who too often are forgotten and have no voice. In assuring you and all present of the steadfast commitment of the Catholic Church to fight against this crime and to care for all its victims, I offer the promise of my prayers that Almighty God may bless and guide your efforts.”
Franciscus PP.
With gratitude for your valued assistance, I am Yours sincerely in Christ
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis ’ post-Synodal Exhortation , Amoris Laetitia , on “The Joy of Love”, was officially released to the public at noon on Friday. Presenting the highly anticipated document in the Press Office of the Holy See were Cardinals Lorenzo Baldisseri – Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops – and Christoph Schönborn – Archbishop of Vienna and a leading Father of both the Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2014 and the Ordinary Assembly that followed in 2015.
Cardinal Schönborn spoke exclusively with Vatican Radio ahead of the press conference, saying that the Holy Father’s desire in writing the exhortation was to give expression to the Church’s confidence in the family as intended by God in his design for humanity.
Click below to hear Card. Schönborn’s extended conversation with Chris Altieri
“I think the key message is: ‘Don’t speak first about problems, speak first about the achievement of the family ,’ [and] I would like to [shout it] out. The Church has been seen as a ‘warner’ – everywhere warnings and dangers and crises and problems. I think Pope Francis wants us to say, ‘Please, just look first at the enormous gift that is marriage and family,’” he said.
The Cardinal-Archbishop of also discussed the concerns expressed by observers and not a few Synod Fathers over matters of process, direction, and content during the Assemblies themselves.
“The diversity of critiques that has been expressed during the Synod is quite large, and I am sure that not everybody will be satisfied with this document. It was never the case – I can’t remember any post-Synodal Exhortation that received applause from everybody. The fact is, Pope Francis has based his Exhortation largely on the results of the two Synods, and the texts he used for [the basis of] his own writing were voted on by an over 2/3 majority of the Synod Fathers, so there is a large consensus behind it,” said Cardinal Schönborn.
On one point, in particular, Cardinal Schönborn offered significant clarification, explaining that, when Pope Francis discusses the possibility of admitting people in irregular marital situations “to the sacraments,” the Holy Father is speaking first and foremost of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
“I think it is very clear,” said Card. Schönborn, “there are circumstances in which people in irregular situations may really need sacramental absolution, even if their general situation cannot be clarified.”
Below, please find a full transcript of Cardinal Schonborn’s English-language remarks to Vatican Radio
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CRA: Amoris laetitia is an “exhortation”: to what is Pope Francis exhorting the Church?
Card. Schönborn: To the joy of love. Yes, it’s really that: rejoice in the joy of familial and marital love – and he speaks about marital love, not in a romantic way, not in an abstract way, it is very realistic – it is close to life, close to daily life, with all the worries and sorrows and joys of daily life. You can feel that he is a shepherd, a pastor, who has been always very close to the people, to the families, to their daily sorrows and joys. So, I think the key message is: “Don’t speak first about problems, speak first about the achievement of the family,” [and] I would like to [shout it] out. The Church has been seen as a “warner” – everywhere warnings and dangers and crises and problems. I think Pope Francis wants us to say, “Please, just look first at the enormous gift that is marriage and family.”
CRA: The Holy Father does seem to have the idea that the family is an asset?
Card. Schönborn: Absolutely. I would say it is the asset.
CRA: And yet, one not without its difficulties. The Holy Father is not without encouragement for people facing difficulties, and even for people who have to deal with the dissolution, the disintegration of family life…
Card. Schönborn: Yes, but there is an important pedagogical point [regarding] the whole document: it is not just for people who have visible problems in their marriage and family, but everybody – even, so to say, the “best” family, even the exemplary family; they all need God’s mercy, they all need conversion, they all need the help of grace – and the distinction is not so much between those who are successful in their marriages and those who are less successful in their marriage and family, but [the question is], “How do we accept God’s mercy, God’s help? The Church’s fellowship? The Church’s aid? How do we help each other on this way?” The key word is “inclusion”: we are all included under sin, and we are all included under God’s mercy. So, include people in difficulty, and help them.
CRA: Observers and some Synod Fathers expressed concern during the two Assemblies regarding process, direction and content: to the extent that those concerns were legitimate, can those who voiced them be satisfied with the document?
Card. Schönborn: The diversity of critiques that has been expressed during the Synod is quite large, and I am sure that not everybody will be satisfied with this document. It was never the case – I can’t remember any post-Synodal Exhortation that received applause from everybody. The fact is, Pope Francis has based his Exhortation largely on the results of the two Synods, and the texts he used for [the basis of] his own writing were voted on by an over 2/3 majority of the Synod Fathers, so there is a large consensus behind it. He is not innovating: he is continuing with what the Synod had already prepared and offered him.
CRA: You have said that the continuity runs also between this document and another, specifically, St. John Paul II’s Familiaris consortio …
Card. Schönborn: I am profoundly convinced that, 35 years after Familiaris consortio , Pope Francis has given us a beautiful example of what [Bl.] John Henry Newman calls, “the organic development of teaching.” [St.] John Paul II has already innovated in some points: not a break with tradition, but his “Theology of the Body” was something very new; his words on graduality in Familiaris consortio were rather unusual; his words on “discernment” in Familiaris consortio #84 were quite surprising – his strong invitation to discern different situations. Pope Francis is very much in continuity with this, and the Synod was – the two Synods were [as well]. Discernment was a key word in Pope Francis’ Exhortation. It is very “Jesuitical” – discernment of spirits – and that leads him to an attitude that was already present in Pope Benedict’s teaching, in Pope [St.] John Paul II’s teaching, that the Church offers help to those who are in so-called “irregular situations”. He adds a little note, where he says, “In certain cases, also, the aid, the help of the sacraments.” That’s all he said.
CRA: That brings us nicely to the point, because, when we are talking about discernment, we are inevitably also must discuss conscience – but we must let Mother Church form our consciences – and Pope Francis certainly knows this, though it does bear mention. The sacraments: which ones, and in what order?
Card. Schönborn: I think it is fairly clear: there are circumstances in which people in irregular situations may really need sacramental absolution, even if their general situation cannot be clarified. Pope Francis has himself given an example: when a woman [in an irregular marital situation] comes to confess her abortion – the sin, the grave sin of abortion – not to relieve her, even if her situation is irregular – the discernment of the shepherd can be, and I would say, “must be”: you have to help this person to be freed from her burden, even if you cannot tell her that her marital situation has been regularized by this absolution – but you cannot [let her leave] the confessional with the burden of her grave sin she finally had the courage to come to confess. That was the example he had given, and I think it is a very good example for what this little note could mean in certain cases: i.e. “[…]even the help of sacraments.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
“The grave issue of
modern slavery and human trafficking”, which “continues to be a scourge
throughout the world today”, is a true “crime against humanity”. Pope Francis
wrote addressed the issue of human trafficking a message to Archbishop
Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations
Organization, for the conference held on Thursday, 7 April, in New York. In the English text,
the Pontiff expressed his satisfaction at the initiative, organization in
collaboration of the “Santa Marta Group”, an alliance of police and Catholic
bishops from around the world who work
in civil society in order to eradicate human trafficking and guarantee pastoral
care for victims. The group met for the first time in April 2014 at the Domus
Sanctae Marthae, which Pope Francis chose as his residence; on that occasion
the Pontiff called human trafficking an open wound for contemporary society.
The group also met in December 2014 in London and in October 2015 in Madrid. In his message, Francis
expresses his gratitude to the member-States of the UN and to other governing
bodies, both civic and religious, which are “committed to combatting this crime
against humanity”. He also encouraged these organizations to “strengthen the
bonds of cooperation and communication which are essential to ending the
suffering of the many men, women and children who today are enslaved and sold
as if they were a mere commodity”. In this way, he writes, “solutions and
preventative measures can be promoted which will allow this evil to be
addressed at every level of society”. With regards to this
topic, the Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030, which was recently
approved, reads: “Take immediate and effective measures
to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure
the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including
recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its
forms” (n. 8.7). The Pope also expressed his wish
that “the dignity of every person” remained at the centre of the discussion,
recognizing “in all your endeavours a true service to the poorest and most
marginalized of society, who too often are forgotten and have no voice”. Lastly the Pontiff
assured the Archbishop and all the conference participants “of the steadfast
commitment of the Catholic Church to fight against this crime and to care for
all its victims, I offer the promise of my prayers that Almighty God may bless
and guide your efforts”….
For Amoris Laetitia to be released in the very midst of the
Jubilee of Mercy is significant, and to this the text refers three times,
directly citing the Bull of Indiction Misericordiae Vultus six times.
The document crowns the two years of work of the Synod, whose broad reflection
has included all dimensions of the family institution, which today suffers from
severe crises throughout the entire world. Human societies, marked by conflict
and violence, need reconciliation and pardon starting with their vital core:
the family. The Jubilee of Mercy is truly good news for families of every
continent, especially those which are wounded and humiliated. Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri’s text …
The evening of 13 March 2013, the first words of the newly-elected
Pope Francis to the people gathered in St Peter’s Square and throughout the
world were: “Buona sera” — “Good evening”. The language and style of Pope
Francis’ new text are as simple as this greeting. The Exhortation is not quite
as brief as this simple salutation, but is similarly close to reality. In these
200 pages Pope Francis speaks about “love in the family”, and does so in such a
concrete and simple way, with words that warm the heart like that good evening
of 13 March 2013. This is his style, and it is his hope that aspects of life
are spoken about in the most concrete way possible, especially with regard to
the family, one of the most elementary realities of life. It must be said that the documents of the Church often do not
belong to one of the most accessible literary genres. This text of the Pope’s
is readable, and those who are not dissuaded by its length will find joy in its
concreteness and realism. Pope Francis speaks about families with a clarity
that is not easy to find in the magisterial documents of the Church. Cardinal Schönborn’s presentation at the press conferece …