(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis wants to see the laity more and more involved in the Church’s mission to evangelize in light of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. The Pope made that affirmation in an address Friday to participants of the last Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity ahead of the reform process that will bundle the department together with the Council for the Family and the Academy for Life. As one phase comes to a close, a new horizon opens for the mission of the laity in the Church, Francis told participants at Friday’s audience. In this, the last plenary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Pope began by thanking those who have worked in this institution of the Curia for their commitment. The Council was set up after the Second Vatican Council with the blessings of Pope Paul VI. No to lay people acting on “proxy” of the hierarchy The Pope recalled the many fruits born over the last 50 years in the context of the laity: World Youth Day, “providential gesture of St. John Paul II”, the appearance of new lay associations and the growing role of women in the Church: “We can say, therefore, that the mandate you have received from the Council was precisely to ‘push’ the lay faithful to get more and more involved and, better at it, in the evangelizing mission of the Church, not as ‘delegates’ of the hierarchy, but because [the lay] apostolate [means] ‘participation in the salvific mission of the Church, to which all are disciples of the Lord through Baptism and Confirmation’. It is Baptism that makes every lay faithful a missionary disciple of the Lord, salt of the earth, light of the world, yeast that transforms reality from within. New challenges require reform, sign of renewed confidence in laity In light of the progress made thus far, the Pope then said “it is time to look again to the future with hope.” The reality, he noted, brings new challenges and the idea to amalgamate the dicastery for the Laity with the Pontifical Council for the Family and with the Academy for Life came about in response to the need to reform the Holy See’s Curial offices. “I invite you to welcome this reform, which will see you involved, as a sign of appreciation and esteem for the work you do, and as a sign of renewed confidence in the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church today,” the Pope said. As it navigates new waters, the new department, he noted, will have as its ‘helm’ the 1988 Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici , Evangelii gaudium and Amoris laetitia, all papal documents which have focused on the family and the defense of life. Reach out to the remote and needy In the context of the Jubilee of Mercy, he continued, the Church is called to be “permanently going out” and to be an “evangelizing community” which “knows how to take the initiative without fear, to meet, seek out those who are distant and to come out to the crossroads to welcome the excluded.” The Church and the laity, Pope Francis said, need to be outward–looking – seeking out “the many families in trouble and in need of mercy, the many fields of apostolate still unexplored, the many good-hearted and generous lay people who would willingly put at the service of the Gospel their energy, their time, their skills if they were [encouraged to get] involved, and valued and accompanied with affection and dedication on the part of pastors and church institutions. ” We need lay people who look to the future and are willing to get their hands dirty “We need well-trained lay people animated by a sincere and limpid faith,” the Pope said. Those whose “life has been touched from the personal and merciful love of Jesus Christ”: “We need lay people who take risks, who dirty their hands, who are not afraid to make mistakes,” he continued. “We need lay people with vision of the future, not [preoccupied] with the little things of life. And I said to the young people: we need lay people with the flavor of life’s experiences, who are animated by dreams. ” “Today,” the Pope concluded, “is the time when young people need the dreams of the elderly” so that they can have “the ability to dream,” and so that they can give us “the power of the new apostolic visions”. (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) A group of nine Syrian refugees, including two Christians, arrived in Rome on Thursday from the Kara Tepe refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, following the visit of Pope Francis to the island on April 16, when he accompanied three families of refugees back to Rome.
The Vatican Gendarmeria, with the help of Interior Ministry of Greece, the Greek Asylum Service, and the Community of Sant’Egidio, accompanied the refugees from Athens to Rome on Thursday. The Community of Sant’Egidio will provide for their housing, according to a statement from the Holy See Press Office.
The refugees, six adults and three children, are all Syrian citizens who were in the Kara Tepe refugee camp. They had arrived in Lesbos from Turkey.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) A video message by Pope Francis was released on Friday to highlight an awareness and fund-raising initiative by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). The charity’s “Be God’s Mercy” initiative marking the Jubilee Year of Mercy was formally launched at a press conference in the offices of Vatican Radio.
In his video message the Pope urged people to “carry out works of mercy together with ACN in every corner of the world, in order to meet the many, many needs of today.”
Please find below a full English translation of the Pope’s video message on behalf of the charity, ACN:
“I want to appeal to all men and women of good will all around the world for a work of mercy to be done in each town, in each diocese, in each association. We, men and women, need God’s mercy, but we also need each other’s mercy. We need to take each other’s hand, caress each other, take care of each other and not make so many wars. I am looking here at the dossier prepared by Kirche in Not, a papal foundation, to carry out works of mercy in the whole world. I trust Kirche in Not with this work… I also entrust them to carry on the spirit they have inherited from Father Werenfried van Straaten who had the vision at the right time to carry out in the world these gestures of closeness, of proximity, of goodness, of love and of mercy. So I invite all of you, together with Kirche in Not, to do, everywhere in the world, a work of mercy but one that stays, a permanent work of mercy; a structure for so many needs that there are today in the world. I thank you for everything you do. And do not be afraid of mercy: mercy is God’s caress.”
ACN projects supported during the four-month “Be God’s Mercy” campaign in 2016 include prison ministry, drug rehabilitation centres and support groups for women who have suffered violence.
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(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, is on a six day official visit to Ukraine where he will meet with both Church and state officials. On Friday morning he celebrated Holy Mass at the Cathedral church of St Alexander in Kiev and delivered a homily on the theme of the gospel warning “not to store up treasures on earth.”
Cardinal Parolin sympathized with the challenge of following this command of the Lord. Many countries of the world, including the Ukraine, must struggle against dishonesty, unfair wealth, theft of community assets, all for the accumulation of individual fortunes. Corruption and the concentration of money in the hands of a few are among the causes that impoverish the people, destroy our freedom, kill the dreams for a better world and the right to life for all.
Christians, Cardinal Parolin said, must always fight to ensure that justice is done, but without ever resorting to violence. We are also called to detach from what might be hidden in our hearts. We can preach justice but what good is it if on the inside we are victims of jealousy, envy and the desire for success at any cost?
We must instead render the way we look at others in a simple, pure way, being transparent and without ulterior motives. Bishops, priests, religious men and women must do this above all because of the respect and honour given to such people. “We risk most of all,” said the Cardinal, “because we are respected and honored, and therefore we believe we are above every judgment …” Often, he says, we allow ourselves things that create scandal: wealth that we do not deserve, pride and arrogance in the use of authority granted to us, a way of life that Pope Francis calls “worldly.”
Moths and rust destroy all of these false riches. To find true freedom we must look up to the sky: our treasure is there, it is God’s love. This love caused the master to lose everything, to be nailed to a cross while being spat upon and ridiculed. But this love is faithful and saves us.
Everything that takes us away from the God who awaits us in heaven, at the end of the few days of our lives, should be cut with a sword, and separated from us. Also because it makes us lose time and vitality. Frustrations and petty desires prevent us from seeking the things above; we have infinitely more value than what we can accumulate on this earth.
Cardinal Parolin concluded that the Eucharist that we celebrate is the gift of the Bread of heaven. In him, in Jesus who offers himself to us, we have the anticipation of the heavenly treasure, one of the goods that no one can take away from us who constitute the “tent” which was planted in the field of our human history.
Cardinal Parolin’s visit to Kiev lasts until Monday, 20 June.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis opened the annual Ecclesial Convention of the Rome Diocese on Thursday evening at Rome’s cathedral: the Papal Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. During the course of the inaugural event, the Holy Father responded to questions from several participants, each centered on specific aspects of the over-arching theme of the three-day event: the family and the joy of love.
In one response in particular, Pope Francis renewed his criticism of our “provisional” and “throw-away” culture, which has largely become incapable of thinking that any good – even one’s word – could possibly be lasting and worth preserving no matter what the cost.
“We too live a culture of the provisional,” said Pope Francis in response to a question from the floor regarding what needs – and what can – be done in order better to ensure the success and flourishing of marriages, and of people in married life within the Church and the broader society. In answer, the Holy Father told a story of a bishop from whom he recently heard tell of a young fellow who had finished his university studies and told the prelate he was interested in the priesthood, “but [only] for ten years,” the Holy Father reported his unnamed interlocutor as having quoted the nameless young fellow as saying. “This is the culture of provisional,” said Pope Francis, “and this happens everywhere, even in the priesthood, religious life – the provisional – is why a large majority of our sacramental marriages are null: because they say, “Yes, all my life,” but they do not know what it is they are saying, because they have another culture.”
Pope Francis went on to tell of how he banned matrimonios de apuro – or “rush marriages” usually celebrated when a young unmarried couple found themselves expecting a child – in Buenos Aires when he was archbishop there, because he felt the couples were in general acting out of social pressure rather than an informed understanding of the weight and significance of Christian marriage. “The crisis in marriage,” he said, “is because people don’t know what the sacrament is, what the beauty of the sacrament is: people do not know that it is indissuluble, they do not know that it is for life – it is difficult.”
The Convention will continue until Friday with a series of thematic workshops on dedicated to a series of sub-themes, including: love between adolescents; marriage preparation; spousal love; fidelity; the joy of giving life; family and brotherhood.
(from Vatican Radio)…