(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis told the participants in the General Chapter of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) to ‘love Jesus with passion and the Church without conditions’. His exhortation came in a private audience in the Vatican’ Clementine Hall on Friday, as the religious Institute celebrates the 200th anniversary of its founding. The Chapter reelected Fr. Louis Lougen on 30 Sept as Superior General for a second six-year term. Recalling the order’s founder, St. Eugene de Mazenod, Pope Francis said he was a ‘man of Advent’ who ‘loved Jesus with passion and the Church without conditions’, telling the Oblates to follow his example of ‘docility to the Spirit’. The Holy Father said their missionary work, though difficult, should make them ‘joyous witnesses’ of the Gospel. Recognizing their work at the 63rd General Chapter, the Pope said the ‘fraternal experience of prayer, confrontation, and communitarian discernment be a stimulus for a new missionary drive’ towards the poor and most abandoned. ‘Look to the past with gratitude, live the present with passion, and embrace the future with hope, without becoming discouraged by the difficulties you encounter in the mission but rather be strengthened by faithfulness to your religious and missionary vocation,’ he said. Below is a Vatican Radio English translation of the Pope’s address: Dear brothers, It is with particular joy that I welcome you, who represent a missionary religious Family dedicated to evangelization in the Church. I greet you all with affection, beginning with the newly-elected Superior General and his Council. You are here for the General Chapter, in the year in which you celebrate the bicentennial of your foundation through the work of St. Eugene de Mazenod, a young priest eager to respond to the call of the Spirit. At the beginning of its history, your Congregation labored to reignite the faith, which the French Revolution was extinguishing in the hearts of the poor in rural Provence, overwhelming also many ministers of the Church. In the space of a few decades, it expanded throughout the five continents, continuing on the path begun by the Founder, a man who loved Jesus with passion and the Church without conditions. Today you are called to renew this twofold love, remembering the two hundred year lifespan of your religious Institutes. Your jubilee, for a fortuitous and providential coincidence, occurs in the Jubilee of Mercy. Indeed, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate were born from an experience of mercy, lived by the young Eugene one Good Friday in the presence of Jesus crucified. May mercy be ever at the heart of your mission, of your efforts of evangelization in the world today. On the day of his canonization, St. John Paul II defined Father de Mazenod a ‘man of Advent’, docile to the Holy Spirit in reading the signs of the times and aiding the work of God in the story of the Church. May these characteristics be present in you, his children. May you also be ‘men of Advent’, capable of discerning the signs of the new times and guiding your brothers on the paths which God opens in the Church and in the world. The Church is living, together with the entire world, an epoch of great transformation in the most diverse areas. She needs men who carry in their hearts the love of Jesus Christ, which permeated the heart of the young Eugene de Mazenod, and the same unconditional love for the Church, which seeks to be a house ever more open. It is important to toil for a Church for all, ready to welcome and accompany! The work necessary to realize all this is vast; and you also have your specific contribution to make. Your missionary history is the history of many consecrated persons, who offered and sacrificed their lives for the mission, for the poor, to reach distant lands whose people were still ‘without a pastor’. Today, every land is a ‘missionary land’, every human dimension is a missionary land, which awaits the proclamation of the Gospel. Pope Pius XI defined you ‘specialists in difficult missions’. The scope of the mission today seems to expand every day, embracing ever new poor people – men and women with the face of Christ who plead for help, consolation, and hope in the most desperate situations of life. Therefore, you are needed: your missionary daring and your availability to bring to all the Good News, which frees and consoles. May the joy of the Gospel shine above all on your faces and make you joyous witnesses. Following the example of the Founder, may ‘among yourselves practice charity’ be your first rule of life and the premise of every apostolic action; and may ‘zeal for the salvation of souls’ be the natural consequence of your fraternal charity. During these days of work at the Chapter, you have expanded your vision and hearts to envelope the expanse of the world. May this fraternal experience of prayer, confrontation, and communitarian discernment be a stimulus for a new missionary drive – a point-of-departure for new horizons – to reach new poor people and bring them together with you to encounter Christ the Redeemer. Adequate, evangelical, and courageous responses to the questioning of the men and women of our time must be sought. For this reason, look to the past with gratitude, live the present with passion, and embrace the future with hope, without becoming discouraged by the difficulties you encounter in the mission but rather be strengthened by faithfulness to your religious and missionary vocation. As your religious Family enters its third century of life, may the Lord allow you to write new and evangelically fruitful pages, like those of your brothers who throughout these 200 years have testified – at times with blood – to a great love of Christ and the Church. You are Oblates of Mary Immaculate. May this name, defined by St. Eugene as ‘a passport to Heaven’, be for you a constant commitment to the mission. May Our Lady sustain your steps, especially in moments of trial. I ask you, please, to pray to her also for me. May my Blessing, which I wholeheartedly impart upon you and your entire Congregation, accompany your path. (from Vatican Radio)…
Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has sent a telegram on behalf of the Holy Father to Cardinal Chibly Langlois, president of the Episcopal Conference of Haiti, in which he expresses the Pope’s sorrow upon learning of the devastation wrought in the island by the passage of Hurricane Matthew, which has claimed many lives and caused considerable damage.
“His Holiness Pope Francis wishes to express his sorrow and to join in prayer in the suffering of all those who have lost loved ones. He conveys to them his sincerest condolences and assures them of his deep sympathy in these painful circumstances. He entrusts the departed to the mercy of God, that He welcome them in His light. He assures them of his spiritual closeness and his affection for the injured, and for all those who have lost their homes and possessions in the disaster. Welcoming and encouraging solidarity in this new hardship the country must face, the Holy Father entrusts all Haitians to the maternal protection of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and imparts to them, as a sign of consolation and hope, a special apostolic blessing”….
(Vatican Radio) True doctrine is not a rigid attachment to the Law, which bewitches like ideologies, but is rather the revelation of God, that allows itself to be discovered more and more fully each day by those who are open to the Holy Spirit. That was the message of Pope Francis at the morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta.
The readings of the day speak of the Holy Spirit, the “great gift of the Father,” the power that allows the Church to go forth courageously even to the ends of the earth. The Spirit, Pope Francis said, “is the protagonist of this ‘going forward’ of the Church.” Without the Spirit, the Church would be shut up within itself, fearful.
The Pope pointed out three “attitudes” that we can have with regard to the Spirit. The first is that which Saint Paul rebuked in the Galatians: the belief that one can be justified through the Law, and not by Jesus, “who makes sense of the Law.” And so they were “too rigid.” They are the same kind of people who attack Jesus and who the Lord called hypocrites:
“And this attachment to the Law ignores the Holy Spirit. It does not grant that the redemption of Christ goes forward with the Holy Spirit. It ignores that: there is only the Law. It is true that there are the Commandments and we have to follow the Commandments; but always through the grace of this great gift that the Father has given us, His Son, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the Law is understood. But don’t reduce the Spirit and the Son to the Law. This was the problem of these people: they ignored the Holy Spirit, and they did not know to go forward. Closed, closed in precepts: we have to do this, we have to do that. At times, it can happen that we fall into this temptation.”
The Doctors of the Law, the Pope said, “bewitch with ideas”:
“Because ideologies bewitch; and so Paul begins here: ‘O stupid Galatians, who has bewitched you?’ Those who preach with ideologies: It’s absolutely just! They bewitch: It’s all clear. But look, the revelation is not clear, eh? The revelation of God is discovered more and more each day, it is always on a journey. Is it clear? Yes! It is crystal clear! It is Him, but we have to discover it along the way. And those who believe they have the whole truth in their hands are not [just] ignorant. Paul says more: [you are] ‘stupid’, because you have allowed yourselves to be enchanted.”
The second attitude is making the Holy Spirit sad: it happens “when we do not allow Him to inspire us, to lead us forward in the Christian life,” when “we don’t let Him tell us, not with the theology of the Law, but with the liberty of the Spirit, what we should do.” That, the Pope said, is how “we become lukewarm,” we fall into “Christian mediocrity,” because the Holy Spirit “cannot do great works in us.”
The third attitude, on the other hand, “is to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and let the Spirit carry us forward. That’s what the Apostles did, [with] the courage of the day of Pentecost. They lost their fear and opened themselves to the Holy Spirit.” In order “to understand, to welcome the words of Jesus,” the Pope said, “it is necessary to open oneself to the power of the Holy Spirit.” When a man or a woman opens themself to the Holy Spirit, it is like a sail boat that allows itself to be moved by the wind and goes forward, forward, forward, and never stops.” But this happens when we pray that we might be open to the Holy Spirit:
“We can ask ourselves today, in a moment during the day, ‘Do I ignore the Holy Spirit? And do I know that if I go to Sunday Mass, if I do this, if I do that, is it enough?’ Second, ‘Is my life a kind of half a life, lukewarm, that saddens the Holy Spirit, and doesn’t allow that power in me to carry me forward, to be open?’ Or finally, ‘Is my life a continual prayer to open myself to the Holy Spirit, so that He can carry me forward with the joy of the Gospel and make me understand the teaching of Jesus, the true doctrine, that does not bewitch, that does not make us stupid, but the true [teaching]?’ And it helps us understand where our weaknesses are, those things that sadden Him; and it carries us forward, and also carrying forward the Name of Jesus to others and teaching the path of salvation. May the Lord give us this grace: to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, so that we will not become stupid, enchanted men and women who make the Spirit sad.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The theme chosen by Pope Francis for the XV General Assembly of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops taking place in October 2018 will be “Young people, faith and vocational discernment.” A press release from the Vatican on Thursday said the Pope made the choice after consulting, as normal, with Bishops Conferences, the Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris and the Union of Superior Generals, in addition to having listened to the suggestions of the Synod Fathers from the last Synod and the opinion of the XIV Ordinary Council.
Describing the theme “as an expression of the Church’s pastoral concern for the young,” the statement said the chosen topic follows on from the findings of the recent Synods on the family and the conclusions contained in the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia . It said by discussing this theme, “the Synod wishes to accompany young people along their existential journey towards maturity so that, through a process of discernment, they can discover their life plan and achieve it joyfully, opening themselves up to an encounter with God and humanity and actively taking part in the building of the Church and society.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Permanent Representative of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič on Wednesday addressed the Executive Committee Meeting of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Vatican diplomat said the international community “must not lose [its] resolve” in the face of the “seemingly insurmountable challenges” of 65.3 million forcibly displaced people around the world.
“We have an urgent social, political and ethical duty to address these issues and their root causes in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity,” Archbishop Jurkovič said.
“The Holy See, while assuring its firm commitment to work with all interested parties to assist the needs of refugees and migrants, wishes to reiterate a strong appeal for the implementation of the existing provisions contained in the Refugee Convention,” – he continued – “From its inception, the UNHCR has been actively involved in promoting protection for refugees and finding solutions to their problems. This is the very reason the three durable solutions were developed: voluntary repatriation, reintegration and resettlement.”
Archbishop Jurkovič said there is also urgent need for action on the underlying causes, the so-called “push-factors”, be they domestic or international, of large-scale movements of refugees.
“International support is needed to strengthen good governance and the rule of law, and to address structural inequalities,” – the Archbishop said – “The Holy See wishes to reiterate its urgent appeal for political and multilateral efforts to confront the root causes of large movements and forced displacement of populations.”
The full statement is below
Intervention by H.E. Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, Permanent Representative of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva
at the 67th Executive Committee Meeting of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Geneva, 4 October 2016
Mr. President,
Appreciating the opportunity to address the Executive Committee of UNHCR this year, my Delegation would like to express its serious concern over the increasingly difficult challenges presented by the various refugee crises in different parts of the world. At the present time we are witnessing the highest levels of displacement ever recorded, with some 65.3 million people who have been forcibly displaced. Of these suffering individuals, a staggering 21.3 million refugees – the majority of them being minors under the age of 18, who, as we know, are frequently victims of modern forms of slavery including trafficking do not have access to education or are imprisoned in dreadful situations. In addition, there are also some 10 million stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights. While we must not lose our resolve in the face of these seemingly insurmountable challenges, we must also acknowledge that the increasing trend shows no sign of slowing down. The scale and nature of refugee displacement today “requires us to act in a comprehensive and predictable manner in large-scale refugee movements”. These movements are often the result of old conflicts not yet effectively addressed – we think of many situations in Africa, for example – nevertheless the International Community is still convinced that: “Through a comprehensive refugee response based on the principles of international cooperation and on burden- and responsibility-sharing, we are better able to protect and assist refugees and to support the host States and communities involved.”1
We have an urgent social, political and ethical duty to address these issues and their root causes in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity.
The recent New York Declaration is a positive sign that there remains a willingness on the part of the International Community to address the grave refugee crises unfolding in our world. The Declaration tasks the UNHCR to develop a Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, setting out a blueprint for a stronger system with more reliable funding and early engagement of development actors to help those forced to flee their homes and the communities hosting them. With these encouraging developments, we must also be realistic about implementation. Repeated promises and pledges have been made, but effective and durable implementation has been sorely lacking and the rights of refugees, as laid out in various international instruments, continue to be violated. Such violations constitute wounds to the international order, which risk provoking cynicism and the slide towards a true “globalization of indifference.”
Mr. President,
The Holy See, while assuring its firm commitment to work with all interested parties to assist the needs of refugees and migrants, wishes to reiterate a strong appeal for the implementation of the existing provisions contained in the Refugee Convention. From its inception, the UNHCR has been actively involved in promoting protection for refugees and finding solutions to their problems. This is the very reason the three durable solutions were developed: voluntary repatriation, reintegration and resettlement.
In fact, however, in many countries refugees are not allowed to work, while their movements are limited to the immediate surroundings of camps, often located in remote regions. Refugees have become dependent on food supplies, many times insufficient or reduced for budgetary reasons, while at the same time the food basket is not sufficiently varied. The present situation has led to malnutrition in camps that for years have been administrated by the United Nations.
My Delegation believes that it would make all the difference if the existing rights of refugees were guaranteed, with additional economic and financial investments, and especially political will. Then refugees would become ‘agents of development’ even in their host country and not just recipients of aid or merely tolerated guests.
Closely related to respecting the existing rights of refugees is the urgent need for action on the underlying causes, the so-called “push-factors”, be they domestic or international, of large-scale movements of refugees.
Priority should be given to addressing the root causes of displacement and to preventing them. Early warning and response systems that can foster reconciliation are needed when tensions emerge. International support is needed to strengthen good governance and the rule of law, and to address structural inequalities. The Holy See wishes to reiterate its urgent appeal for political and multilateral efforts to confront the root causes of large movements and forced displacement of populations. As Pope Francis has said, this “would mean rethinking entrenched habits and practices, beginning with issues involving the arms trade, the provision of raw materials and energy, investment, policies of financing and sustainable development, and even the grave scourge of corruption.”2
Prevention, protection and solutions are strongly interlinked, to the extent that if one fails, the others will not be able adequately to deliver. Political will and leadership, both at the national and the global level, are essential for the effectiveness in these three areas.
Mr. President,
[ I am particularly glad to mention a decision that further emphasizes Pope Francis’ concern for uprooted peoples. In instituting the new Dicastery for promoting Integral Human Development in September last, Pope Francis placed pro tempore under his personal guidance the section that specifically oversees matters concerning refugees and migrants.]
Refugees need our solidarity, compassion and protection. In seeking to respond effectively to the challenges posed by unprecedented movements of refugees, while respecting the legitimate concerns of societies and countries, let us never lose sight of the real men, women and children involved in this human drama.
Thank you, Mr. President.
1 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, doc. A/71/L.1, Annex I, par.1
2 Pope Francis, Address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See for the traditional exchange of New Year greetings. Vatican, 11 January 2016
(from Vatican Radio)…