(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent an audio message to a new Argentinian radio station, which began broadcasting to Buenos Aires on Sunday, 2 July.
“Cristo de los villeros” Radio was founded by Fr. José María (“Pepe”) Di Paola, a friend and collaborator of Pope Francis when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
To those who labored to establish the Radio, Pope Francis offered his gratitude and support.
“Thanks for all the work you do; thanks for putting yourselves in play for good things, for communicating yourselves, and for building bridges instead of putting up walls. Thanks for not destroying yourselves with gossip but rather offering an outstretched hand. May you continue in this way”.
He went on to say that “this is how one builds a society of brothers and sisters”.
The Pope concluded his transmission by offering his blessing.
“May the Lord bless you, and please pray for me. I will pray for you, and I will do it from the heart. Go forward with enthusiasm!”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The former Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, passed away on Wednesday, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.
Navarro trained as a medical doctor with a specialization in psychiatry, as well as in journalism, moving to Rome in the early 1970’s, becoming a foreign correspondent and eventually being elected president of the foreign press association in the city.
In 1984, he accepted an offer from Pope St. John Paul II to become the new head of the Press Office of the Holy See, a position he held until 2006.
A statement on the website of Opus Dei, of which Navarro was a member, informs that a vigil is scheduled for Thursday, July 6, starting at 4pm in the sacristy of the basilica of the church of St. Eugene (Viale delle Belle Arti 10, Rome), and that Msgr. Mariano Fazio, Vicar General of the Prelature of Opus Dei, will celebrate a funeral Mass for him on Friday, July 7 at 11am Rome Time.
Click below to hear our conversation with Joaquín Navarro-Valls’ successor in the directorship of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ, who remembers his predecessor as a multi-faceted man of many talents, highly professional, and capable of great warmth in his personal relations, who was also a man of deep faith and devotion to the Church…
(from Vatican Radio)…