(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday greeted Special Olympics athletes who are taking part in a Unified Football tournament this week at the Pio XI sports centre here in Rome.
Listen to our report:
Speaking to the althletes gathered, the Pope said, “you are the symbol of a sport that opens one’s eyes and heart to the value and dignity of individuals and people who would otherwise be subject to prejudice and exclusion.”
The Holy Father told them that, in these days they would have the opportunity to reaffirm the importance of “unified” sport, “through which athletes with and without intellectual disabilities play together.”
“This beautiful reality,” he continued, “which you carry out with commitment and conviction, nourishes the hope of a positive and fruitful future of sport, because it makes it a real opportunity for inclusion and involvement.”
Pope Francis urged the athletes present to never tire of, “showing the world of sport your shared commitment to building more fraternal societies in which people can grow and develop and fully realize their abilities.”
Universal Language of Sport
Sport, underlined Pope Francis is a universal language and demonstrates the stories of so many individuals, who thanks to it, overcame exclusion, poverty and injury to be an inspiration to others.
The Unified Football Tournament takes place from the 13th -15th October in Rome and each side has 5 Special Olympians and four partner players, all between the ages of 18 and 30.
The event takes place at the Pio XI sports centre with the support of the Knights of Columbus. 9 countries are taking part; they are Lituania, France, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Romania and Italy.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met on Friday with members of an organizing committee for the journey that he made to Sri Lanka back in January 2015.
Welcoming the group, the pope said his own visit to Sri Lanka was a moment of “special grace” at a time when the nation was “ striving for reconciliation and healing” after years of suffering and strife.
Religions and cultures united
Pope Francis said he was deeply moved by the numbers of Sri Lankans, united across religions and cultures, who came out to greet him during the visit, as well as the vast crowds that gathered prayerfully around the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, a symbol of reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
Finally he said he was struck also by the celebration of the canonization of Saint Joseph Vaz, the great missionary to the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.
Please find below the full text of Pope Francis’ words:
Dear friends, I am pleased to welcome members of the Organizing Committee for my Pastoral Visit to Sri Lanka back in January 2015. I greet each of you, together with your spouses who have come on this pilgrimage. As you welcomed me to your land, and planned my visit so carefully, also in cooperation with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka, so now I gladly welcome you here; and even though I would like our visitors to feel at home, I cannot quite equal the forty elephants that greeted me on the road from the airport to Colombo…!
The possibility of visiting your country was a special grace for me, at a moment when, after years of strife and suffering, the nation was striving for reconciliation and healing. I was deeply moved by the great number of Sri Lankans, united across religions and cultures, who came out to greet me at the airport and along the road to Colombo. I was struck also by the moving and beautiful celebration of the canonization of Saint Joseph Vaz, the great missionary to the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, surely the high point of our time together, as well as by the vast crowds that gathered prayerfully around the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, symbol of refuge and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
Looking back with gratitude on my Visit, I thank you in a special way for all your hard work, often unseen and at a great cost in time and energy, that made my Visit so fruitful. I thank your families too, who made many sacrifices and encouraged you in your work. Your presence here today has brought something of Sri Lanka’s fragrant air to our house, and so reminds us of the many divine graces we experienced together in your country.
Entrusting Sri Lanka’s people and her leaders to the intercession of Our Lady of Madhu, I willingly invoke God’s blessing upon you, your families and all who cooperated with you in the planning of this Visit, as a pledge of peace and strength in the Lord.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Church leaders from the different Eastern Catholic rites have been gathered in Rome this week to mark the centenary of the foundation of the Pontifical Oriental Institute and the Congregation for Eastern Churches. Pope Francis visited the Institute on Thursday and issued a mesage praising its “high achievements” and reminding it to be always attentive to the “enormous challenges facing Christians in the East”.
In 1917, in the middle of the First World War, Pope Benedict XV established the Institute to be a bridge between East and West and to make the rich traditions of the Oriental Churches available to the entire Catholic world. A century on, the Institute maintains a world class reputation for its research, teaching and publishing on all issues of Eastern theology, liturgies, patristics, history, canon law, literature, spirituality, archeology, as well as questions of ecumenical and geopolitical importance.
Jesuit Father David Nazar , is the current rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute. Born in Canada to a family of Ukrainian origin, he’s a former superior of the Society of Jesus in Ukraine and former Provincial of the Jesuits in the English Canada Province.
Listen:
He explains that the ‘Orientale’ as it’s known, is a papal institute, entrusted to the Society of Jesus, to focus on matters concerning all of the Catholic and Orthodox Eastern Churches.
Eastern treasures available to all
Since many of the Eastern Churches are smaller and lacking the resources of Christians in the West, he says, the popes were concerned to make sure that the wealth of research on liturgy, ancient traditions, and original manuscripts could be made available to Christians across the globe.
World class library
Fr Nazar says that over the past century, the Jesuits have worked hard to establish a world class library, which was funded for a number of years by friends of Pope Pius XI. It remains second to none in the world, he notes, in the study of the ancient traditions and languages of the Eastern world.
Ancient rites and traditions
Much of this work has been significant for the West as well, he adds, such as the Second Vatican Council’s document on the importance of the Eastern Churches “which would have been unimaginable without the fifty years of research that had been done at the Orientale”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a Message to the Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute , Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who is also the Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches . The Pontificium Institutum Orientale , or “Orientale” as it is known in Roman shorthand, was founded in 1917 by Pope Benedict XV, and became part of the “Gregorian Consortium” including also the University and the Biblical Institute, under the direction and tutelage of the Society of Jesus. In his Message, Pope Francis makes note of the high achievements in the twofold mission of research into liturgical, theological, ecclesiological, and spiritual sources of the Christian East, and the preparation of instruments by which to make the riches of the Eastern Christianity more readily available and accessible to Christians in the West. The Pope also calls on the Orientale to mindfulness of and solicitude for the enormous challenges facing Christians in the East. “Keeping intact the attention and application of traditional research,” Pope Francis writes, “This Institute, through research, teaching and testimony, has the task of helping our [Eastern] brothers and sisters to strengthen and consolidate their faith in the face of the tremendous challenges they face,” challenges which, in the present day, include strong temptations to leave their native homelands, and often forced displacement under threat of persecution and even martyrdom. The Holy Father concludes his message, “In joining myself to the thanksgivings to God for the work it has done over these 100 years, I hope that the Pontifical Oriental Institute will pursue its mission with renewed impetus, studying and spreading with love and intellectual honesty, with scientific rigor and pastoral perspective, the traditions of the Oriental churches in their liturgical, theological, artistic and canonical variety, better and better responding to the expectations of today’s world to create a future of reconciliation and peace.” (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization , Archbishop Rino Fisichella has been speaking about Pope Francis’ speech on Wednesday evening marking the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Council sponsored a meeting to celebrate the anniversary and reflecting on the Pope’s address, Archbishop Fisichella said that, “there are many different issues in the discourse of Pope Francis.”
Archbishop Fisichella spoke with Vatican Radio’s Blandine Hugonnet.
Listen to the interview:
The Archbishop noted in particular the Pope’s reference to Pope John XXIII ’s opening speech to the Second Vatican Council . The Pope, noted the President, explains in his words that faith is not static but dynamic . The Archbishop added that, “ in this speech I would say the dynamic of the Christian truth and our faith is what, in my humble opinion, touched me personally.”
Asked about Pope Francis’ reference to the death penalty, Archbishop Fisichella said the Holy Father’s comments are very much in line with the words of St Pope Paul II and Pope Benedict on this issue. But he continued, “yesterday it seems to me that Pope Francis said something more, because he said that when we have a voluntary suppression of a human life so this is against the Gospel itself. I think that this is something with strong; very profound but very strong.”
(from Vatican Radio)…