(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta on Tuesday – the Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch , Bishop and Martyr. Following the Readings of the Day, the Holy Father reflected on the “foolishness” of those, who are unable to hear the Word of God, preferring appearances, idols, or ideologies – like the people of Jerusalem, whose faithlessness caused Our Lord to weep nostalgic tears.
The folly of those who hear not the Word
Francis’ reflection took the word “fools”, which appears twice in the Readings, as his starting point: Jesus says it to the Pharisees (Lk 11: 37-41), while St. Paul refers to the Pagans (Rm 1: 16-25). St. Paul had also deployed the term to refer to the Christians of Galatia, whom he called “fools” because they let themselves be duped by “new ideas”. This word, “more than a condemnation,” explained Pope Francis, “is a signal,” for it shows the way of foolishness leading to corruption. “These three groups of fools are corrupt,” Pope Francis said.
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Jesus told the Doctors of the Law that they resembled whitewashed sepulchres: they became corrupt because they worried only about the “outside of things” being beautiful, but not what is inside, where corruption exists. They were, therefore, “corrupted by vanity, by appearance, by external beauty, by outward justice.” The Pagans, on the other hand, have the corruption of idolatry: they became corrupt because they exchanged the glory of God – which they could have known through reason – for idols.
The folly of Christians today
There are also idolatries today, such as consumerism – the Pope noted – or such as practiced by those, who look for a comfortable god. Finally, those Christians who sell themselves to ideologies, and have ceased to be Christians, often having rather become, “ideologues of Christianity.” All three of these groups, because of their foolishness, “end up in corruption.” Francis then explains what this foolishness consists of:
“Folly is a form of ‘not listening’, one might literally say a nescio , ‘I do not know’, I do not listen. The inability to hearken to the Word: when the Word does not enter, I do not let it in because I do not listen. The fool does not listen. He believes he is listening, but he does not listen. He does his own thing, always – and for this reason the Word of God cannot enter into his heart, and there is no place for love. And if it enters, it enters distilled, transformed by my own conception of reality. The fools do not know how to listen, and this deafness leads to this corruption. The Word of God does not enter, there is no place for love and in the end there is no place for freedom.”
Thus, they become slaves, because they exchange “the truth of God with lies,” and worship creatures instead of the Creator:
“They are not free and do not listen: this deafness leaves room neither for love, nor for freedom; it always leads us to slavery. Do I listen to the Word of God? Do I let it in? This Word, of which we have heard in the singing of the Alleluia – the Word of God is alive, effective, revealing the feelings and thoughts of the heart. It cuts, it gets inside. Do I let this Word in, or am I deaf to it? Do I transform it into appearance, transform it into idolatry, into idolatrous habits, or into ideology? Thus, it does not enter: this is the folly of Christians.”
Concluding exhortation: do not be foolish
Pope Francis concludes with an exhortation: to look at the “icons of today’s fools,” adding, “there are foolish Christians and even foolish shepherds,” in this day. “Saint Augustine,” he recalled, “takes the stick to them, with gusto,” because “the folly of the shepherds hurts the flock.”
“Let us look at the icon of foolish Christians,” urged Pope Francis, “and beside this folly let us look on the Lord who is always at the door,” he knocks and waits. His concluding invitation is therefore that we should consider the Lord’s nostalgia for us: “of the love He had for us first”:
“And if we fall into this stupidity, we move away from Him and He feels this nostalgia – nostalgia for us – and Jesus wept with this longing cry, weeping over Jerusalem: it was nostalgia for a people He had chosen, a people He loved, but who had gone away for foolishness, who preferred appearances, idols, or ideologies.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a letter to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land marking the 800th anniversary of their presence as guardians of the holy sites in modern day Israel and Palestine.
In the letter, published on Tuesday, the pope praises the Franciscans for their vital contribution to life in the Holy Land , in particular their work to accompany pilgrims coming from all over the world.
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The Pope recalls the way that Saint Francis, in May 1217 during the chapter of his recently founded order, decided to send the friars out on mission. The first missionaries to the Holy Land arrived that summer in the town of Acre, near Haifa, in northern Israel and just over a hundred years later, Pope Clement VI confirmed them as the custodians of the holy places.
Sowing peace, fraternity, respect
In the message, Pope Francis notes how the Franciscans live alongside people of different cultures and religions, sowing seeds of “peace, fraternity and respect”. As well as their work as guides for pilgrims, the Pope recalls, they are also committed to biblical and archaeological studies. Franciscans also work closely with the local Churches taking care of the poor, the sick, the elderly and the young people who find it hard to keep up hope amidst the ongoing conflict.
Collection for the Holy Land
The Pope says that the Franciscans are ambassadors for the whole people of God, who support them through the traditional Good Friday collection for the Holy Land and through the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, which is currently marking the centenary of its foundation.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday appealed to the international community not only to guarantee enough production and fair distribution of food for all but also to ensure the right of every human being to feed himself according to his needs without being forced to leave his home and loved ones.
He made the call at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO ) in Rome, where he marked World Food Day , which this year has as its theme, “Change the future of migration. Invest in Food Security and rural development.” ( Click here for the video of the Pope’s FAO visit )
Conflicts and climate-change
Addressing the UN’s specialized agency that leads the international community’s fight against hunger and malnutrition in the world, the Pope urged governments to work together to end the conflicts and climate-change related disasters that force people to leave their homes in search of their daily bread. Citing the 2016 Paris climate accord in which governments committed themselves to combatting global warming, the Pope who spoke in Spanish, regretted that “unfortunately some are distancing themselves from it.”
He noted that negligence and greed over the world’s limited resources are harming the planet and its most vulnerable people, forcing many to abandon their homes in search of work and food. He called for a change in lifestyle and the use of resources, adding it cannot be left for others to do.
World hunger
A UN report in September pointed out that the number of chronically hungry people in the world was growing once more after a decade of decline because of ongoing conflicts and floods and droughts triggered by climate change. While the 815 million chronically undernourished people last year is still below the 900 million registered in 2000, the UN warned that the increase is cause for great concern.
Love, fraternity, solidarity
Describing population control as a “false solution” to tackling hunger and malnutrition in the world, Pope Francis said what is needed instead is a better management of the earth’s abundant resources and prevention of waste in food and resources. What is needed, he said, is a new model of international cooperation based on love, fraternity and solidarity that respond to the needs of the poorest. Pity, he pointed out, is limited to emergency aid, but love inspires justice that is needed to bring about a just social order.
As a token of his visit and message, Pope Francis gifted to the UN food agency a marble sculpture of Aylan , the three-year-old Syrian toddler of Kurdish origin, whose image in the media made global headlines after his body washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015 after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. The Vatican explained that the sculpture featuring a weeping angel over the little boy’s corpse, symbolized the tragedy of migration.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Bishop Emmanuel Lafont of Cayenne in French Guyana reacted with joy when he heard Pope Francis ’s announcement of a Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region.
French Guyana and Suriname are part of the Amazon territory together with Guyana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil.
As well as being an essential ‘lung’ for the entire planet as Pope Francis said when he made the announcement, the six million square kilometers that define the region are home to indigenous tribes and even uncontacted peoples whose cultures and whose very existences are threatened by large-scale logging, mining and other industrial projects as well as by pollution and climate change
Speaking to Vatican Radio Bishop Lafont said he is very grateful to Pope Francis for having called this Synod.
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“I am very happy, grateful to the Holy Father for having called this Synod which is most important” he said.
For the benefit of the indigenous peoples
First of all, Bishop Lafont continued “for the benefit of the indigenous people – the First Nations – of the Amazonian region, because they have a long history, for the past 500 years of submission, of exploitation, of misunderstanding.”
For the protection of Creation
The second reason for which he is grateful, the Bishop said, that “the Amazon is one of the most important regions in the world for the protection of Creation” and it is currently facing many challenges.
“The Church, he said, ought to speak even more loudly for the protection of the region, and for the sake of the protection of the whole world”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has called on the international community not to forget South Sudan and in particular the serious humanitarian emergency unfolding there.
The Pope made the call on South Sudan in a Preface he wrote to a new book on South Sudan. The book, published in Italian, is authored by Comboni Missionary, Father Daniele Moschetti. It was launched over the weekend, in Italy, Rome.
“Usually Missionaries are the ones to tell (the world) about lives lived on the periphery on behalf of the poor. So too is this testimony of Father Daniele Moschetti, a Comboni missionary, who offers a compelling account of the generous and passionate commitment of so many missionaries living side by side with those in need and, above all, of those who suffer because of ongoing conflicts that cause death and destruction,” Pope Francis wrote in the Preface.
Pope Francis has implored the international community, and everyone who believes in the Gospel not to give-up on South Sudan because to do so would be to betray the lesson of the Gospel.
“I feel the importance and need of raising this kind of awareness in the international community on a silent drama, which requires everyone’s commitment to a solution that would end the ongoing conflict. To distance one’ self from the problems of humanity, especially in a context such as that which afflicts South Sudan, would be to “forget the lesson from the Gospel about the love of neighbour suffering and in need,” the Holy Father emphasised.
The book, “South Sudan: The Long and Sorrowful Path towards Peace, Justice, and Dignity,” published in Italian as “Sud Sudan: Il lungo e sofferto cammino verso pace, giustizia e dignità” is a collection of Moschetti’s personal experiences of a land in which he lived and one to which he is still attached. It is part diary; part missionary chronicle and commentary. The book is a rich account of information which tackles a very complicated conflict while avoiding a patronising or know-it-all attitude.
Moschetti provides much-needed context often lacking in the usual 140 twitter character headline. More importantly, the book is an attempt to break through, in a personal way, and draw attention to a forgotten but real humanitarian emergency taking place right under our averted gaze. Moschetti is concerned that, in mainstream Western media, migration and African conflicts are often portrayed in a distorted or simplistic manner.
An Italian Comboni Missionary priest, Fr. Moschetti studied Theology in Nairobi and worked for 11 years, as a missionary, in the Kenyan slums of Kibera and Korogocho. Between 2009 to 2016 Fr. Moschetti was assigned to South Sudan.
During Moschetti’s book launch, at Radio Vatican, another Comboni Missionary and renowned journalist, Fr. Giulio Albanese described South Sudan as a forgotten nation. His hope is that one day Pope Francis visits South Sudan and perhaps help focus the world’s attention on this troubled country –just as he did for the Central African Republic in 2015. In an unprecedented move, Pope Francis launched the Jubilee Year of Mercy in Bangui, Central African Republic, in November 2015.
Notwithstanding the odds in South Sudan, Fr. Albanese spoke of a civil society that actually exists there is trying to make a difference. He said civil society activists there need the support of the international community.
Present at the book launch was Ethiopian national, Fr. Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie, the Superior General of Comboni Missionaries.
During the Wednesday Papal audience of 11 October, in Saint Peter’s Square, Moschetti gave Pope Francis a copy of his book. The Pope told Moschetti: “I really would like to go to this country (South Sudan). I would like to go there as soon as it is possible.”
“Sud Sudan: Il lungo e sofferto cammino verso pace, giustizia e dignità,” 250 pp., 14 Euro, is published by Dissensi. In the meantime, Fr. Moschetti has taken up an advocacy appointment in New York and Washington.
(Fr. Paul Samasumo, Vatican Radio)
(from Vatican Radio)…