(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis surprised thousands of teenagers in St. Peter’s Square by personally hearing confessions for more than an hour Saturday morning.
The Holy Father administered the Sacrament of Reconciliation to 16 teenage boys and girls gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee for Teens.
Listen to Seàn-Patrick Lovett’s report:
Most people celebrate their feast day eating cake.
Not Pope Francis.
Saturday, April 23rd is the feast of St. George, and Pope Giorgio Bergoglio spent a good slice of the morning listening to confessions…in St Peter’s Square.
That’s because Saturday also marks the Jubilee for Teens, an opportunity for 13 to 16 year-olds all over the world to reflect on the theme “Merciful like the Father”.
Several thousand of them have come to Rome for the event and were in St Peter’s Square Saturday morning when the Pope unexpectedly turned up to hear confessions, along with another 150 priests, beneath the colonnade in front of St Peter’s Basilica.
Sixteen teenage boys and girls were chosen randomly from among the throngs of banner-waving, rucksack-carrying young people who were participating in the Sacrament of Reconciliation before making their way through the Holy Door.
In a message published earlier this year in preparation for the Jubilee for Teens, Pope Francis wrote: “Don’t just prepare your rucksacks and your banners – but your hearts and minds as well”.
The Pope will address those hearts and minds personally tomorrow when he celebrates Mass for the teens in St Peter’s Square.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, told the United Nations to realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance.
The Vatican official was on Thursday speaking at a High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in New York.
“Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities,” – Cardinal Turkson said – “By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”
Cardinal Turkson called “our conflict-ridden world” the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda.
“For war is the negation of all rights and all development,” he said.
“Thus good governance and all the political instruments for the maintenance of peace and security for all are indispensable for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda,” Cardinal Turkson concluded.
The full text of Cardinal Turkson’s speech is below
Statement of the HOLY SEE by
HIS EMINENCE CARD. PETER K.A. TURKSON
President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
New York, 21 April 2016
Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I bring you the warm greetings of Pope Francis, and his prayerful wishes for a successful discussion on the means for achieving the SDGs. When Pope Francis addressed this Assembly on September 25 last, he referred to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as “an important sign of hope”. This hope, he went on, will come to concrete fruition only if the Agenda is truly, fairly and effectively realized, and even more importantly, if its framework is sustainable. Thus its realization calls for all stakeholders to exercise an effective, practical and constant will.
The Holy See believes that the realization of the 2030 Agenda requires more than public financing; it also requires financing and investment in accordance with value-based criteria of private investors, as a necessary complement to public finance. Indeed, it is necessary that Non-State Actors, such as faith-based groups, lead multi-stakeholder engagements in ethical financial activity to eliminate social inequality and to develop an ambitious new agenda to better “care for our common home”.
In his Encyclical “Laudato Si’”, Pope Francis talks about “care” and “caring”. For, if one cares, one is connected, one is involved and touched. To care is to allow oneself to be affected by another, so much that one’s path and priorities change. With caring, then, the hard line between self and other softens, blurs, even disappears. So when we cast aside anything precious in the world, we destroy part of ourselves too, beca use we are completely connected.
To realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance. Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities. By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Finally, Mr. President, as Pope Paul VI affirmed in 1967 in his Encyclical “Populorum Progressio,” development is the new name of peace. Peace is the necessary condition and environment for any true and lasting development. Accordingly, our conflict-ridden world is probably the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda. Peaceful and caring societies are more fundamental than the availability of financing and funding.
For war is the negation of all rights and all development. Thus good governance and all the political instruments for the maintenance of peace and security for all are indispensable for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday sent a message to the 39th National (Italian) Convention of Groups and Communities for Renewal in the Holy Spirit through the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
The Holy Father sent his greetings to the convention – organized on the theme ‘I am the Door: The one who enters through me will be saved’ – expressing his desire that it renew the good intentions of profound reconciliation and unity.
The Pope’s message concludes by calling those present at the convention “to testify to the salvific love and tenderness of Jesus”, imparting upon them the Holy Father’s Apostolic Blessing.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the newly-appointed Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, says the message of Pope Francis for the American people is the message of the Gospel.
Archbishop Christophe Pierre was appointed to the post by the Holy Father on 12 April, having previously served as the Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, Uganda, and most recently Mexico for nine years.
In an interview with Christopher Wells, the Apostolic Nuncio noted the continuance of his ministry through the influence of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas.
Listen to the full interview:
Archbishop Pierre said the apparition of Our Lady to St. Juan Diego was not an apparition to one person, but to an entire people. “Pope Francis told us at the beginning of his last trip that this is the foundation of Mexico. He wanted to spend some time with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not just to look at her, but to be looked at by her, and to look at the people with the eyes of Mary.”
Role of Apostolic Nuncio
Turning to his role as Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Pierre said “I’ve been serving the Pope for nearly 40 years in many Nunciatures. We are essentially representatives of the Pope… The difficulty or challenge of the Nuncio is to listen, to be careful about what is going on, to understand, to exercise dialogue, to discover the beauty, the richness of the culture, and to help the inculturation of the Gospel in a particular culture. And to help the Pope understand and those who work with him to understand what is going on, and maybe also to help the local Church to relate to the Pope, not as something that is contrary to the life of the Church but [as something] enriching.”
Pope’s message is Gospel
When asked if the Pope has a particular message for the American people, Archbishop Pierre said, “We know the message of the Pope. The message of the Pope is contained in his main documents, in his many interventions. I would say the message [of the Pope] is the Gospel. Also, the way the Pope wants us to be close to the people, especially those who suffer.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Congregation for the Oriental Churches on Friday released a press statement, expressing support for the extraordinary collection to take place this Sunday in churches across Europe for the people suffering from the war in Ukraine.
During his Regina Coeli address on 3 April , Pope Francis announced a special charity collection to support the people of Ukraine, telling the faithful it would be possible to contribute to the collection in all Catholic Churches in Europe on Sunday, 24 April.
In the statement, the Oriental Dicastery invites all people ‘to contribute generously so as to assure assistance to those people most weakened in body and spirit by violence’. It also recognizes the solidarity and material aid of many Dioceses and charitable organisations.
The statement goes on to list the many fruits of this charitable act.
‘May the renewed gesture of charity which Pope Francis has asked of the Churches of Europe be again a sign of the brotherhood which unites us to our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, who are often forgotten as are many painful situations in the world. May the expression of closeness by many people be like a little lantern which reignites hope in those wounded hearts; may it help all the Pastors of the Christian Churches console and cure the pain of their own faithful; and may it force those who carry the fates of peoples to promote respect for human rights and peace.’
The statement concludes with a short prayer to the Holy Mother of God for all the people of Europe.
‘To the Most Holy Mother of God, ‘the Door of Mercy’ who watched over the opening of the Jubilee Year in St. Peter’s Square, may she watch over Europe and inspire with her prayer the desire for reconciliation and a renewed capacity to know how to live together as brothers and sisters.’
Pope Francis renewed his appeal during his weekly General Audience on Wednesday, 20 April.
(from Vatican Radio)…