(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the Prime Minister of Grenada, Keith Mitchell, Thursday morning in the Vatican. Mr. Mitchell subsequently met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States.
A communiqué issued by the Holy See Press Office stated that “In the course of the cordial conversations, the parties focused on the good relations existing between the Holy See and Grenada, as well as the important contribution made by the Catholic Church in the educational, social, and charitable spheres, to meet the challenges of the country, especially with regard to youth. In this regard, the need for cooperation between all of the social services, in order to promote the common good and the development of the country, was affirmed”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) “We cannot be Christians without the grace of the Holy Spirit” who gives us the strength to love, said Pope Francis at Mass Thursday morning at Santa Marta.
Emer McCarthy reports:
Pope Francis centered his homily on St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in which the Apostle describes his experience of Jesus, an experience “that led him to leave everything behind” because “he was in love with Christ.” His is an “act of adoration”: firstly, he bends his knees before the Father, who “has the power to do much more than we can ever think or ask “. He uses a “limitless language”: He adores this God, “who is like a sea without beaches, without limitations, an immense ocean”. Paul asks the Father for all of us, “to be powerfully strengthened in our inner selves, through his Spirit”.
“He asks the Father to send the Spirit to strengthen us, to give us strength. We cannot go forward without the power of the Spirit. Our own forces are weak. We cannot be Christians without the grace of the Spirit. It’s the Spirit that changes hearts, that keeps us moving forward in virtue, to fulfill the commandments “.
“He then, asks another grace from the Father”, “the presence of Christ, to help us grow in charity”. Christ’s love “which surpasses all knowledge”, can only be understood through “an act of adoration of such great immenseness”.
“This is a mystical experience of Paul and it teaches us the prayer of praise and the prayer of adoration. Before our pettiness, our many, selfish interests, Paul bursts out in praise, in this act of worship and asks the Father to send us the Holy Spirit to give us strength and to be able to move forward; he helps us understand the love of Christ and that Christ consolidates us in love. And he says to the Father: ‘Thank you, because You are able to do what we do not dare to think’. It is a beautiful prayer … It is a beautiful prayer”.
Pope Francis concluded his homily: “And with this inner life we can understand how Paul gave up everything and considered it all rubbish, in order to gain Christ and be found in Christ. It does us good to think of this, it does us good to worship God. It does us good to praise God, to enter this world of amplitude, of grandeur, generosity and love. It does us good, because then we can move forward in the great commandment – the only commandment, which is the basis of all others – love; love God and love your neighbor “.
(from Vatican Radio)…
Vatican
City, 23 October 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received delegates
from the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP), addressing them
with a speech focusing on the issues in their subject area that have
recourse to the Church in her mission of evangelization and the
promotion of the human person. The
Pope began by recalling the need for legal and political methods that
are not characterized by the mythological “scapegoat” logic, that is, of
an individual unjustly accused of the misfortunes that befall a
community and then chosen to be sacrificed. It is also necessary to
refute the belief that legal sanctions carry benefit, which requires the
implementation of inclusive economic and social policies. He reiterated
the primacy of the life and dignity of the human person, reaffirming
the absolute condemnation of the death penalty, the use of which is
rejected by Christians. In this context he also talked about the
so-called extrajudicial executions, that is, the deliberated killing of
individuals by some states or their agents that are presented as the
unintended consequence of the reasonable, necessary, and proportionate
use of force to implement the law. He emphasized that the death penalty
is used in totalitarian regimes as “an instrument of suppression of
political dissent or of persecution of religious or cultural
minorities”. He
then spoke of the conditions of prisoners, including prisoners who have
not been convicted and those convicted without a trial, stating that
pretrial detention, when used improperly, is another modern form of
unlawful punishment that is hidden behind legality. He also referred to
the deplorable prison condition in much of the world, sometimes due to
lack of infrastructure while other instances are the result of “the
arbitrary exercise of ruthless power over detainees”. Pope Francis also
spoke about torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment, stating
that, in the world today, torture is used not only as a means to achieve
a particular purpose, such as a confession or an accusation—practices
that are characteristic of a doctrine of national security—but also adds
to the evil of detention. Criminal code itself bears responsibility for
having allowed, in certain cases, the legitimacy of torture under
certain conditions, opening the way for further abuse. The
Pope did not forget the application of criminal sanctions against
children and the elderly, condemning its use in both cases. He also
recalled some forms of crime that seriously damage the dignity of the
human person as well as the common good, including human trafficking,
slavery—recognized as a crime against humanity as well as a war crime in
both international law and under many nations’ laws—the abject poverty
in which more than a billion people live, and corruption. “The
scandalous accumulation of global wealth is possible because of the
connivance of those with strong powers who are responsible for public
affairs. Corruption is a process of death … more evil than sin. An evil
that, instead of being forgiven, must be cured.” “Caution
in the application of penal codes,” he concluded, “must be the
overarching principle of legal systems … and respect for human dignity
must not only act to limit the arbitrariness and excesses of government
agents but as the guiding criterion for prosecuting and punishing
behaviors that represent the most serious attacks on the dignity and
integrity of the human person.”…
(Vatican Radio) In a long interview with Vatican Radio, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., spoke about the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, which took place at the Vatican from 1-19 October.
“I thought it was a truly special experience, and very different from that of preceding Synods,” Fr Lombardi said. “This time it was a step along a journey that does not constitute a Synod closed in on itself, a closed chapter, but one moment of a long and profound discernment of the Church as a community on a journey.” The Pope, he said, chose this method precisely because the Synod is dealing with very complex issues at the heart of the experience of the whole Church, the People of God. This Synod was also special because it dealt not just with doctrinal issues, but with the relationship between doctrine and pastoral practice.
In this, he said, there are certainly some parallels to Vatican II, as others have pointed out. During the Council, Fr Lombardi explained, John XXIII set the universal Church on a journey with regard to life in all its dimensions. At the Synod, Pope Francis invited the universal Church to journey together with regard to a more particular theme, that of the family. It is a very complicated journey that involves everyone in the Church, and that requires a profound, systematic reflection on the pastoral and dogmatic issues.
Fr Lombardi also reflected on the role of the Pope at the Synod. The Holy Father, he said, took a very precise approach, speaking to the assembled Bishops at the opening of the Synod, and then listening to the Synod Fathers. This, said Fr Lombardi, was to allow the Synod Fathers to speak with complete freedom, without being concerned with what the Pope might think. The Pope “wanted to ensure full freedom, and this was very much appreciated, and was effectively reflected in the dynamic of the Synod.” It was only at the end of the gathering that the Holy Father again intervened, with his speech closing the Synod, in which he “pulled together the strings of the spiritual experience of the Synod as an ecclesial and spiritual event.” Without the Pope’s final speech – and to a lesser extent, his homily at the closing Mass – “the Synod would have remained incomplete, and not been read with the key of faith that truly inspired and motivated it, according to the mind of the Pope,” Fr Lombardi said.
Asked about how the Synod was communicated to the world, Fr Lombardi began by emphasizing the unique character of this Synod. For this reason, he said, it cannot be compared to earlier Synod, nor must we expect it to follow the same patterns. For example, he said, the sheer number of interventions, and the freedom and frankness that characterized them, made it impossible to publish everything that was said in the Synod Hall. Nonetheless, the Press Office was able to offer a balanced synthesis that highlighted the various topics treated each day during the Synod.
Speaking to one of the most discussed issues during the Synod, the publication of the mid-term Relatio post disceptationem, Fr Lombardi noted that although this had always been done at previous Synod, there was some confusion when it was released. Nonetheless, he said, the publication of the Relatio itself contributed to the “very intense dynamic of reflection and communication. The subsequent release of the reports of the small working groups then became “logically necessary and natural” that reflected the transparency of communications in the Synod. Fr Lombardi said that, although press coverage of Synod was occasionally unbalanced, focusing on controversial issues such as Communion for the divorced and remarried or on homosexuality, nonetheless the communications effort on the part of the Church allowed those who so desired to understand what was happening in the Synod and to participate in the Synod “with notable intensity.
Asked further about how the outside world followed the Synod, Fr Lombardi said the problem is always a question of conveying the depth of what is happening in an ecclesial event. That understanding, he said, is often lacking or insufficient, sometimes on the level of an understanding of the faith, which for the Church is essential. “The final speech of the Pope,” he said, “has helped and should help everyone to enter into this level of profundity.” The Synod, Fr Lombardi explained, should not be evaluated in terms of different sides, or as a question of human strategies in governing the Church. Rather, it should be understood that the Pope wanted the Church to begin a journey, to effectively set out on a journey “to seek the will of God in the light of the Gospel and the light of faith, in order to find answers to the most vital questions of the family and, in a certain sense, of anthropology, of the condition of men and women in the world of today.”
The full text of Father Lombardi’s remarks, in Italian, can be found here .
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) A moment of deep discernment for the Church. That was how Fr Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See press office, described the atmosphere during the Synod of Bishops on the Family which ended here in the Vatican on Sunday. Noting how the two week meeting was part of a longer process that will conclude in October 2015, Fr Lombardi said the atmosphere of honesty and transparency was a key element which distinguished it from any other previous Synod of the Universal Church.
Among the 253 participants were also representatives of other Christian Churches, invited to share their experience of family ministry in the context of evangelisation. They included Valérie Duval Poujol, the ‘fraternal delegate’ from the Baptist World Alliance. As the daughter of a mixed Baptist-Catholic family who now works as a theologian and professor at the Catholic Institute in Paris, she has a long experience of ecumenism in action. She sat down with Philippa Hitchen to share her thoughts on a common sense of mission and the need for a new language to touch the hearts of young people today….
Listen :
“I was very impressed by the good quality of exchange between the Synodal Fathers – sometimes people have a vision of the Church which is distant or cold, but I really felt the compassion of the heart of the shepherds….
A Synod is about (knowing) we have some difficulties and we try to think together about what would be the best way to speak the Gospel to our generation…
What we share most in common between Baptists and Catholics is our common concern for mission, we Baptists are really a mission Church and we felt strongly it was also the desire of the Synodal Fathers, so we encourage each other in our common mission….
Our common basis is Scripture and I was very touched by all Synodal Fathers who quoted the Scriptures in their discourses and it’s our common heritage. The more we dig together into Scripture and the more we try to connect to Jesus Christ, the more we look like him and the more we can get closer and be missionaries or witnesses to this world….”
(from Vatican Radio)…