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(Vatican Radio)  Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia addressed a bioethics workshop held by the bishops of the United States in Dallas, Texas on Monday.

The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life thanked US bishops for their commitment and leadership “in initiatives that actively defend human life and the dignity of the person”.

He said, “We must be very clear-headed and resolute in confronting the contradictions of extreme individualism and moral relativity that put at risk the humanity of that freedom and personal dignity.”

Archbishop Paglia also gave three examples of areas in which ethical considerations will be crucial in the near future:

1.  A number of studies predict that in the future health care will be one of the central elements of western economies by reason of the development of efficient preventive medicine protocols in addition to the traditional combat against specific diseases and assistance in recovery. This approach will be expensive and not widely available.  It will work only in a service economy fueled by competition and will leave behind those who have limited access to basic health care.  The late philosopher Hans Jonas, whose writings decades ago influenced the development of our awareness today that we are stewards of creation, saw situations like this as an area where clearly our decisions must be based on much more than mechanistic technological and economic analysis.

2.. With technology, we will soon be able to manage all the variables connected with human reproduction, variables that until now have been left to “nature” or “chance.”  Why, when this happens, should we still leave reproduction to chance and in addition burden it with the potentially limiting circumstances of a binding affective relationship known as marriage when we can manage the entire process all by ourselves?

3. The development of robotics and the increasing integrating of man and machine reopens the question of how we can speak today about “nature.”  We speak of artificial intelligence, of developments in neuroscience, of the millions of dollars spent on developing software that will make us more evolved because we are more informed.  Does it still make sense to speak about a basic “human nature” and if so how do we do it in a way that is not merely defensive in a world where everyone else believes in technology, at least on a practical level?

Below please find the full text of Archbishop Paglia’s address:

Your Eminences

Your Excellencies

Doctor Haas

Friends,

Thank you for your invitation to deliver the keynote address at this bioethics workshop that celebrates this year its twenty-sixth anniversary.  The fruitful cooperation between the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Knights of Columbus over all these years has been a great benefit to the bishops of the United States, Mexico, Canada and Central America and as President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, I would very much like to see this service offered to other bodies of bishops around the world and would appreciate your assistance in making such an service a reality.

It is truly encouraging to see your intense and passionate efforts in the service of life, whose sacredness we must continually recognize and call to mind every chance we get in every activity — cultural, social, political and religious.  It is also encouraging to hear that in all the areas you serve there are tens of thousands of women and men who singly or in association with others devote their best cultural, spiritual and even economic resources to defending God’s breath of life that is in every person and that gives life to al of history.  Your generosity in organizing and supporting effective community witness for life, and your leadership in initiatives that actively defend human life and the dignity of the person reveal a commitment that must be clearly recognized, appreciated, maintained and, as I just said, instilled in others.

Today, we are called to a very careful discernment of the “signs of the times.”  We must be able to recognize the positive features of the new culture of individual freedom and dignity that has grown up in our history as a flowering of the seed planted by Christianity. We must also be very clear-headed and resolute in confronting the contradictions of extreme individualism and moral relativity that put at risk the humanity of that freedom and personal dignity.

For the first time in history man thinks himself able to unhinge the connection that has always been considered and essential aspect of life and of human society. The indissoluble bond that joins marriage between a man and a woman with the idea of family and with life.  What God hath joined together, today man, and not only in western culture, thinks himself able to put asunder and deconstruct.  And the individual as if maddened with dream of omnipotence thinks himself able to restructure that relationship in his own way for his own use and enjoyment. We no longer have only a situation where, as Hobbes wrote, Homo homini lupus est. Today we see that homo homini Deus est, and the ancient call of hubris leads man to believe himself a “creator” as well as a destroyer.

Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia warns us about this Promethean temptation where “human identity becomes the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time.  It is a source of concern, he says, that some ideologies of this sort, which seek to respond to what are at times understandable aspirations, manage to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised. It needs to be emphasized that biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated.”

In a world that is ever more complex yet ever more borderless and fluid thanks to technology, the economy and a quest for efficiency, we are faced with and cultural and social construct of relationless individuals who in the worship of their own autonomy day by day destroy the memories of the roots and relationships that formed them. Freedom cannot grow and human beings cannot flourish where their roots dry up and are destroyed like so many weeds.

We need to develop a holistic understanding of human life, life  which has its very beginnings in the generative relationship between man and woman. It was for this reason that the Holy Father decided to  bring the Pontifical Academy for Life into  a  closer relationship with the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and to have both of them work closely with the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life.  This was not just a formal reorganization. It reflects the anthropologic vision that determined what tasks that he decided to assign to each of the three institutions.

If what drives us, even ethically, is the acquisition of greater power and the satisfaction of our own desires, we will be unable to appreciate the value of stable relationships, of care and assistance to others, of welcome and solidarity.  I think an awareness of this point is the anthropologic key that opens for us an understanding of the serious matters that you will be examining in the coming days: transgenderism, the ideological take-over of gender questions, biotechnology, assisted suicide.

In a special way, new technologies, by reason of the satisfaction they bring, their complexity, and their great efficiency have become the touchstone by which today’s ethical callenges are judged. The search for operational perfection—as measured by technical efficiency—is more and more becoming the way that life in all its complexity is being judged.  Using the means at our disposal today, the human being—and really all forms fo life—can be analyzed, studied and manipulated in its least detail.  The possibility for that level of manipulation of sensory/motor, neuro-cognitive and genetic-evolutionary structures opens up new and undesirable horizons, that we must learn to encompass intellectually in a way that makes possible ethical-humanistic solutions that are equal to the enormous possibilities, both positive and negative that can have effects on civil society and more generally on all forms of human interaction.

In this way, technologically advance society is prepared for the qualitative leap that is expected.  Society today is able to intervene in the life of each individual and on future generations without necessarily offering any improvement in the conditions for human existence.  Man’s desire to rule over nature soon becomes a desire in every heart to control, shape and empower the biological self, and the only reality worth relying on seems today to be the life that man believes he can build with his own hands.

The promise of a longer life, and even of immortality is the most convincing argument that technological society can offer. Who of us would give up the possibility of a just to honor the limit of “threescore and ten” that nature longer life physical nature traditionally imposes?  Why should we turn down the possibility of overcoming all limits that technology offers?  Here are three examples where ethical considerations are crucial:

1.  A number of studies predict that in the future health care will be one of the central elements of western economies by reason of the development of efficient preventive medicine protocols in addition to the traditional combat against specific diseases and assistance in recovery. This approach will be expensive and not widely available.  It will work only in a an service economy fueled by competition and will leave behind those who have limited access to basic health care.  The late philosopher Hans Jonas, whose writings decades ago influenced the development of our awareness today that we are stewards of creation, saw situations like this as an area where clearly our decisions must be based on much more than mechanistic technological and economic analysis

2.. With technology, we will soon be able to manage all the variables connected with human reproduction, variables that until now have been left to “nature” or “chance.”  Why, when this happens, should we still leave reproduction to chance and in addition burden it with the potentially limiting circumstances of a binding affective relationship known as marriage when we can manage the entire process all by ourselves?

3. The development of robotics and the increasing integrating of man and machine reopens the question of how we can speak today about “nature.”  We speak of artificial intelligence, of developments in neuroscience, of the millions of dollars spent on developing software that will make us more evolved because we are more informed.  Does it still make sense to speak about a basic “human nature” and if so how do we do it in a way that is not merely defensive in a world where everyone else believes in technology, at least on a practical level?

These are interesting questions but before we try to answer them we have to consider whether the intellectual categories that we as shepherds of souls and preachers of the Gospel use in our life and mission are adequate to address situations that arise in a world that is profoundly immanentistic, that on a practical level thinks with machines that can be held in the hand and that are incapable of leading us to any reality beyond ourselves,

The prospect of technology-enabled immortality that lies behind these questions obligates us to ask whether a life without pain or death is really worth living if living forever means a life without any goal or meaning.  The problems, the deformities, that this workshop will be considering are understandable only if we can reflect on them in the context of the hopelessness that is the result of believing that we are sufficient unto ourselves.  To live happily in the technological world that is more and more surrounding us, must we renounce and avoid every affection, compassion, feeling of love that intrudes into our “scientific” search for well-being? Do we have to become willingly ignorant of the meaning, the depth , the value and the purpose of life as we see it around us.?  Already many think that we have to “perfect” humankind by eliminating individuals who evidence too many things wrong or unsupportable weakness ) the handicapped, the elderly, the incurable.  Does this mean that the more advanced our technology becomes, the higher we raise the barrier to acceptability and those who are tolerated today will become expendable tomorrow? I hope not.  That approach wold run counter to everything that has made our civilization great and will only lead to its decline. And to its inability defend itself against despotism.

Behind all the phenomena this workshop will be considering, it is impossible not to see in them the effects that follow when society is ever more competitive, and perfection-oriented, measuring itself against the machines that it has created and that it fears, when society is afraid to welcome new generations, new ideas, new life, when society lives on radical social Darwinism where everyone considers himself either a god or a worthless creature in search of an identity that will make life bearable.

As we consider the sorry and apparently hopeless situations that our workshop is about, I hope we ask ourselves how it is possible that, just to start, that acts so human and so full of generative meaning for a man and a woman are discussed and studied in other venues today only in the technical terms of their reproductive effects; how is it possible that we are so losing touch with the idea of human nature that we no longer see that it offers us such a wealth of worthy purpose and that it so much mirrors the love and goodness of God who created each one of us..

The challenge of our workshop will be to ask ourselves whether we can do justice to the challenges that face us as pastors of souls and preachers of the Gospel if we consider them only in the language of hopeless techno-science that gave rise to those challenges or whether we can find in our own Gospel language and formation new and broader horizons within which we can welcome and offer salvation to those whose sufferings trials we are studying and anxious to heal.

In this situation, “We’re all in the same boat.” to paraphrase Pallas Pascal, and thus we are all called to a new sense of responsibility for building ever broader alliances with other persons, cultures, religions , ethical perspectives that are united in not wanting to see the sun go down on humanity.

It is in this framework that we can see the wisdom of Pope Francis in broadening the mandate and mission of the Pontifical Academy for Life and of having it coordinate closely with the John Paul Institute and well as with the ne Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life.  We need a new culture, one that is able to gather and add value to all those traditions that are able to speak with truth about the human condition and promote concrete actions within the diverse and dissimilar circumstances where the meaning and value of life in questioned, This workshop is a long lived example of the ability of the Church and of you bishops to seek out those circumstances and to approach them with love even when, or especially when, they are unattractive and involve situations that directly affect only a small number of persons.

As we respond to what for too long we have called “challenges,” e must remember that we are to being called to a conflict but rather to a rebuilding, a reconstruction of what it means to be human.  Our first task is not to identify enemies but rather to find companions on the journey, person with whom we can share our path.  In this optic—and I’m referring to only one subject that can open a new horizon on the relationship between the Church and the family—a call for a new alliance, human and civil, between men and women wold be an indispensable resource. The alliance between the sexes that, as a result of openness to community, can be created not only within marriage and the family, is a resource that the Church must seek out, encourage and support.  It is likewise the most effective response to ideologies of separation or indifference.  The alliance of masculine and feminine must again take hold of the tiller of history, of statecraft, of the economy. Concern for generation, as well as good relations among the generations, are the primary goals of this alliance.  It must have everyone’s support,

whatever their religious belief or choice of life because this is the fundamental condition for the protection of that humanity .that is common to all of us and for the care of the human quality of the common good.

What we are discussing reveals how urgent and timely are the words of Lumen Pentium about the vocation of the Church: “...the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race...”(LG,1) There is a duty of service to the whole human race that—in an era of globalization—appears in all its force. The Catholic Church must serve this unity, and for this reason, together with all persons of good will, the Church feels a special duty to assist men and women in every way—in the words of St. Paul, “In season and out of season.” (2Tim 4:2)—to envision together the future of love and peace to which we are called.  This “dream” of God about humanity calls for a constant listening of the Word of God within the rich tradition of the Church, and with it a listening to the “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted...” (Gaudium et Spes, 1).  It is a complex work, but an indispensable one.   For this reason we must examine thoroughly the questions, the ideas and the objections that our society raises, and we mus free our discussions from reductionist frameworks, challenge cliches return to a passionate love of human truth.  We must keep sight of both immanence and transcendence, awareness and mystery, perfection and imperfection, power and weakness, limits and desire for the infinite, efficiency and mercy.

Even more deeply, we must understand—and understand doesn’t always mean agree with—the wrenching contradictions in which modern man lives.  Here it is helpful to remember the words of Pope Francis, ““The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to treat his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Treat the wounds, heal the wounds. ... And you have to start from the ground up.” (Civiltà Cattolica, September, 2013).

The reference to a hospital is particularly apposite not only because, as we know, the Academy for Life was founded by the great physician and geneticist , Jerome Lejeune, but especially because a hospital, where people are treated and cured, is a telling metaphor for hospitality, a concept that is key for anyone who wants to think how to welcome, care for, and support others in every stage of their lives.  The idea of hospitality always implies recognizing the other, someone who is welcomed for who he is, a foreigner, healthy or sick, to our liking or not.  We have no claim on him.  Only one who treats another just like himself, who opens his heart, and his home, can bear witness to that highest quality of life, sacredness, which is the first and genuine source of equality.

I assure you that the Academy for Life and the John Paul II Institute, together, mean to answer this challenge, bringing to bear all the cultural energy that comes from the presence of scholars and experts in many fields— theology, philosophy, social sciences, medicine—from all over the world to treat those serious anthropological injuries that are both cause and effect of new forms of desertion and violence against human life, which is more and more at the mercy of technology and hateful greed.

To continue its commitment to resolving the difficulties facing today’s world, once the Academy’s membership is in place, it will address many of these questions in its General Assembly next October.  The theme of that meeting will be “Accompany Life.  New Responsibilities in a Technological Age.” It is the beginning of a project to be shared with all men of good will, and it will call on all the resources of our humanity empowered as it is by the saving words of the Gospel .

In an age marked by to much technology, avarice, power and materialism, the word “accompany” makes us think of companionship, sharing, and the path we tread together.  For sure we are to establish effective accompaniment for life at every one of its stages.  For sure we have to stand against whatever weakens or still worse destroys life or threatens its dignity.  Without fail, and quickly,  we are to learn the art of encounter and sharpen our ability to rebuild relationships, to build up open communities, to provide the means to change lives and social mores.  The Church has a store of human wisdom that can help in accomplishing these tasks, for the benefit of individuals, groups and the whole human family.

Human perfection has, after all, a model in the perfection of God and of the Trinitarian relationship from which the original beauty of all creation springs.  The command that Leviticus gives us—and more than once—“Be holy because I, your God, am holy (Lv. 11:14) has its justification in the fact that we are created in “the image of God” from the first moment of our conception till forever in whatever condition we find ourselves.  Modern man, with wondrous tools at his disposal can always be truly more original and more creative in finding ways to be welcoming, to watch over others, to be more fully human if only he can model that loving relationship that is God himself.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis’ Lenten message was released on Tuesday entitled “The Word is a gift. Other persons are a gift.”

Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report

Below find the English language translation of Pope Francis’ Lenten message.

The Word is a gift. Other persons are a gift.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

            Lent is a new beginning, a path leading to the certain goal of Easter, Christ’s victory over death. This season urgently calls us to conversion. Christians are asked to return to God “with all their hearts” (Joel 2:12), to refuse to settle for mediocrity and to grow in friendship with the Lord. Jesus is the faithful friend who never abandons us.  Even when we sin, he patiently awaits our return; by that patient expectation, he shows us his readiness to forgive (cf. Homily, 8 January 2016).

            Lent is a favorable season for deepening our spiritual life through the means of sanctification offered us by the Church: fasting, prayer and almsgiving. At the basis of everything is the word of God, which during this season we are invited to hear and ponder more deeply. I would now like to consider the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:19-31). Let us find inspiration in this meaningful story, for it provides a key to understanding what we need to do in order to attain true happiness and eternal life.  It exhorts us to sincere conversion.

The other person is a gift

            The parable begins by presenting its two main characters.  The poor man is described in greater detail: he is wretched and lacks the strength even to stand. Lying before the door of the rich man, he fed on the crumbs falling from his table. His body is full of sores and dogs come to lick his wounds (cf. vv. 20-21). The picture is one of great misery; it portrays a man disgraced and pitiful.

            The scene is even more dramatic if we consider that the poor man is called Lazarus: a name full of promise, which literally means “God helps”. This character is not anonymous. His features are clearly delineated and he appears as an individual with his own story. While practically invisible to the rich man, we see and know him as someone familiar. He becomes a face, and as such, a gift, a priceless treasure, a human being whom God loves and cares for, despite his concrete condition as an outcast (cf. Homily, 8 January 2016).

            Lazarus teaches us that other persons are a gift. A right relationship with people consists in gratefully recognizing their value. Even the poor person at the door of the rich is not a nuisance, but a summons to conversion and to change. The parable first invites us to open the doors of our heart to others because each person is a gift, whether it be our neighbor or an anonymous pauper. Lent is a favorable season for opening the doors to all those in need and recognizing in them the face of Christ. Each of us meets people like this every day. Each life that we encounter is a gift deserving acceptance, respect and love. The word of God helps us to open our eyes to welcome and love life, especially when it is weak and vulnerable. But in order to do this, we have to take seriously what the Gospel tells us about the rich man.

Sin blinds us

            The parable is unsparing in its description of the contradictions associated with the rich man (cf. v. 19). Unlike poor Lazarus, he does not have a name; he is simply called “a rich man”. His opulence was seen in his extravagant and expensive robes. Purple cloth was even more precious than silver and gold, and was thus reserved to divinities (cf. Jer 10:9) and kings (cf. Jg 8:26), while fine linen gave one an almost sacred character. The man was clearly ostentatious about his wealth, and in the habit of displaying it daily: “He feasted sumptuously every day” (v. 19). In him we can catch a dramatic glimpse of the corruption of sin, which progresses in three successive stages: love of money, vanity and pride (cf. Homily, 20 September 2013).

            The Apostle Paul tells us that “the love of money is the root of all evils” (1 Tim 6:10).  It is the main cause of corruption and a source of envy, strife and suspicion. Money can come to dominate us, even to the point of becoming a tyrannical idol (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 55). Instead of being an instrument at our service for doing good and showing solidarity towards others, money can chain us and the entire world to a selfish logic that leaves no room for love and hinders peace.

            The parable then shows that the rich man’s greed makes him vain. His personality finds expression in appearances, in showing others what he can do. But his appearance masks an interior emptiness. His life is a prisoner to outward appearances, to the most superficial and fleeting aspects of existence (cf. ibid., 62).

            The lowest rung of this moral degradation is pride. The rich man dresses like a king and acts like a god, forgetting that he is merely mortal. For those corrupted by love of riches, nothing exists beyond their own ego. Those around them do not come into their line of sight. The result of attachment to money is a sort of blindness.  The rich man does not see the poor man who is starving, hurting, lying at his door.

            Looking at this character, we can understand why the Gospel so bluntly condemns the love of money: “No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money” (Mt 6:24).

The Word is a gift

            The Gospel of the rich man and Lazarus helps us to make a good preparation for the approach of Easter. The liturgy of Ash Wednesday invites us to an experience quite similar to that of the rich man. When the priest imposes the ashes on our heads, he repeats the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. As it turned out, the rich man and the poor man both died, and the greater part of the parable takes place in the afterlife. The two characters suddenly discover that “we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” (1 Tim 6:7).

            We too see what happens in the afterlife. There the rich man speaks at length with Abraham, whom he calls “father” (Lk 16:24.27), as a sign that he belongs to God’s people. This detail makes his life appear all the more contradictory, for until this moment there had been no mention of his relation to God. In fact, there was no place for God in his life. His only god was himself.

            The rich man recognizes Lazarus only amid the torments of the afterlife. He wants the poor man to alleviate his suffering with a drop of water. What he asks of Lazarus is similar to what he could have done but never did. Abraham tells him: “During your life you had your fill of good things, just as Lazarus had his fill of bad. Now he is being comforted here while you are in agony” (v. 25). In the afterlife, a kind of fairness is restored and life’s evils are balanced by good.

            The parable goes on to offer a message for all Christians. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, who are still alive.  But Abraham answers: “They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them” (v. 29). Countering the rich man’s objections, he adds: “If they will not listen either to Moses or to the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead” (v. 31).

            The rich man’s real problem thus comes to the fore.  At the root of all his ills was the failure to heed God’s word. As a result, he no longer loved God and grew to despise his neighbor. The word of God is alive and powerful, capable of converting hearts and leading them back to God. When we close our heart to the gift of God’s word, we end up closing our heart to the gift of our brothers and sisters.

            Dear friends, Lent is the favorable season for renewing our encounter with Christ, living in his word, in the sacraments and in our neighbor. The Lord, who overcame the deceptions of the Tempter during the forty days in the desert, shows us the path we must take. May the Holy Spirit lead us on a true journey of conversion, so that we can rediscover the gift of God’s word, be purified of the sin that blinds us, and serve Christ present in our brothers and sisters in need. I encourage all the faithful to express this spiritual renewal also by sharing in the Lenten Campaigns promoted by many Church organizations in different parts of the world, and thus to favor the culture of encounter in our one human family. Let us pray for one another so that, by sharing in the victory of Christ, we may open our doors to the weak and poor. Then we will be able to experience and share to the full the joy of Easter.

            From the Vatican, 18 October 2016

            Feast of Saint Luc the Evangelist

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Tuesday said that God created man in His image, made him lord of the earth, and gave him a woman at his side to love. The Pope’s words on these three gifts of God in Creation came during his homily at daily Mass in the Casa Santa Marta.

Listen to Devin Watkins’ report:

The Holy Father’s homily at Mass focused on the verses of Psalm 8: "Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, crowned him with glory and honor,” and on the Book of Genesis’ account of the Creation of man and woman.

God has given us the DNA of children, in His image

The Pope spoke about the first of three great gifts, which God gave humanity in creation.

"First of all, He gave us His 'DNA', that is, He made us children, created us in His image, in His image and likeness, like Him. And when one makes a child, he cannot take it back: the son is made, he exists. And whether or not he carries resembles the father, he is a son; he has received his identity. If the child is good, his father is proud of that son, right?, 'Look at how good he is!'. And even if he is a little ugly, the father in any case says: 'Isn’t he beautiful!', because a father is like this. Always. And if the son is bad, the father justifies him, waiting for him ... Jesus taught us how a father waits for his children. He gave us the identity of a child: to 'man and woman', we must add the identity of ‘child’. We 'are like gods', because we are children of God."

The Earth is entrusted to humanity to preserve it through work

God’s second gift in Creation, Pope Francis said, is a ‘task’: God ‘gave us all the earth’, to ‘dominate’ and ‘subdue’, as the account in Genesis narrates. God therefore has given humanity a certain ‘royalty’, he added, because God does not want a ‘slave’ but ‘a lord, a king’, entrusted with a task:

"As [God] worked in Creation, He has given us work, the work of advancing Creation. Not to destroy it; but to make it grow, to care for it, to keep it and make it carry on. He gave everything. It’s funny, I sometimes think, ‘He did not give us money.’ We have everything. Who gave us money? I don’t know. Grandmothers have this saying that ‘the devil enters through the pocket’. This may be… God gave humanity all of Creation to preserve it and care for it: this is the gift. And finally, 'God created mankind in His image, male and female He created them.'"

Love: God’s third gift in Creation

Pope Francis went on to explore the third and final gift, love, beginning with the love shared between a man and a woman.

“Male and female He created them. It is not good for the man to be alone. And He made his partner,” the Pope said. In love, God gives man love and a "dialogue of love", which, the Holy Father said, must have been the first between man and woman.

The Pope concluded with a look at Creation, thanking God for these three gifts given in Creation.

"Let us thank God for these three gifts He has given us: an identity, a gift/duty, and love. And let us ask for the grace to preserve this identity of a child, to work with the gift He has given us and to advance this gift with our work, and the grace to learn to love ever more each day."

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The Sisters of the Handmaid of the Divine Redeemer (HDR) in Ghana’s capital, Accra, are marking their 60th anniversary since the establishment of their order with a call to walk in the footsteps of Mary as a model of their lives.

“Handmaids walking in the footsteps of Mary to our Lord Jesus Christ is the HDR’s Christian journey and must be an important concept of our faith, attitudes towards God, fellow men and women,” said Sr. Mary Matilda Sorkpor, Superior General of the HDR, during the Eucharistic celebration at Agormanya in the Koforidua Diocese on 2 February.

The theme of the Sisters’ diamond jubilee celebration is, "60 Years of Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer, Our Achievements, Challenges and the future Prospects."

Bishop Bowers founded the Congregation together with Mother Providential Hein, HDR (a former SSps missioned to Ghana) on 2 February 1957, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which in 1997 was instituted by Pope St. John Paul as the World Day of Prayer for the Consecrated Life.

Sr. Sokpor said being a Handmaid is the attitude that the founder of the Congregation, Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers expected from them, noting that Handmaids walking in the footsteps of Mary was a whole gift of the founder to them.

She quoted Bishop Bowers who stated in the formative years, “In imitation of the obedience of our Divine Redeemer and Our Lady, the HDRs are called together to lead a dedicated life in prayer and humility. Love and serve joyfully our neighbours by spreading the Gospel in our apostolates, particularly the integral development of women.”

The Mother Superior urged the Sisters to continue to offer the humble gifts of themselves in total dedication of their thoughts, words and actions to the loving service of the Divine Redeemer and to the welfare of their neighbours.

Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of the Archdiocese of Accra and the Moderator of the HDR urged the Sisters to pray and work towards the future canonization of their founder, Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers, SVD.

In a Sermon he said Bishop Bowers was inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit to establish the Congregation, hence the need for the Sisters to become the true light of salvation for one another.

He entreated the Sisters to be open to the Holy Spirit and seek the Lord to have a deeper knowledge of him, speak about him and spend more time with him.

He prayed that the glory of God would be seen in all their endeavours and they would endeavour to become true and authentic lights to the glory of God, urging them to pray and fast for the salvation of themselves, women and the Church.

(Damian Avevor, Ghana )

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Orissa, India, Feb 7, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Nine years ago, Christians in the Kandhamal district of Odisha, India suffered the worst attacks against Christians in modern times in the country.

Around 100 people lost their lives and more than 56,000 lost their homes and places of worship in a series of violent riots by Hindu militants that lasted for several months.

But since the devastation, the local area has seen an “unprecedented” increase in religious vocations, including Sr. Alanza Nayak, who became the first woman from her area to join the order of the Sisters of the Destitute.  

Sr. Nayak told Matters India that she decided to dedicate her life to God through the poor and needy after she heard “how a herd of elephants meted out justice to the victims of Kandhamal anti-Christian violence.”

A tenth-grader at the time of the attacks, Sr. Nayak said she remembers escaping to the nearby forest so she wouldn’t be killed.

A year after the attacks, a herd of elephants came back to the village and destroyed the farms and houses of those who had persecuted the Christians.

“I was convinced it was the powerful hand of God toward helpless Christians,” Sister Nayak told Matters India. The animals were later referred to as “Christian elephants,” she added.

After completing her candidacy, postulancy and novitiate with the order, Sr. Nayak took her first profession on October 5, 2016, at Jagadhri, a village in Haryana. She is now a member in the Provincial House, Delhi.

On January 26, more than 3,000 people from Sr. Nayak’s village of Mandubadi, honored her with a special Mass and festivities.

Her mother told Matters India that she was “extremely fortunate” that God has called her daughter for “His purpose.”

Sister Janet, who accompanied Sister Alanza at the thanksgiving Mass, said that while materially poor, the people of the area are “rich in faith, brotherhood and unity.”

The congregation of Sisters of Destitute was founded on March 19, 1927, by Fr. Varghese Payyapilly, a priest of Ernakulum archdiocese. It has 1,700 members who live in 200 communities spread over six provinces.

The violence against Christians in the Kandhamal district has been religiously motivated. It started after the August 2008 killing of a highly revered Hindu monk and World Hindu Council leader, Laxshmanananda Saraswati, and four of his aides.

Despite evidence that Maoists, not Christians, were responsible for Saraswati's murder, Hindu militants seeking revenge used swords, firearms, kerosene, and even acid against the Christians in the area in a series of riots that continued for several months.

While the intensity of the violence has subsided since the 2008 attacks, violence against Christians in Kandhamal has continued.

In July 2015, Crux reported on two unconfirmed reports of two Christians who were shot to death by local police in the district while they were on a hilltop, seeking out a better mobile phone signal to call their children, just one example of the ongoing hatred of Christians in the district.  

Rev. Ajaya Kumar Singh, a Catholic priest who heads the Odisha Forum for Social Action, told Crux that such violence is common in a place where the social elites are upper-caste Hindus and the Christians are largely lower-class “untouchables” and members of indigenous tribes.

“There’s a double hatred,” Singh said. “Because Christians are from the lowest caste, they’re untouchable, and because they’re Christians they’re seen as anti-national … they’re treated worse than dogs.”

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Vatican City, Feb 7, 2017 / 04:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ pastoral heart came out in his Lenten message this year, focusing in what could be a lengthy homily on the importance of recognizing others as a gift, with an in-depth reflection on the Word of God.

“A right relationship with people consists in gratefully recognizing their value. Even the poor person at the door of the rich is not a nuisance, but summons to conversion and to change,” the Pope said in this year’s Lenten message.

“Each person is a gift, whether it be our neighbor or an anonymous pauper,” he said, adding that Lent “is a favorable season for opening the doors to all those in need and recognizing in them the face of Christ.”

Released Feb. 7, the Pope’s message is titled “The Word is a gift. Other persons are a gift,” and centers on the passage in the Gospel of Luke recounting the relation between the poor man Lazarus and the rich man who rejects him, a favorite episode to which he often returns.

In the message, Francis said Lent is a key time to vamp up our spiritual life through the Church’s traditional practices of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. However, “at the basis of everything is the Word of God,” he said, and offered an in-depth reflection on the parable.

Francis noted how the parable begins by presenting the two main characters, with the poor man described in more detail than the rich man. Lazarus is depicted as lying in front of the rich man’s door eating the crumbs that fall from his table, and with dogs coming to lick the sores that cover his body.

“The picture is one of great misery; it portrays a man disgraced and pitiful,” the Pope said, noting the contrast between the image of the poor man provided and his name, Lazarus, which means “God helps,” indicating a promise.

Although Lazarus is invisible to the rich man, “we see and know him as someone familiar. He becomes a face, and as such, a gift, priceless treasure, a human being whom God loves and cares for, despite his concrete condition as an outcast,” Francis said.

Lazarus therefore teaches us that “other persons are a gift,” he said, adding that good relationships among people consist of recognizing each other’s value.

By setting the scene as it does, the parable first invites us to open our hearts to others and to recognize them as a gift, “whether it be our neighbor or an anonymous pauper,” he said, adding that each life we encounter “is a gift deserving acceptance, respect and love.”

The word of God helps us “to open our eyes to welcome and love life, especially when it is weak and vulnerable,” he said, but stressed that in order to do this, “we have to take seriously what the Gospel tells us about the rich man.”

Francis then turned to the image of the rich man himself, who, unlike Lazarus, doesn’t have a name, and is described as wearing extravagant and expensive robes, flaunting his wealth in a “clearly ostentatious” way.

Turning to St. Paul’s declaration in his First Letter to Timothy that “the love of money is the root of all evil,” the Pope noted that money is the primary source of envy, conflict and suspicion.

Money, he said, “can come to dominate us, even to the point of becoming a tyrannical idol. Instead of being an instrument at our service for doing good and showing solidarity toward others, money can chain us and the entire world to a selfish logic that leaves no room for love and hinders peace.”

However, while the rich man in the parable becomes vain out of greed, his appearances only mask “an internal emptiness,” making him a prisoner of his sin.

For those corrupted by love of money, “nothing exists beyond their own ego. Those around them do not come into their line of sight,” the Pope said, explaining that the result of this attachment “is a sort of blindness. The rich man does not see the poor man who is starving, hurting, lying at his door.”

Reflecting on this passage is “a good preparation” for Easter, Pope Francis said, explaining that Ash Wednesday’s liturgy is similar to what is described in the passage, particularly with the administration of the ashes, which serves as a symbol of the end of our earthly lives.

In the passage, both the rich man and Lazarus died, realizing that “we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”

The parable also offers a message for all Christians, he said, noting how the rich man wants to warn his brothers about what he is suffering. However, Abraham rejects the request, telling him that if his brothers didn’t listen to Moses or the prophets, then they won’t listen “even if someone should rise from the dead.”

He said the rich man’s real problem, then, is that he failed to heed God’s word, and because of this lost his love for God and began to despise his neighbor.

“The word of God is alive and powerful, capable of converting hearts and leading them back to God,” he said, adding that “when we close our heart to the gift of God’s word, we end up closing our heart to the gift of our brothers and sisters.”

Lent, he said, “is the favorable season for renewing our encounter with Christ, living in his word, in the sacraments and in our neighbor.”

“May the Holy Spirit lead us on a true journey of conversion, so that we can rediscover the gift of God’s word, be purified of the sin that blinds us, and serve Christ present in our brothers and sisters in need,” he said.

Pope Francis closed his message encouraging the faithful to pray for one another “so that, by sharing in the victory of Christ, we may open our doors to the weak and poor. Then we will be able to experience and share to the full the joy of Easter.”

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