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DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- The gap between the super-rich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday....
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said Mass at the Roman parish of Saint Mary in Setteville on Sunday afternoon. The Holy Father made a pastoral visit to the parish, leaving the Vatican at 3PM Rome Time, and spending the afternoon with parishioners, clergy and staff.The visit featured moments with the sick of the parish, including a private meeting with one of the parish curates, don Giuseppe Berardino, who suffers from ALS – with the children and young people in the parish’s catechetical programmes – with the parents fo children baptized during the course of the past year – and with parishioners who contribute to Santa Maria’s pastoral outreach initiatives.The Holy Father spoke briefly, off the cuff, to each group, beginning with the sick and troubled of the parish. “Jesus,” said Pope Francis, “desired to be close to us also in His [own] pain, with his passion, with His [own] suffering, and Jesus is close to you.”“He hi...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said Mass at the Roman parish of Saint Mary in Setteville on Sunday afternoon. The Holy Father made a pastoral visit to the parish, leaving the Vatican at 3PM Rome Time, and spending the afternoon with parishioners, clergy and staff.
The visit featured moments with the sick of the parish, including a private meeting with one of the parish curates, don Giuseppe Berardino, who suffers from ALS – with the children and young people in the parish’s catechetical programmes – with the parents fo children baptized during the course of the past year – and with parishioners who contribute to Santa Maria’s pastoral outreach initiatives.
The Holy Father spoke briefly, off the cuff, to each group, beginning with the sick and troubled of the parish. “Jesus,” said Pope Francis, “desired to be close to us also in His [own] pain, with his passion, with His [own] suffering, and Jesus is close to you.”
“He himself said: ‘If you go to find a sick person, you go to find me.’ Jesus is here with the sick, with those who have problems,” continued Pope Francis. “I know that when we suffer, when there are problems, it is difficult to understand, but it is not a question of understanding: it is a question of feeling, of feeling the caresses of Jesus – that’s it – and this consoles – and in order that all of you should be able to feel these caresses of Jesus, I will give you my blessing.”
To children and young people, Pope Francis spoke warmly, thanking the younger children for the drawings they gave him, and encouraging the older ones not to become “strangers” to parish life and to the life of faith. “The Lord has given you this grace [of Confirmation],” he said. “Do not make Confirmation the ‘See you later,’ Sacrament – until your wedding day.” Pope Francis went on to say, “That’s a lot of years to go without a community, and you have been chosen by the Lord to make a community.”
In a question-and-answer session with a few of the young people, Pope Francis offered a glimpse into his own journey of faith, saying, “Sometimes, I think of how in some moments, faith dropped so much that I could not find it and I lived as if I had no faith. Then, one finds faith again. The ups and downs of life also shock us at first, and that moves you and makes you lose some faith, but then as time goes by you find it again, see? There is a passage in the Gospel when Jesus says: ‘Everything is possible for the one who has faith.’ Everything – and the father of the sick child – the father had taken the child to be healed by Jesus – what did he say to Jesus? ‘Lord, I believe – only help my unbelief.’ Faith is not always so: there are dark days, days all [plunged in] darkness – even I have walked for days like that in my life as well. Only, be not afraid: pray and be patient, and then the Lord shows up, makes us grow in faith and makes you go forward.”
To illustrate the point, the Holy Father said, “Some days you do not see the faith: it is dark – and when one sees disasters, and sees that – [Saturday], for example, when I baptized 13 children [born after the earthquakes in central Italy], there was the father of one of the children, who had lost his wife. ‘I lost my love,’ he said. One thinks, ‘But can this man have faith, after this tragedy?’ – and you know it is dark, there. [Should I say], ‘If you do not have faith...?’ [No.] Shut up. Accompany him. Respect the darkness of the soul. Then will the Lord awaken faith – you see, faith is a gift from God. Our job is only to preserve it.”
Then Pope Francis spoke with the parents of children baptized during the course of the past year, offering two of his favorite pieces of advice: do not fight in front of the children, and do not go to sleep without making peace. “It’s normal,” he said, “arguing is part of life. But the advice that I give to you, is that your children never hear or see you fight: if you want to say things to each other, go in the [other] room, close the door and say everything – have it out. It is healthy, because even blowing off steam is healthy – only do not let them see it, because children suffer, they feel abandoned when parents argue.”
Then, “Never end the day without making peace,” he said. “[T]he ‘cold war’ of the day after is very dangerous: do not end the day without making peace.”
In remarks to all the faithful of the parish present for the Mass, following the readings of the day, Pope Francis spoke of the need to avoid gossip. “The Apostles,” he said, “were not gossipers: they did not speak ill of others, did not speak badly of each other. In this they were good. They didn’t talk behind each other’s’ backs.”
“[T]he Apostles did bad things: they betrayed the Lord, but not this,” Pope Francis continued. “We are all sinners,” he said, “but a community where there are gossips and trash-talkers, is a community that is incapable of giving witness.”
Vatican City, Jan 15, 2017 / 11:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Sunday traveled to a parish on the outskirts of Rome where he visited a priest suffering from a severe form of ALS and celebrated Mass, warning parishioners, as he often does, of the harm gossiping does to a community.When we read the Gospels, we see that “we have a lot of sins,” including betrayal and jealousy, “but there is one I don’t find: they weren’t gossipers, they didn’t talk bad about others, they didn’t speak badly about each other. No,” the Pope said Jan. 15.“In this, they were good. They didn’t pluck at each other,” he said, lamenting how often the sin of gossip, “to remove the skin from one another, to talk behind their backs, to believe yourself better than others while talking badly in secret,” is present in parish communities.However, “in the Gospel they didn’t do this,” he said, adding that if they want ...
Vatican City, Jan 15, 2017 / 11:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Sunday traveled to a parish on the outskirts of Rome where he visited a priest suffering from a severe form of ALS and celebrated Mass, warning parishioners, as he often does, of the harm gossiping does to a community.
When we read the Gospels, we see that “we have a lot of sins,” including betrayal and jealousy, “but there is one I don’t find: they weren’t gossipers, they didn’t talk bad about others, they didn’t speak badly about each other. No,” the Pope said Jan. 15.
“In this, they were good. They didn’t pluck at each other,” he said, lamenting how often the sin of gossip, “to remove the skin from one another, to talk behind their backs, to believe yourself better than others while talking badly in secret,” is present in parish communities.
However, “in the Gospel they didn’t do this,” he said, adding that if they want to have a “perfect parish” it doesn’t mean not sinning, but rather eliminating the sin of gossip.
Pope Francis traveled to the Santa Maria, a Setteville parish on the outskirts of Rome, near Tivoli. The primary reason for the visit was to see ailing Fr. Giuseppe Berardino, 50, who has been suffering from a severe form of ALS for two years.
Francis arrived to the parish around 3:30 p.m. where he was greeted by Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General of Rome, Guerino di Tora, Auxiliary Bishop of the northern sector of Rome, the parish priest Fr. Luigi Tedoldi, and the associate pastor Fr. Leonel Alehandro Torres Lara.
After his arrival, the Pope went directly to visit with Fr. Berardino, who first arrived at the parish nearly 14 years ago as a Redemptoris Mater seminarian. He was ordained a deacon at the parish, which was followed by his priestly ordination in 2003, according to a communique from the Vicariate of Rome.
Fr. Berardino had worked closely with the youth before falling ill after taking a fall at a summer camp, which led to the onset of his illness and its rapid progression. Given the severity of his current state, 20 couples from the parish alternate in shifts to help him on the weekends when the nurses are off.
Before celebrating Mass, Francis also met with different members of the parish, including a group of 30 members of the community who are sick, parish workers, priests and seminarians, 40 couples who baptized their children in 2016, and a group of around 220 youth aged 13-18, who asked the Pope a few questions.
The Pope then heard four confessions in the parish sacristy before celebrating Mass, the penitents being the father of a sick child, a recently-confirmed youth, and a couple who help to assist Fr. Berardino.
In his homily, Francis turned to the day’s Gospel from John, noting that the Apostles who followed Jesus after John the Baptist’s proclamation that Jesus “is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” were only able to encounter Jesus thanks to John‘s witness.
“This is how it happens in our lives,” he said, explaining that being a Christian is more than just following the Commandments or obeying all the rules.
Being a Christian “above all means bearing witness to Jesus,” he said, adding that this is what the Apostles did when they went throughout the world, even testifying through their martyrdom.
“Testimony and martyrdom, they are the same. You give witness in the small things, and some of them become big, giving one’s life in martyrdom like the Apostles.”
The Apostles didn’t “take a course” on how to become a witness or study at a university, but they “they felt the Spirit inside and they followed the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They were faithful to this.”
However, even though they were faithful, they were still sinners, he said, adding that this goes for “all of them,” and not just Judas.
Even the Apostles were envious and jealous of each other, he said, pointing to the Gospel scene where they fought about who was first among them, and when James and John had their mother come to Jesus and ask that they sit at his right and at his left.
The Apostles were even “traitors, because when Jesus was taken they all left, they hid, they were afraid,” including Peter, the first Pope, who denied Jesus publicly.
However, despite their sins they were still able to bear witness because what they testified to was “the salvation Jesus brings, and all of them, with this salvation, were converted. They allowed themselves to be saved.”
“To be a witness doesn’t mean to be a Saint,” but rather recognizing that “I’m a sinner, but Jesus is the Lord, and I bear witness to him. I try to do good every day, to correct my life, to go on the right path.”
While the Apostles had many sins, Pope Francis noted that the only one they didn’t have is to gossip and speak badly about each other.
When it comes to parish life, he said that “we are all sinners, but one community,” and where there are gossipers, “a gossiping community is incapable of giving witness.”
“I would say only this: do you want a perfect parish? Then no gossiping, no! If you have something to say to someone say it to their face, or to the pastor, but not among you,” he said, explaining that what destroys a community, “like a worm, is gossip, from behind.”
He then invited parishioners to make a commitment to hold their tongues whenever they feel tempted to gossip, because “a parish where there is no gossip is a perfect parish. It’s parish of sinners, yes, but of witnesses, and this is the witness given by the first Christians.”
“Start with this,” he said, and prayed that God would give them the gift and grace “to never speak about each other behind your backs.”
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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis baptized 13 newborns in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta on Saturday afternoon.Each of the babies was born to a family from the areas of central Italy that were hardest-hit by earthquakes late last year.The youngest of the newborns was only five days old.
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis baptized 13 newborns in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta on Saturday afternoon.
Each of the babies was born to a family from the areas of central Italy that were hardest-hit by earthquakes late last year.
The youngest of the newborns was only five days old.
