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Vatican City, Oct 22, 2016 / 08:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When white smoke poured out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on October 16, 1978, Fr. Eamon Kelly, a seminarian studying in Rome at the time, couldn’t have known that he was witnessing the election of a future saint.

Nor did he know that more than a dozen years after that election, he would be reprimanded by that same future saint, John Paul II, during one of his Wednesday general audiences.

It was Holy Week of 1992, and Fr. Kelly, a priest with the Congregation of the Legion of Christ, was on his annual pilgrimage to Rome.

But this year was different.

His youth group had brought along eight Russian young people, the tension of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War just barely in the rearview mirror of history.

Fr. Kelly had done some strategizing to make sure the Russian youth got a good seat.

“We had our tickets and we went in early, and we did get positions up against the barrier of the corridor,” Fr. Kelly said. “So that was fantastic, we were going to see Pope John Paul II.”

His German students gave up all of the seats closest to the aisle, so that the Russian young people would get to shake the Pope’s hand as he walked through the Paul VI audience hall.

“I had the kids observe how he did it – he’d shake hands but by that he’d already moved on to talking to the next person, greeting them,” Fr. Kelly recalled.

“So I told them this pope knows Russian, and you need to greet him politely when he’s two or three people away; say some nice greeting in Russian.”

They did, and it worked: sure enough, the Pope’s ears perked up when he heard the Russian greetings. As soon as he got to the group, he stopped walking.

“He started talking to them in Russian, and there was a tremendous chemistry going on, and everybody was super excited. Our six rows of kids had assimilated into about two,” Fr. Kelly said.

Eventually the Pope asked, in Russian, how the group was able to make it to Rome. All the Russian students turned and pointed at Fr. Kelly.

He was a head taller than most of the students, so Fr. Kelly suddenly found himself in straight eye contact with John Paul II.

“There was so much joy and appreciation and gratitude in his eyes that these kids were there,” Fr. Kelly said.

“But then, his look turned like a storm with a critical question – ‘Why didn’t you tell me before they came?’” the Pope demanded of the priest.

“You know, like I could call up the Pope and tell him we’re coming,” Fr. Kelly recalled with a laugh.

“I tried to give an excuse, I said it was hanging by a thread that it was going to happen, I just fumbled my way through it. What are you going to do when the Pope is asking you for accountability?” Fr. Kelly said.

In hindsight, Fr. Kelly said he maybe could have called an office in the Vatican to alert them of the Russian students, but he didn’t realize that this visit would be so important for the Pope.

But Russia was dear to St. John Paul II’s heart, as he had played a critical role in the peaceful fall of communism and the Soviet Union. Just a few years prior, he had met for over an hour with President Mikhail Gorbachev, who later said the peaceful dissolution of the USSR would have been impossible without the Roman Pontiff.

Perhaps their meeting in 1989 had also softened Gorbachev’s heart prior to World Youth Day 1991, when the leader allowed some 20,000 Russian youth to attend the event in Poland for the first time ever. The conciliatory move was the whole reason the Russian students were now meeting John Paul II in Rome.

“He said to me, 'This is the first group of Russians I’ve ever greeted in the audience hall',” Fr. Kelly said.

It’s possible that it may have been the first youth group from Moscow to visit Rome ever, Fr. Kelly said.

“I don’t want to claim that title, because there may have been others, but it’s unlikely that anyone would have been able to come before the start of communism,” he said.

He said the Pope was visibly moved by the Russian students.

“He was happy, he was happy. He said if he would have known that they were there, he would have greeted them formally from the stage.”

And the Russian students?

“They were elated.”

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(Vatican Radio) In his latest special audience for the Jubilee Year of Mercy on Saturday, Pope Francis spoke on the role of dialogue in bringing God’s merciful love to the world.

Addressing the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square, the Pope centred his catechesis on Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman, as recounted in John’s Gospel.

The following is the official English-language synthesis of Pope Francis’ homily for the Jubilee of Mercy general audience at the Vatican:

Dear Brothers and Sisters:  Throughout this Jubilee Year, we have reflected on God’s mercy and our own responsibility, as followers of Jesus, to be “merciful like the Father”.  In this light, we now turn to the dialogue of Jesus and the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:6-15).  Through dialogue, in fact, we come to know and respect others; we come to see each individual as a gift of God.  How much we need to encourage dialogue in our families, our schools and our workplaces!  For only through dialogue can we truly understand others and their needs, and work together for the good of society and the care of our common home.  Dialogue between the religions can make a real contribution to the building of a world of peace and solidarity.  God has placed a seed of goodness in each of us and he asks us to use it in the service of his creation.  Through dialogue, mutual acceptance and fraternal cooperation, may we make God’s merciful love ever more evident in our world.

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Vatican City, Oct 22, 2016 / 03:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Dialogue is a key element of mercy, Pope Francis said Saturday, explaining that when we interrupt others in order to push our own opinions without truly listening, we risk ruining relationships.

Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 22, the Pope pointed to “a very important aspect of mercy, which is precisely dialogue.”

“We don’t dialogue when we don’t listen well or when we tend to interrupt the other in order to prove that we are right,” he said, noting that many times when we are listening to someone, “we stop them and say ‘it’s not like this!’”

By not letting people finish explaining what they want to say, “this impedes dialogue, this is aggression,” he said, adding that “if I don't let others say everything they have in their heart, and if I start to scream – and today there is a lot of screaming – this relationship between us won't have a good ending.”

Instead, “true dialogue needs moments of silence in order to welcome the extraordinary gift of the presence of God in our brother.”

Pope Francis spoke to the roughly 100,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Jubilee general audience, according to the Vatican Gendarmerie. The extra audience is held once a month in addition to the Pope’s weekly audience for the duration of the Jubilee of Mercy.

In his address, the Pope focused on the Gospel passage from John in which Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well who, after speaking with him, tells the entire region about her conversation with the Messiah.

One of the things that stands out most in the passage, Francis said, is the dialogue between the Jesus and the woman.

“Dialogue allows people to know and understand the needs of others,” he said, explaining that to dialogue is a sign of respect, because it puts people in “a position to listen” and to receive the best of others.

It’s also a sign of charity, because although dialogue doesn’t ignore differences, “it can help in searching for and sharing the common good,” he said.
 
“Many times we don’t encounter our brothers, despite living beside them, above all when we allow our position to dominate over that of the other,” Francis continued.

When we listen to what others are saying and then, “with meekness,” explain our own thoughts, “the family, the neighborhood and one’s place of work are better.” However, if we interrupt and start “to scream,” the relationship won’t end well.

Dialogue helps “to humanize relationships and to overcome misunderstandings,” he said, adding that there is a great need for dialogue within families.

“How much easier questions are resolved if they learn to listen to each other,” he said, noting that this goes for every relationship, including husband and wife, parents and children, teachers and students, and managers and employees.

The Church is also in dialogue with the men and women of every age, in order to understand “the needs that are in the heart of every person and to contribute to the realization of the common good,” he said.

Pope Francis also pointed to the importance of dialogue with other religions and of caring for creation, saying that “dialogue on such an important theme is an unavoidable requirement.”

He concluded by emphasizing that all forms of dialogue “are an expression of the great need for the love of God,” because dialogue “breaks down walls of division and misunderstanding.”

Truly listening to others “creates bridges of communication and doesn’t allow anyone to be isolated, locking themselves inside their own little world.”

Jesus understood well what was in the Samaritan woman’s heart, but “nevertheless, he did not deny her the ability to express herself and he entered a little bit into the mystery of her life,” the Pope said, explaining that this teaching “also goes for us.”

“Through dialogue, we can make signs of God’s mercy grow and render them an instrument of welcome and respect.”

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