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Vatican City, Aug 26, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Since he resigned from the papacy over three years ago, Benedict XVI rarely gives interviews. In a recent exception, however, the former pontiff took the time to chat not only about his successor, but the saints who've accompanied him throughout his life.

In the interview, published Aug. 24 in Italian newspaper La Reppublica, Benedict said he has been serene and happy since his resignation, and that while there were “smaller and larger difficulties” in his pontificate, there were also “many graces” that came from the fact that he wasn’t alone.

“From the beginning I was conscious of my limits and I accepted, as I have always sought to do in my life, in a spirit of obedience,” he said.

“I realized that all I had to do I couldn’t do alone and so I was almost forced to put myself in the hands of God, to entrust myself to Jesus, to whom, as I gradually wrote my volume on him (Jesus of Nazareth), I felt bound by an old and ever deeper friendship.”

Aside from Jesus himself, Benedict said Mary also played a key role in supporting him through the difficulties he faced. Moments when he felt particularly close to her, he said, were when he was “reciting the holy rosary and in the visits to the Marian sanctuaries.”

While Jesus and his Holy Mother are certainly first on the list for any Pope to turn to, Benedict also named several individual saints and Fathers of the Church who have played a key role throughout his life and pontificate.

He said his “travel companions for life” have always been “St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure,” whom he referred to as “my masters of the Spirit.”

The retired pontiff also pointed to his namesake, St. Benedict, whose motto “Prefer nothing to Christ” became “ever more familiar” throughout his time as Bishop of Rome.

Finally, and a bit ironically, Benedict said that St. Francis, “the poor man of Assisi,” has been another close companion on his journey. St. Francis, he said, was “the first to intuit that the world is the mirror of the creative love of God, from whom we come and toward whom we are journeying.”

As a side note, while it was Pope Francis who penned the environmental encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, Benedict XVI had long been referred to as the “Green Pope” for the emphasis he placed on creation. It was he who had solar panels installed on the roof of the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, pushing for the small city-state to become a completely carbon-free zone.

Benedict said the consolation he received during his pontificate came not just from above, but arrived daily through the letters of “humble and simple people that wanted to inform me that they were close to me, that they prayed for me.”

This support, he said, hasn’t stopped, but “has continued even after my resignation, for which I can be only grateful to the Lord and to all those who have expressed and still are manifesting their affection.”

Speaking about Pope Francis, Benedict said that obedience to his successor “was never in discussion,” but that since Francis’ election, a feeling of “deep communion and friendship” has arisen between the two.

“At the moment of his election I experienced, as many, a spontaneous feeling of gratitude toward Providence,” he said, explaining that after having two Pope’s from Central Europe, “the Lord was turning, so to speak, his gaze to the Universal Church and invited us to a more extensive communion, more Catholic.”

Benedict said he was deeply moved by Pope Francis’ “extraordinary human availability to me” from the beginning.

He noted how immediately after Francis was elected, the new Pope attempted to call him at his residence in the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae monastery. Having failed to reach him, Francis called again right after greeting faithful from the balcony of St. Peter’s, this time succeeding.

Pope Francis “spoke to me with great  warmth,” Benedict recalled, noting that since that day “he has given me the gift of a wonderfully paternal-fraternal relationship.”

Not only does Francis frequently send “little gifts” and personal letters to Benedict, but he also makes sure to visit his predecessor before embarking on every major trip he takes.

“The human benevolence with which he treats me, is for me a special grace of this last phase of my life for which I can only be grateful,” Benedict said.

“What he says about availability to other men, are not only words. He puts it into practice with me. May the Lord in turn make him feel his benevolence every day. This I ask the Lord for him.”

Benedict’s interview was given to Italian author Elio Guerrero, whose book “Servant of God and Humanity: The biography of Benedict XVI,” will be released Aug. 30 in Italian.

Not only does the book include a preface by Pope Francis himself, but it will also feature Guerrero’s entire interview with Benedict XVI. There is currently no date announced for an English publication of the book.

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Vatican City, Aug 26, 2016 / 05:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Announced Friday, the theme Pope Francis selected for the 2017 World Day of Peace focuses on nonviolence as a political solution to what he has frequently termed a “piecemeal World War III” being waged throughout the globe.

“Violence and Peace are at the origin of two opposite ways to building society,” an Aug. 26 communique from the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace announcing the theme read.

“The proliferation of hotbeds of violence produces most serious negative social consequences…Peace, by contrast, promotes social positive consequences and it allows the achievement of real progress.”

Therefore, “we should act within what is possible, and negotiate ways of peace even where they seem tortuous and impractical,” the message attached to the theme said.

By doing so, non-violence can take on “a more comprehensive and new meaning” composed not only of mere desire or a moral rejection of violence, barriers and destructive impulses, but also “of a realistic political method that gives rise to hope.”

Titled “Non-Violence: A Style of Politics for Peace,” the theme for 2017’s World Day of Peace marks the 50th anniversary of the celebration, and the fourth of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

Instituted by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1968, the World Day of Peace is celebrated each year on the first day of January. The Pope gives a special message for the occasion, which is sent to all foreign ministers around the world, and which also indicates the Holy See’s diplomatic tone during the coming year.

So far Pope Francis’ messages have focused on themes close to his heart, such as fraternity, an end to slavery, including forced labor and human trafficking, as well as overcoming indifference on both an individual and a political level.

His messages for the event have consistently included bold pastoral and political advice for both ecclesial and international leaders, including his push for the abolition of the death penalty and amnesty for prisoners convicted of political offenses.

In the communique introducing the 2017 theme, it was stressed that nonviolence as a political strategy is “based on the primacy of law.”

If the equal rights and dignity of each individual are respected without discrimination, “then non-violence, understood as a political method, can constitute a realistic way to overcome arm conflicts.”

Pope Francis’ aim in choosing this theme, the statement read, is to show “a path of hope” that’s proportionate to the context of today’s global circumstances.

“In this way, the settlement of disputes may be reached through negotiation without then degenerating into armed conflict.” With this perspective in mind, the cultural identity of different peoples will be respected, and the idea that some are “morally superior” to others will be overcome.

The statement cautioned that nonviolence isn’t the same as remaining indifferent to tragedies, but rather implies a recognition “of the primacy of diplomacy over the noise of arms.”

“Arms trade is so widespread that it is generally underestimated,” the statement read, adding that illegal arms trafficking supports “not a few world’s conflicts,” and nonviolence as a political style “can and must do much to stem this scourge.”

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(Vatican Radio) In the wake of the deadly quake on Wednesday that killed at least 250 people, aftershocks continued to hamper relief efforts. Large aftershocks in the early hours of Friday brought down already cracked buildings, rattled residents and closed already clogged roads.

Listen to Christopher Wells' report: 

Firefighters and rescue crews using sniffer dogs worked in teams around the hard-hit areas in central Italy, pulling chunks of cement, rock and metal from mounds of rubble where homes once stood. Rescuers refused to say when their work would shift from saving lives to recovering bodies, noting that one person was pulled alive from the rubble 72 hours after the 2009 quake in the nearby town of L'Aquila.

As rescue efforts continue, Premier Matteo Renzi on Thursday pledged new money and measures to help rebuild the country. The Italian government has authorized a preliminary 50 million euros in emergency funding and ordered the cancellation of taxes for residents of quake-hit central Italy.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is accompanying the victims of Wednesday’s devastating earthquake with both prayer and concrete signs of solidarity.

Having already sent Vatican firefighters to the area, Pope Francis on Thursday sent a group of Vatican gendarmes to assist in rescue and relief operations, in coordination with Italy’s Civilian Protection agency.

Also on Thursday, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass at the Casa Santa Marta for all those who are suffering on account of the earthquake. The Pope was joined at the Sacred Liturgy by a group of Poor Clares from the monastery of Santa Maria di Vallegloria, in Spello, Umbria, who themselves had been affected by an earthquake in 1997. The Poor Clares subsequently had to reside for 14 years in temporary housing. Speaking at the Mass, Pope Francis invited the nuns to “sow hope”, to share Christ with others both through prayer and with their lives. Jesus, he said, “is true wealth, even when we have nothing.”

Meanwhile, the Vatican firefighters sent to Amatrice were active in rescue efforts, helping to pull a young girl from the rubble. Unfortunately, other members of the girl’s family lost their lives in the quake. The firefighters’ also provided spiritual assistance to the victims, distributing Rosaries and holy images blessed by Pope Francis.

Vatican doctors and nurses are also ready to depart for the earthquake zone as needed. 

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Tororo, Uganda, Aug 26, 2016 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An archdiocese in southeastern Uganda aims to eliminate domestic violence.

“It’s a concern for the family, it’s a concern for the society, above all, it’s a concern for the Church, and we cannot keep quiet,” Archbishop Emmanuel Obbo of Tororo told the Catholic News Agency of Africa Aug. 17.

He said domestic violence is a major challenge present “in almost every family” in his diocese.

The archbishop lamented violence between spouses as well as child beating and the defilement of children.

“Young girls are not free to live in this society,” Archbishop Obbo said.

Now the Archdiocese of Tororo is taking action. With clergy, vowed religious and catechists, the archbishop said, “we are trying to do what we can, from the grassroots to my office, to see that domestic violence is reduced to zero.”

The archbishop has established a chaplaincy for domestic violence in each deanery of his archdiocese to oversee the campaign, and there are also domestic violence committees at each parish.

Archbishop Obbo said the committees draw people who have suffered or committed abuse to help parishioners consider what causes domestic violence and learn how to seek non-violent solutions to challenges.

“We get families who have passed through (domestic violence), who have been trained and cured or healed themselves, reconciled themselves, and they spread their witness to the others, teaching them from place to place,” he said.

The archdiocese uses radio programs to discuss violence and to involve law enforcement officers to deal with perpetrators of domestic violence.

Archbishop Obbo objected to those who blame domestic violence on poverty. Rather, he said, domestic violence has become a “way of life” for people who cannot accept their personal situations.

“People are not satisfied with the way they live, the time is running, people are competing, they want to see better things but they cannot see better things in themselves, and that frustrates,” he said.

Church leaders across the world are becoming more aware of the problem of domestic violence. The apostolate Pax in Familia, chaired by Dr. Christauria Welland, spoke with bishops at the recent synods on the family about the problem, and with the Pontifical Councils for the Family and the Laity.

Another Ugandan prelate, Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu, told CNA last October that he had spoken up at the Synod on the Family about the issue of domestic violence, saying he saw “children suffering, but more the mothers who had given life to these children being put in a situation of stress and of pain.”

“I lived with it and I wouldn’t wish it to happen again, not only in our area but it shouldn’t happen again in any part of the world, in a society of humanity as a whole,” Archbishop Odama said.
Welland related that she had visited the Ugandan capital of Kampala to talk about the issue, and tha she had been received with interest “because it is so common and it does show up in your parish office, it shows up in the confessional, it shows up in your school, in your catechism class.”

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