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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis’ prayer intention for July is for Respect for Indigenous Peoples: That indigenous peoples, whose identity and very existence are threatened, will be shown due respect.

The Apostleship of Prayer has produced the Pope’s Video on this prayer intention.

The full text of the Pope’s Video is below

Representative of Indigenous People:

Speaking for indigenous peoples, I ask that our ways of life may be respected, our rights and our traditions. Will you listen to me?

Pope Francis:

I want to be a spokesman for the deepest longings of indigenous peoples. And I want you to add your voice to mine in a heartfelt prayer that all will respect indigenous peoples, threatened in their identity and even in their existence.

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“As violence picks up its deadly pace, we can draw strength from God's endless mercy. We are called to face these grave challenges with peaceful solidarity on the part of all people of good will, ” said Card. Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), to AsiaNews on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan, the month of prayer and fasting for Muslims.

Remembering the victims of the Dhaka massacre, Bangladesh, by Islamic terrorists, he said that the whole Church in Asia is mourning the attack, "which struck so close to the end of the Holy season of Ramadan.”

Stressing that most of Muslims live in Asia, particularly in the south and southeast, he added that, "together as brothers we must foster a spirit of brotherhood and solidarity."

The cardinal's message follows:

“We are living in a time of great dangers and great opportunities for humankind and the world, a time which is also of great responsibility for us all. It is essential and urgent that religious leaders, governments and communities work together to build bridges of peace and promote reconciliation.

“May no one be tempted to despair by this recent attack. Dangerous forces and powers thrive on the empty hope that terror will blind us to our common humanity, removing one from God and leading to destruction, the dimensions of which at times horrify us.

“Let us pray and work for reconciliation, justice, peace and development, and as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church in Asia, I assure you that the Church wants to continue building bridges of friendship with the followers of all religions in order to seek the true good of every person and of society as a whole.

“May Christian-Muslim friendship inspire us always to cooperate in facing these many challenges, thus ensuring that religions can be a source of harmony for the benefit of society as a whole and for the human family.

“I send you cordial greetings. May your lives glorify the Almighty and give you joy and peace.”

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Vatican City, Jul 6, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has marked the feast of the young martyr St. Maria Goretti by calling the faithful to follow her example and be forgiving to those who wrong them.

The memory of Maria Goretti's example should “encourage you to commit yourselves, like the Saint you venerate, to being witnesses of forgiveness,” the Pope wrote in a letter for the July 6 feast of the  Italian who is known for having forgiven her attacker.

The June 20 letter was addressed to Bishops Mariano Crociata of Latina-Terracina-Sezze-Priverno and Marcello Semeraro of Albano, the dioceses of the regions where Maria Goretti – who is even now affectionately known as “Marietta” – lived  and died.

The young saint, who was killed at age 11 while resisting a rape, is renowned both as a martyr for chastity and as a witness of forgiveness: as Maria lay dying from wounds inflicted by her would-be rapist, Alessandro Serenelli, she prayed for his conversion.

Lauding Maria Goretti's ability to forgive her attacker as she lay dying, Francis quoted the 2015 Bull of Indiction for the Year of Mercy, saying: “At times how hard it seems to forgive! And yet pardon is the instrument placed into our fragile hands to attain serenity of heart.”

This “generous offer of forgiveness,” he said, accompanied “the peaceful death of the young Marietta,” establishing for her killer the “sincere journey of conversion which, in the end, led him to taste the faithful abandonment in the arms of his merciful Father.”

Francis cited Maria Goretti's “intensity of love for the Eucharistic Jesus,” which led to her having the strength to make the “fundamental choice of her brief existence,” the Pope said, in reference to her martyrdom.

Born in the city of Corinaldo, Italy in 1890, St. Maria Goretti was the third of seven children.  Poverty forced the family to relocate, and they ultimately settled in a town just outside of Nettuno.

The earth was “fertile but insidious because of malaria,” the Pope said, referring to death of Maria Goretti's father when she was six.

“The family lived this situation with dignity,” the Pope said, recalling how, after her father's death, Maria assisted her mother in housework and in caring for her younger siblings.

In 1902, Maria was stabbed 14 times when Serenelli, then a neighboring farmhand who had made previous inappropriate comments and sexual advances toward her, attempted to rape her. She died in hospital in the nearby town of Nettuno.

While in prison several years later, Alessandro converted after having a dream in which Maria handed him 14 white flowers that burst into flame. The flowers represented the 14 wounds he had inflicted upon her; the flames symbolized forgiveness. After being released from prison he became a Capuchin tertiary and attended Maria’s beatification alongside her mother.

In the letter, Pope Francis also compared the trials experienced by the Goretti family with those faced by families today, such as poverty and forced migration.

“Poverty and the urgent need for work pushed the Goretti to immigrate from their native Corinaldo,” the Pope said.

Francis compared the “tears and poverty” which accompanied the Goretti family's migration to the journeys made by families for “the most varied reasons,” including poverty.

“It is a situation which makes us feel every closer to this girl,” the Pope reflected.

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Vatican City, Jul 6, 2016 / 07:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis met with a group of poor and disabled pilgrims, calling them the “treasures off the Church,” and entrusting them with the special task of praying for the proud, greedy, vain and the hypocrites.

“The treasures of the Church are the poor,” the Pope told a group of 200 poor, sick and disabled pilgrims from the French diocese of Lyon, and gave them a special mission. This mission, he said, is one that “only you in your poverty will be able to fulfill.”

He noted how in the Gospel, Jesus was at times “very severe and strongly reproached” those who didn’t welcome his Father’s message.

While Jesus spoke the beautiful words that “blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated and persecuted,” he also said another word, which coming from him “is scary: he said ‘woe.’”

Jesus said this “to the rich, to the wise, to those who now are laughing, to those who like to be adored, to the hypocrites,” Francis noted, and gave his audience the task “to pray for them, so that the Lord changes their hearts.”

He asked them to pray “for those guilty of your poverty so they convert,” and to pray for wealthy people who “make merry with large banquets without realizing that at their doors there are many Lazarus’ eager to be fed the leftovers of their table.”

Francis also encouraged the pilgrims to pray for priests who, like the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, see someone in distress and pass by, “looking the other direction because they don’t have compassion.”

The Pope also urged pilgrims to pray for those who share in their poverty, and to smile at these people “from the heart, desiring their good and ask Jesus for their conversion.”

“I assure you that if you do this, there will be great joy in the Church, in your hearts and also in the beloved France.”

Pope Francis met with the group, headed by the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall July 6.

Since the Pope is taking a break from his general audiences for the month of July, the small, private meeting with the Lyon pilgrims served as a replacement for the weekly encounter.

In his speech, Francis said that no matter what their condition, story or burden is, Jesus is the one “who unites us inside himself” and welcomes each person as they are.

Jesus was also tested during his life, the Pope said, telling the pilgrims that this serves as proof that “you are precious in his eyes, and that he is close to you.”

Francis told the group that they “are in the heart of the Church” since during his life Jesus “always gave priority to people like you, who lived similar situations.” The Church, “who loves and prefers what Jesus loved and preferred,” he added, can’t rest until she has reached all those who experience rejection, exclusion and “who don't count for anyone.”

As people suffering in the flesh, the poor, suffering and disabled show us how to encounter Christ, since they speak to us about him with their “entire lives,” the Pope said.

He said that each one of them bears witness to the importance of “small gestures,” reminding us that “we are brothers and that God is Father for all of us.”

Before closing his speech Pope Francis offered special thanks to the caretakers and those who assist the sick and disabled, telling them that a life lived alongside the poor “transforms and converts us.”

Not only do caregivers go out to meet the needs of even those who are ashamed and hidden, they “walk with them, endeavoring to understand their suffering, to enter into their desperation.”

Furthermore, “you raise a community around them, thereby restoring to them an existence, an identity, a dignity,” Francis said, explaining that the Jubilee of Mercy is the ideal opportunity to rediscover and live solidarity, fraternity and mutual support.

He closed his speech by asking the pilgrims to maintain courage and hope in the midst of their anguish, telling them that as witnesses of Christ, “you are intercessors before God who grants in a very special way your prayers.”

After closing his speech Pope Francis led the group in praying the Our Father in French, and took the time to greet each person individually before leaving the hall.

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IMAGE: CNS illustration/Liz Agbey

By Chaz Muth

COLUMBIA, S.C. (CNS) -- When Father Adam Muda arrived at the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School at Fort Jackson earlier this year, he noticed prominent signs for a museum that showcased the history of what he was about to become.

The U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Museum has such a prominent place where priests and clergy from other religions train to be chaplains, because the role of the chaplain is stitched into the fabric of the U.S. military.

The patchwork of the military chaplaincy was revealed on a warm March morning as the museum's curator, Marcia McManus, walked a visitor through the carefully lit exhibit hall with a scent that reminded him of vintage books and photographs.

The man noticed the displays were laid out in chronological order, beginning with the origin of the name chaplain, which derives from the relic cape ("cappa" in Latin) of St. Martin of Tours, a second-century bishop who is said to have used his military sword to cut his cloak in two, giving half of it to warm a shivering beggar.

Eventually, all clergy affiliated with the military were referred to as the "cappellani," translated into French as "chapelains" and then English as chaplain, McManus said.

"The history of the chaplaincy in the United States is almost as old as the country," said Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services in Washington. "The first thing that George Washington asked the Continental Congress for was the provision for chaplains."

The U.S. Army Chaplains Corps was officially established July 29, 1775, with the first formal chaplains being Protestants.

However, there was one Catholic priest, Father Louis Eustace Lotbiniere, from the Diocese of Quebec, who did provide pastoral care to the soldiers fighting in the Revolutionary War, McManus told Catholic News Service during a March interview at the museum.

Though he was not necessarily considered part of the original Army chaplain corps, he's considered the country's first wartime Catholic chaplain, she said.

In the early years of the nation, there were a few priests who would help out in the military, but the first official Catholic presence within the armed forces came in the 1840s during President James Knox Polk's administration.

At the onset of the Mexican-American War, Polk became concerned that the conflict was going to be interpreted as a struggle between Catholic Mexico and Protestant U.S., so he recruited two Jesuit priests, Father Anthony Rey and Father John McElroy, to serve as the first official Catholic chaplains in the U.S. military, Archbishop Broglio said.

Father Rey was killed during the war and Father McElroy returned to civilian life at the conflict's conclusion and eventually founded Boston College, he said.

The need for Catholic chaplains began to grow in the subsequent years, and priests served in both the Confederate and Union armies during the U.S. Civil War, Archbishop Broglio said.

During both World War I and World War II, the U.S. armed forces enjoyed its most robust service of Catholic chaplains, around 2,000 during those years, the archbishop said.

That number pales in comparison to today's 214 priests on active duty.

"Remember, there was a tremendous mobilization in the United States, particularly during the Second World War, and there was a tremendous response, both on the part of the dioceses and then also the Knights of Columbus supported and sometimes even paid for chaplains, because this was seen as a need," Archbishop Broglio said.

Some Catholic chaplains have gained notoriety throughout the years, including Father Francis Patrick Duffy, who served as a chaplain with the 69th Infantry Regiment, a unit of the New York Army National Guard, on the western front of France during World War I, for which he was highly decorated with military honors, such as the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal.

Hollywood chronicled his wartime chaplaincy in the 1940s film "The Fighting 69th."

Though Father Duffy wasn't awarded the Medal of Honor, three other Catholic chaplains have been, including Father Joseph O'Callahan, a World War II chaplain; Father Emil Kapaun, who served during the Korean War and died in a prisoner of war camp; and Father Vincent Capodanno, who served in Vietnam and was killed in action in 1967.

Sainthood causes have been opened for both Father Kapaun and Father Capodanno.

One of the greatest legacies of the U.S. military chaplaincy is that the men and woman who serve have been granted the opportunity to exercise their freedom of religion, or no religion at all, said Father Michael A. Mikstay, a Navy chaplain who currently serves at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. "That's a great nation that we have."

As McManus wrapped up her tour, she turned to her visitor and said she believes the chaplaincy museum offers more than a historical perspective of the military chaplains who served in all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.

"There are several stories throughout the museum that show the compassion and the willingness of chaplains to stay with their soldiers. To minister to those soldiers," she said. "They nurture the living, care for the wounded and they honor the dead."

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Follow Muth on Twitter: @Chazmaniandevyl.

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