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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis welcomed a group of refugees to join him on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica as he held his weekly general audience on Wednesday. After greeting the thousands of pilgrims and visitors gathered in the summer sunshine, the Pope focused his reflections on the Gospel story of the leper who was healed by Jesus as a sign of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Philippa Hitchen reports: 

In Jesus’ day, lepers were considered unclean and outcasts, from the temple and from society, yet the man who begs him to be made clean is not afraid to break the law and come into the city. Pope Francis noted that Jesus also breaks the law by touching the leper to heal him, teaching us not to be afraid to reach out and touch the poor and needy in our midst.

The man’s simple words, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean”, show that we don’t need long speeches, the Pope said, but only a few words and strong faith in the Lord’s goodness and mercy. Pope Francis revealed that he himself prays those same simple words at bedtime every night, urging his listeners to do the same.

Jesus is profoundly touched by the man as he stretches out his hand to him, the Pope said, and we must learn to reach out and touch those most in need. It is not enough to be generous with our money but we must learn to see Christ himself in the poor and outcast. Noting the refugees who were sitting alongside him, Pope Francis said many people think they should have stayed at home yet they were suffering so much there. Please, he begged, they are our brothers and as Christians, we must not exclude anyone!

After healing the leper, Jesus tells him to show himself to the priest and make an offering as a proof of his purification. The Pope said this attitude shows that we should not seek sensationalism but that we too should bear witness to the healing power of Jesus.

The Lord invites each of us to think honestly about our own needs, he said and to ask for his healing touch.  Like the leper, may we turn to Jesus in faith and let our lives bear witness to his gifts of mercy, forgiveness and spiritual rebirth.

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Zambia’s Post Newspapers has managed to print its Wednesday edition of 22 June 2016 despite the Zambia Revenue Authority shutting down its printing plant.

The newspapers with the headline, “ZRA turns Post off” was available by 07 Hours in selected places in Lusaka although its distribution was limited.

There are fears that the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) will move in to confiscate the printed copies from vendors when they are distributed as the publication has been placed in distress and entails that all revenue generated by the newspapers should be recovered by ZRA.

Sources at the newspapers revealed that today’s edition was printed in Namibia through a commercial printer.

The Post Newspaper employs more than 1,500 workers.

ZRA officers yesterday raided the Post Newspaper Limited and closed down the publication.

The officers arrived at Post Newspapers head office and printing press around 17:00 hours in the company of armed police, demanding that the company pays a total of Zambian Kwacha 68 million in tax arrears immediately. Post Newspapers general manager for Finance, Rowena Zulu explained that the money ZRA was demanding had already been paid almost in total.

But a ZRA officer responded that they had not yet accessed the money, and thus they could not withdraw the warrant of distress.

Post newspaper lawyers from Nchito and Nchito then produced a court order restraining the officers from issuing a warrant of distress on Post Newspapers, but the officers disobeyed the order. Instead, the ZRA officers chased away all employees who were still working at the head office, before locking up the entrance.

At the printing plant, the ZRA officers also switched off the printing press, locked up the premises, leaving the heavily armed police officers in charge.

(Courtesy: Lusaka Times Online)

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(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue marked the fifth anniversary of the publication of a seminal joint document, Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct, by holding a meeting with representatives of the World Council of Churches and the World Evangelical Alliance, along with scholars and and followers of African Traditional Religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism and Tenrikyo, as well as representatives of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, in Rome this week.

The participants in the meeting (which took place on Tuesday, June 21^st, 2016) issued a Communiqué following the commemorative event, in which they explain the agenda and achievements of the meeting, and encourage all the organizations responsible for the original document to consider how its “spirit” could be extended to enable interreligious discussions on issues such as the ethics of witness and freedom of religion.

Please find the full text of the official Communiqué in English, below

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At the kind invitation of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), on the occasion of the fifth Anniversary of the Document Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct, Officials from the Roman Curia and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Italy, representatives of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), as well as scholars and believers from African Traditional Religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism and Tenrikyo met in Rome on Tuesday, 21 June, 2016.

This document, published on 28 June, 2011, was a joint venture by the PCID, the WCC and WEA, with the participation, in its first phase, of believers belonging to other religions as well.

The commemorative event, with the participation of Christians and other believers, was intended to reaffirm important issues of common concern in respect to the document.

The Keynote Address by H.Em. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the PCID, was followed by a Video Message from Rev. Dr. Shanta Premavardhana, currently President of the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education, Chicago (USA), and previously a staff member of the WCC, on the history and evolution of the Document. Short reports on the implementation of the Document were presented by the co-author institutions: Bishop Miguel Àngel Ayuso Guixot, for the PCID; Dr Clare Amos and Ms. Kyriaki Avtzi, for the WCC; and Prof. Dr. Thomas K. Johnson, for the WEA.

“Document through the Eyes of Religious Neighbours” was the title of the first session during which representatives of African Traditional Religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism and Tenrikyo presented briefly their vision of the Document.

In the next session the Officials representing the Roman Curia and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Italy offered their contribution on “Promoting a Culture of Dialogue and of Encounter: Relevance of Christian Witness Document”.

The final session “Looking Forward: Responding Together to Contemporary Global Realities” was aimed at agreeing on some major points emerging from the Workshop. The duty and right of all believers to witness to his/her faith was reaffirmed, as well as the necessity for mutual respect and interreligious dialogue. This implies the freedom of religion, to be respected by all and guaranteed by the States through appropriate laws.

The participants encouraged the organizations responsible for the original document to consider how the “spirit” of the document could be extended to enable interreligious discussions on issues such as the ethics of witness and freedom of religion. They expressed their gratitude to the PCID for organizing the event and offered their good wishes to the Muslim participants for Ramadan and ‘Id al-Fitr.

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(Vatican Radio) Millions of people worldwide are victims of human trafficking on a daily basis. As the summer 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro approach, the International Union Superiors General (UISG) organization have launched a new campaign, “Play for Life”.

“Play for Life” aims at raising awareness of human trafficking which increases significantly at large sporting events. The campaign was already used at the 2014 Rio Football World Cup and contributed to a 42% increase in the number of complaints over sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.

Vatican Radio’s Georgia Gogarty attended the press launch where she spoke to former Olympic gold medal swimmer, Massimiliano Rosolino, an ambassador for the “Play for Life” campaign, about why he chose to get involved and what he hopes the outcomes will be.

Listen:

Rosolino expressed that the importance of the campaign was to encourage people to come forward as we “need the truth or nothing will get better”. He said that he would never have thought that “during such a big event you’d have so many problems with prostitution”.

He stressed that it is imperative that we raise awareness for human trafficking during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and praised the work of the UISG who “fight everyday” against the trafficking of all peoples, especially children and adolescents.

Major sporting events bring with them a number of risks and situations that can be hidden and minimalized and therefore challenge and require a commitment by all to fight them. The conditions favor the deception of people with false promises of more jobs and a better life.

“Play for Life” aims to raise awareness of trafficking in persons and sexual exploitation by strengthening measures of prevention, as well as alerting those in socially vulnerable situations to the greater possibility of being recruited by traffickers during these major sporting events.

The campaign emphasized that sexual exploitation is not tourism, but a serious violation of human rights, and encourages all individuals and organizations to get involved in the fight to respect the dignity of all persons.   

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has chosen the theme for the 103rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees: “Minor migrants, vulnerable and voiceless.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples said that with that theme, Pope Francis “wants to focus attention on the smallest of the small.” The statement noted that children, who often arrive unaccompanied in their destination countries, “are unable to make their own voices heard” and “easily become victims of grave violations of human rights.”

The Council noted that “migration is a worldwide phenomenon,” and that all continents are “touched by this reality.” Migration, it continued, concerns not only those who leave their countries in search of jobs or a better life, but also adults and children who are fleeing “real tragedies.”

It is necessary, the Council said, to guarantee that migrants, along with their families, “enjoy the full recognition of all their rights” in the countries in which they arrive. The rights of children are a cause for special concern, as among migrants, women and children are particularly vulnerable. Children especially are often “invisible” because they lack documents or arrive in new countries without accompaniment.

The theme of this year’s Day is precisely an effort to draw attention to the needs of those who are most vulnerable.

The World Day for Migrants and Refugees will be celebrated on 15 January 2017. As is customary, Pope Francis will publish a Pontifical Message to mark the occasion. 

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has written the preface to the first volume in an anthology of the “selected works of Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI” being published by Cantagalli in Italy. Titled, Insegnare e imparare l’amore di Dio, “To Teach and To Learn the Love of God”, to be published in six languages, including English.

In the preface, Pope Francis writes, “Every time I have read the works of Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI, it becomes increasingly clear that he has done and is doing ‘theology on his knees’.” The Holy Father goes on to explain that his predecessor, “[E]ven before being a great theologian and teacher of the faith,” is “a man who truly believes, who truly prays: you see he is a man who embodies holiness.”
The book (Siena, Cantagalli, 2016, 304p., € 19) brings together the texts of 43 homilies, starting with a 1954 selection delivered in Berchtesgaden and dedicated to Franz Niegel, from the day of then-Father Ratzinger’s first Mass. The collection closes with the Letter to Priests by which he announced the Year for Priests. The final selection is preceded by an introduction written by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller.

The book is being released on the eve of the sixty-fifth anniversary of Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI’s sixty-fifth jubilee of priestly ordination, which took place on June 29^th, 1951, in the Cathedral of Freising.

The anthology is the first of a series of “selected writing” which will cover topics ranging from science and faith, to Europe, creative minorities, politics and faith, universities, and the Eucharist. 

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Vatican City, Jun 22, 2016 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In just two days in early September of 1792, approximately 1,200 people were slaughtered by revolutionaries in France.

Of the dead, approximately 200 were Roman Catholic priests and religious, most of whom were killed on Sept. 2 in the garden of a Carmelite monastery which had been captured and turned into a prison.

On October 16, Pope Francis will canonize one of them – Blessed Solomon Leclercq.

Blessed Solomon Leclercq was born Guillaume-Nicolas-Louis in Boulogne, France in 1745, the son of a wealthy wine merchant.

In 1767, at 21 years old, he entered the novitiate of the Lasallian Brothers of the Christian Schools, a teaching order founded by Saint John Baptist de La Salle, and took the religious name Solomon.

During his time in the community, he served as a teacher, as a director of novices, as a bursar for a school, and eventually as secretary to Brother Agathon, the Superior General of the order. He was known for his great love of people and his hard work.

In 1790, with the French Revolution underway, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy gave the state complete control over the Church in France. The government began selling Church property and requiring all clergy and religious to make an oath to the government in order for their institutions to maintain their legal, operating status.

Like many clergy at the time, most of the brothers of Blessed Solomon’s order refused to make the oath, forcing them to eventually abandon their schools and communities.

For this reason, Blessed Solomon was forced to live alone in secrecy in Paris for a time, though he kept in touch with his family through letters, despite being monitored by the government.

In August of 1792, the Legislative Assembly had closed all Catholic schools in Paris and outlawed the wearing of religious habits or vestments in public. Priests who had refused to take the oath required by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy were told to leave the country – and about 25,000 did.

Blessed Solomon, still in Paris, wrote his last letter to his family on Aug. 15, 1792, and that same day he was arrested and imprisoned at the Hôtel des Carmes Carmelite monastery in Paris for refusing the oath.

On Sept. 2, revolutionaries mobbed a transport of approximately 30 priests on their way to prison and killed them all. The mob continued on, and, armed with swords, stormed the Carmelite monastery and slaughtered Blessed Solomon and approximately 150 other priests and religious.

The next day, Sept. 3, the revolutionaries continued on to a Lazarist seminary, where they killed most of the priests and students. The death tolls for what became known as the September Massacres range from 1,247 to 1,368 people.

On Oct. 17, 1926, Pope Pius XI beatified Blessed Solomon as well as 188 Catholic martyrs who died during the September massacre. Solomon was the first martyr of his order, though he was soon joined by three others called the Brother martyrs of the hulks of Rochefort, who were also killed for their faith during the French Revolution. The feast day of all four of these martyred brothers is celebrated on Sept. 2.

Normally in the process of canonization, two miracles attributed to the saint are needed – one for beatification, and one for canonization. However, the miracle necessary for beatification in the case of martyrs can be waived, since martyrdom itself is considered a miracle of grace.

The miracle being attributed to the intercession of Blessed Solomon Leclercq, declared by the medical consultant of the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints and approved by Pope Francis, is the inexplicable cure of a Venezuelan girl who had been bitten by a venomous snake.

On Oct. 16 of this year, Pope Francis will canonize Blessed Solomon Leclercq along with five other saints, including Manuel González García, a Bishop of Spain, Lodovico Pavoni, an Italian priest, Alfonso Maria Fusco, priest and founder of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist, and Elizabeth of the Trinity, a French carmelite nun considered a “spiritual sister” of St. Therese of Lisieux.

Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Flanked by a group of refugees, Pope Francis appealed to Christians to care for and welcome those whom society often excludes.

"Today I'm accompanied by these young men. Many people think they would have been better off if they had stayed in their homelands, but they were suffering so much there. They are our refugees, but many people consider them excluded. Please, they are our brothers," the pope said June 22 during his weekly general audience.

The group, holding a banner that stated "Refugees for a better future together," caught the pope's attention as he was making his way to the stage in St. Peter's Square. He signaled them to come forward and instructed aides to allow them to sit in the shade on the stage.

In his main talk, the pope discussed the Gospel story of the leper who begged Jesus to heal him, saying: "Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."

The pope noted that the leper not only asked to be "purified" in both body and heart, but also broke the law by entering the city to find Jesus in search of healing.

"Everything this man -- who was considered impure -- says and does is an expression of his faith!" the pope said. "This faith is the strength that allowed him to break every convention and try to meet with Jesus and, kneeling before him, call him 'Lord.'"

The leper's plea, he continued, serves as a lesson to Christians that "when we present ourselves to Jesus, long speeches aren't necessary" and that there is no place to feel safe other than with God and his infinite mercy.

Jesus' act of touching and healing the leper, an action forbidden by the law of Moses, is also an example for all Christians in helping the poor, the sick and the marginalized, the pope said.

When a poor person comes, he said, "we can be generous, we can be compassionate, but usually we do not touch him. We offer him a coin but we avoid touching his hand, we toss (the coin) there. And we forget that he is the body of Christ!"

By touching the poor and the excluded, he explained, Christians can be "purified of hypocrisy" and share concern for their condition.

After the leper's healing, Jesus' instruction to "show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed" highlights the importance of bringing those excluded back "into the community of believers and social life," he said.

"He was excluded and now he is one of us. Let us think about our own miseries, each one has their own. Let us think with sincerity. How many times we cover them with the hypocrisy of 'good manners'! It is precisely then that you need to be alone, get on your knees in front of God and pray, 'Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean,'" Pope Francis said.

Saying he wanted to share something personal with the crowd, the pope said that each night he recites the leper's prayer as well as five 'Our Fathers,' one for every wound of Christ "because Jesus purified us with his wounds."

"This is what I do, but you can also do it in your homes. Say, ' Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean,' and think about Jesus' wounds and say an 'Our Father' for each one.' And Jesus will always listen to us," Pope Francis said.

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