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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday named Archbishop Savio Tai-Fai Hon, currently serving as secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, to the post of Apostolic Administrator of the archdiocese of Agana, on the Pacific island of Guam.

The archdiocese in the U.S territory said last week it had hired a top law firm and was working with an independent investigator to examine accusations that Archbishop Anthony Apuron, had sexually abused two boys in the 1970s.

The archbishop has denied the allegations and has not been charged with any crime.

Pope Francis' nomination came two days after he issued a new document establishing norms for the removal of Church leaders who have been negligent in protecting children or vulnerable adults from abuse.

Hong Kong born Archbishop Savio Tai-Fai Hon has been a member of the International Theological Commission since 2004 and the number two at the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples since 2010.Pope

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Vatican City, Jun 6, 2016 / 11:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Meekness of heart is not foolishness, Pope Francis said Monday, but rather “the capacity to be deep and to understand the greatness of God, and worship Him.”

The Pope reflected during his homily Monday on the Beatitudes as steps that take us towards God.

The Pope’s homily came during the June 6 Mass at the Casa Santa Martha residence, Vatican Radio reports. He reflected on the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.

Pope Francis encouraged reflection on the beatitude, “Blessed are the Meek,” saying that the opposite of meekness “always causes enmities and wars.”

“Jesus says of himself: ‘learn from me for I am meek of heart’, I am humble and gentle at heart. To be meek is a way of being that brings us close to Jesus.”

The beatitudes are “the Lord’s new law for us.” They are “the steps that take us forward in life,” the pontiff said.

The Pope also drew on the Gospel of Luke, which accompanies the Beatitudes with a list of warnings: “Woe to the rich, to the satiated, to those who laugh now, to you when all speak well of you.”

Just as the Beatitudes lead us to heaven, he said, there are three steps that carry us to ruin.

There is attachment to riches, a sin which becomes idolatry. Attachment to riches is “the anti-law” and “the wrong navigator,” though riches are not evil in themselves, he said.

Next, there is vanity, which Pope Francis described as the view that “all must speak well of me, making me feel important, making too much of a fuss… and I am convinced to be in the right.”

The Pope noted the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee and warned against having an attitude that says, “O God I thank you that I am such a good Catholic, not like my neighbor…”

Finally, he denounced pride, rejecting it as “satiation and the laughter that closes one’s heart.”

 

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Vatican City, Jun 6, 2016 / 12:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An elderly couple with disabilities on the outskirts of Rome now has an electric scooter, thanks to a gift from Pope Francis.

Both the man and the woman suffer from many health problems, including high blood pressure and diabetes, Vatican Radio reports. The woman’s leg was recently amputated. Thanks to the new scooter, the couple can be more independent.

The papal almoner Archbishop Konrad Krajewski sent the gift on behalf of Pope Francis.

The couple is being assisted by the Italian organization Medicina Solidale. The organization had planned to raise funds for the scooter before the Pope’s gift.

“(T)he Pope never ceases to amaze us,” said Lucia Ercoli, the group’s director. The group had received support in the form of medicine, food and an ambulance.

“In this way, we feel less alone in our daily work, less abandoned by institutions,” she said. With Pope Francis “we feel close and always present,” she added.

Medicina Sodiale was founded in 2003 to work with the poor, the disadvantaged and those who may be excluded from ordinary health care services.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even in the midst of suffering and death, Christians can become witnesses of the resurrection and the power of God's compassion, Pope Francis said as he proclaimed two new saints.

In the Sunday Gospel reading, Jesus' raising of a young widow's child was not a magical performance but rather a reminder that he takes death upon himself to restore the suffering to new life, the pope said June 5.

"Jesus is no wizard! He is God's tenderness incarnate; the Father's immense compassion is at work in Jesus," the pope said.

At the beginning of the Mass in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis canonized St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad of Sweden, who re-founded the Bridgettine sisters in the early 1900s, and St. Stanislaus Papczynski of Poland, founder of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception.

Banners bearing the image of the two new saints hung from the facade of St. Peter's Basilica as some 40,000 people joined members of the two saints' religious orders for the outdoor Mass.

Born in Sweden in 1870 and baptized into the Lutheran Church, St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad had immigrated to the United States in 1886 to earn money for her family back home. After working as a nurse, she became a Catholic in 1902. Moving to Rome, she dedicated her life and her religious order to prayer and work for Christian unity. St. John Paul II beatified her in Rome in 2000.

In the 17th century, St. Stainslaus Papczynski founded the first Polish religious order of men at time of seemingly endless war, famine and disease when many Poles, especially soldiers, did not prepare themselves for death. The order promoted social justice and prayers for the dying while establishing clinics and shelters for the suffering.

Reflecting on the day's first reading and the Gospel, the pope noted that both dealt with "amazing signs of death and resurrection" involving the deaths of young children of widows "who were then given back alive to their mothers."

In the Gospel, Jesus asks a widow to give him her son as he sees her accompanying the body for burial. In doing so, the pope said, Jesus "takes our death upon himself to free us from it and to restore our life."

The pope said that by experiencing Christ's passion in their own lives, Christians can "find God's response to the desperate and at times indignant cry that the experience of pain and death evokes in us."

"He tells us that we cannot flee from the cross, but must remain at its foot, as Our Lady did. In suffering with Jesus, she received the grace of hoping against all hope," he said.

Experiences of conversion, such as that of the Apostle Paul, who once was a fierce persecutor of Christians and became of "herald of the Gospel," are also "a kind of resurrection." Pope Francis said that like St. Paul, Sts. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad and Stanislaus Papczynski also serve as "exemplary witnesses to this mystery of the resurrection," especially for Christians during the Holy Year of Mercy.

"So it is with each and every sinner. Jesus constantly makes the victory of life-giving grace shine forth. He says to Mother Church: 'Give me your children,' which means all of us. He takes our sins upon himself, takes them away and gives us back alive to the Mother Church," the pope said.

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