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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis says that to ignore the poor is to despise God and that the Lord’s mercy for us is tightly connected to our own mercy for others.

Speaking on Wednesday morning at the weekly General Audience in St. Peter's Square the Pope also decried the inequality and contradictions in the world as he reflected on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

He noted that the lives of these two people seem to run on parallel tracks; their living conditions are opposite and totally non-communicating: the rich man’s front door is always closed to the poor man who hopes to eat some leftovers from the rich man's table. Every day the rich man – who wears luxurious clothes while Lazarus is covered with sores – fares sumptuously while Lazarus is starving. 

This scene, the Pope said, reminds us of the harsh words of the Son of man during the final last judgment: “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was [...] naked and you did not clothe me” (Mt 25, 42). 

“Lazarus represents the silent cry of the poor of all times and the contradictions of a world where vast wealth and resources are in the hands of few”.

Speaking of how the rich man pleaded with Abraham when he died claiming to be his son and to belong to the people of God, Francis pointed out that  in life he showed no consideration for God but made himself the center of everything, “locked in his own world of luxury and waste”.

By excluding Lazarus, he explained, the rich man did not take the Lord or his law into account.
“To ignore the poor is to despise God!” he said.

And commenting on the second part of the parable, the Pope noted that after death the situation is reversed: “Lazarus is carried to heaven by the angels while the rich man falls into the torments of suffering”.

Now, he said, the rich man recognizes Lazarus and asks for help, while in life he pretended not to see him. 

Pope Francis said Abraham refuses to heed the rich man’s pleas and explains that “good and evil have been distributed to compensate earthly injustice, and that “the door that separated the rich from the poor in life has been transformed into a deep abyss.”

“As long as Lazarus was lying in front of his house, there was the chance of salvation for the rich man, but now that they are both dead, the situation has become irreparable” he said.

The parable, the Pope said, is a clear warning: “God's mercy for us is related to our mercy for our neighbor; […] If I do not open the doors of my heart to the poor, the door stays closed for God too. And this is terrible”.

At this point, the Pope continued, the rich man thinks of his brothers who are likely to meet the same fate and asks that Lazarus may return to the world to warn them. But Abraham points out that they must listen to Moses and to the prophets.

“To convert ourselves, we should not expect miraculous events, but open our hearts to the Word of God who calls us to love God and our neighbor” he said.

Pope Francis concluded saying that the Word of God can revive a withered heart and heal it of blindness, and that God’s saving message overturns the situations of this world by the triumph of His justice and mercy.

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(Vatican Radio) During this week’s general audience, Pope Francis extended a special greeting to a group of children from Ukraine, who had been brought to the Vatican by the international initiative Children for peace all over the world.

Listen to Ann Schneible’s report:

“I greet with special affection the children of Ukraine, orphans and refugees as a result of the armed conflict which still continues in the East of the country,” the Pope told the 80 children who were in St. Peter’s Square for the occasion.

“For the intercession of Mary Most Holy, I renew my prayer that we may strive for enduring peace, in order that it may relieve the so exhausted population, and offer a serene future for new generations.”

The Children for peace all over the world project aims to promote peace in the world – with a particular emphasis on Ukraine – through the use of maps which are then decorated with paper “world peace” doves, on which children write their wishes.

The initiative was launched in Ukraine December 1, 2015, and was initiated by the Embassy of Hungary in Ukraine and the Honorary Consulate of the Hungary in Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Since its beginning in November, 2013, the conflict in Ukraine has forced more than a million into displacement, with hundreds of thousands of those affected being children.

In April, Pope Francis issued an appeal for peace in Ukraine, calling European churches to take up a collection for those affected by the conflict.

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(Vatican Radio) “Today, the day of Saint John Paul II’s birth, I cordially greet all the Polish persons here present.”

Pope Francis marked the 18 May birthday of St John Paul II at this week’s general audience, greeting in particular a group of Polish nationals, including Polish president Andrzej Duda, with soldiers and others who had taken part in a memorial Mass for the fallen held at the Polish cemetery of Montecasino. 

The Pope also had words for those gathered in Torun for the consecration of the shrine of the “Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization and St John Paul II.”

“These important events are for you an invitation to pray for peace, for the Church in Poland, and for the prosperity of your homeland.”

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Vatican City, May 18, 2016 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a powerful speech Tuesday at the opening of the Italian bishops' general assembly, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa decried the civil unions bill passed in the nation's parliament last week, emphasizing that Pope Francis himself always advocates for the natural family.

The president of the Italian bishops' conference peppered his May 17 speech with several lengthy quotes from the Roman Pontiff, and lamented that the Pope's affirmations of the family are so often ignored in the mainstream.

The annual gathering of the Italian bishops is taking place May 16-19 on the topic of “renewal of the clergy.” Pope Francis had begun the assembly with a brief speech on the priesthood on Monday, followed by a closed door question-and-answer session with the bishops.

Second to the meeting with the Pope, Cardinal Bagnasco's address will set the tone for the bishops' plenary, and his address focused on the civil unions bill which was passed May 11.

Championed by prime minister Matteo Renzi, the bill passed the Chamber of Deputies by a 369-193 vote of confidence for Renzi. It had already passed the Senate in February, after being watered down “to win the backing of conservative and Catholic senators,” according to The Guardian.

The bill affords couples in civil unions many of the rights of married couples, but its concession added to gain the support of some conservative senators is that parental rights are not granted to non-biological parents  in a civil union.

Senator Monica Cirinna, who sponsored the bill, said the watered down version which passed is a “hollow victory” and only “a first step,” according to the BBC.

Cardinal Bagnasco decried the new law and said that it “certifies an equivalence” between civil unions and marriage, even “though the law affirms that civil unions and marriage are different things.”

Such “differences are only tricks of terminology or juridical artifacts, which can be easily bypassed.”

According to Cardinal Bagnasco, the law is just an intermediate step “on the path to the final strike, which will eventually include the approval of surrogate motherhood, a practice that exploits women, taking advantage of their poverty.”

Surrogacy is currently illegal in Italy.

Cardinal Bagnasco underscored that people “want the parliament to be committed” to tackling real issues, such as unemployment and poverty. “What are public institutions doing,” he asked rhetorically, to give a long-term response to these issues.

He added that Catholic Relief Services in Italy had provided 12 million meals for the poor, and is in the frontlines assisting migrants who arrive, often illegally, on the nation's shores.

“These are the real problems of the country, of the people. So, is is not understandable why (the Italian Parliament) spent so much emphasis and energy on causes that do not tackle these issues, and merely respond to ideological schemes,” the cardinal stressed.

Cardinal Bagnasco also noted Pope Francis' repeated defences of the natural family.

He quoted from the Pope's joint declaration with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, in which the bishops said that “the family is based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between a man and a woman … We regret that other forms of cohabitation have been placed on the same level as this union, while the concept, consecrated in the biblical tradition, of paternity and maternity as the distinct vocation of man and woman in marriage is being banished from the public conscience.”

The cardinal also recalled that Pope Francis called the family “the foundation of coexistence and a remedy against social fragmentation” in his speech to the community of Varginha in Rio de Janeiro on July 25, 2013.

The Pope had also, Cardinal Bagnasco continued, stressed at colloquium held Nov. 17, 2014, that “complementarity lies at the foundation of marriage and the family,” and for this reason “children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's growth and emotional development.”

Cardinal Bagnasco also recalled that the Pope has so often underscored that gender ideology is “a mistake of the human mind” and doubted whether gender is  “an expression of frustration and resignation, which seeks to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it.”

“It cannot be understood why these clear statements from Pope Francis, which the bishops often reiterate, are kept under silence, as if the Pope had never said or written them.”

The bishops of Italy, Cardinal Bagnasco said, “underscore the Pope’s statements, so that they can turn into effective commitment.”

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Madrid, Spain, May 18, 2016 / 12:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Rodrigo Miranda is a priest from Chile. But it was in Syria, among the oppressed Christian community, that he learned what it really meant to be a priest.

“They wake us up to the essential and important things in life,” he told the Spanish daily ABC. The witness of the persecuted Christians in Syria is “an antidote for the mediocre and decadent world of our societies.”

Fr. Miranda is a member of the Institute of the Incarnate Word. He lived in Aleppo, Syria from March 2011 until late 2014, when he was forced to leave the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the country’s ongoing civil war, while millions have been displaced from their homes.

The war has affected church attendance in the outlying areas.

“On the weekends we used to have between 250 and 300 people, now we have 15,” the priest said. “More people go to the churches in the center of town because they’re more protected. Since we’re a minority, we all know each other. We know by first and last name those who have been killed.”

Though the war has changed life for Syria’s Christians, their faith endures.

“In all the years I was in Syria, I never heard one person complain against God. Just the opposite. They thank God every day,” Fr. Miranda said. “When they tell you the most terrible stories they always finish by saying ‘But thanks be to God we’re alive, we can come to church.’ The Christians in the Middle East have a different temperament. Every time there’s a bombardment, the church is filled up. I don’t see sad faces, although that doesn’t mean they’re not suffering.”

He sees a contrast with the experience of Christianity in the West.

“In the West you’ve got to put on a whole Hollywood style pastoral ministry to attract young people to the parish,” he said. “In Aleppo many times the young people sat down to talk about what would happen if the Islamic rebels came into their neighborhoods to kill them. They asked me: ‘Father, is it true that you’ve got to give your life for Christ?’ These were the things they talked about. I learned to be a priest in Syria.”

According to Father Miranda, the Christian population in Syria has gone from 10 percent to just 2 percent because they’re targeted not just by the Islamic State group, but also by the Syrian opposition.

“The Church in Aleppo continues to be very fervent, very devoted, with a lot of activity. We of the Latin Rite are a minority within the minority,” the young priest said.

The Catholic Church’s different rites continue to supply aid, the priest said. And this is not just material aid, but rather, they act “continually to offer hope.”

 

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