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Madrid, Spain, Apr 15, 2016 / 07:44 pm (CNA).- Kiko Argüello, the founder and global head of the Neocatechumenal Way, expressed his support for Pope Francis for his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, with a short analysis of its contents.

Amoris Laetitia is the result of the Holy Father's reflections after the Synod of Bishops on the Family, which took place at the Vatican in 2014 and 2015. The exhortation is composed of 9 chapters and has 325 numbered paragraphs. The following is the statement on Amoris Laetitia by the Neocatechmenal Way's international team, composed of Kiko Argüello, Carmen Hernández and Father Mario Pezzi:

“-The Holy Father's concern to reach out to the thousands and thousands of Christians, who beset by their social and familial environment have suffered the trauma of a new marriage, is noted.

-The Holy Father wants them to not feel like they are excommunicated, he regrets this suffering and wants them to feel loved and prays for them and welcomes them, trying to help them.

-In this sense, this Apostolic Exhortation has great value to call out to and welcome those feeling alienated from the Church. To his honor, the pope is showing an immense liberality in doing so, suggesting special assistance from the Holy Spirit at this time in the Church.  

-The problem of discernment by pastors, priests and bishops, on a case by case basis, in an act of enormous charity towards the weakest, should not alarm us, and the Lord will provide because he always cares for his Church.

-We thank the Holy Father and we encourage him to continue on ahead. We recall what Don Quijote said: ‘Let the dogs bark, Sancho. It’s a sign we are on track.’ Take courage Father, the NeoCatechumenal Way is praying for You.”

The NeoCatechumenal Way is a Christian initiation of adults approved by the Holy See in 2008. It has more than 1 million members throughout the world and is present on five continents.

 

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Vatican City, Apr 15, 2016 / 02:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- They’ve performed for school children in Cambodia and refugees in Jordan. They’ve visited nearly 200 countries in the last two years, and now, they’ve performed at the Vatican as well.

It was the first known performance of an entire Shakespeare play on Vatican grounds, albeit in an extraterritorial Renaissance palace. The actors, who had already traveled much of the world, performed Hamlet for a small audience against the grand backdrop of a former music hall in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, where the Papal Chancellery is housed.

“The Holy See is one of the few places that has a truly global, universal perspective,” said Nigel Baker, UK ambassador to the Holy See, who helped make the April 13 performance at the Vatican possible.

“Shakespeare is probably our most universal writer: Hamlet, a character who encapsulates the human condition,” Baker told CNA. “How can you not have this production of Hamlet here at the Holy See?”

The two-year “Globe to Globe Hamlet” project began April 23, 2014 to mark the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, and will end its tour April 23, 2016 – on the 400th anniversary of his death.

“Hamlet is universal,” said Jonathan Fensom, set and costume designer of the world tour of Hamlet, who came up with the idea, along with directors Dominic Dromgoole and Bill Buckhurst.

“I think (Hamlet) represents all sorts of different emotions that we have as humans. And I think the world is better off (for it).”

In an interview with CNA, Fensom explained that the idea for the project evolved after a 2011 national tour of the play, which became the grounds of the documentary A Summer Hamlet.

After a similar tour with new actors in 2012, “a decision was made, in a bar,” he recalled: “Wouldn’t it be a laugh if we take a tour of Hamlet all over the world?”

There were initially reservations over whether to perform the play in certain regions, he said. However, “the decision was made that, anywhere in the world is better off with seeing Hamlet than not, because it poses questions, it poses all sorts of dilemmas in the human experience.”

As set and costume designer, Fensom had to overcome the logistical challenge of transporting sets, props, costumes – not to mention the personal belongings of the actors and crew – to all corners of the world.

“Initially I thought it was impossible,” he said.

The 2011 national tour had a vehicle to take the actors and crew from one place to another, he explained. Due to the nature of the itinerary on the world tour, however, such a vehicle would not be possible.

“The set, the costumes, and the actor’s possessions, all had to go into 12 trunks that could be then loaded onto airplanes, buses, trains, onto land rovers. It had to be a tour that they carried around with them.”

“It became a logistical problem as well as an aesthetic one,” Fensom said.

“On the costume and prop side, you were aware that very little maintenance could happen,” he said. “It wasn’t as if every day they could wash everything. We had to create an aesthetic that would look as good coming out of a trunk after traveling for hundreds of miles as if it’d been pressed, and all prepared, and washed.”

Despite the challenges, Fensom said he was nonetheless moved by the personal stories of those involved, even though he himself was only able to occasionally take part in the tour.   

“What has moved me,” he said, “is hearing the stories about where it’s played, and hearing the stories from the actors.”

He pointed to one instance – a refugee camps in Calais, France, “where you’ve got groups of people who have absolutely nothing, but would come together and have a communal experience of wanting to watch a play and be entertained.”

According to its website, Globe to Globe Hamlet has to-date traveled 197 countries over the course of its two-year tour – often in regions of poverty and conflict.

Among the regions they visited include five refugee camps – including those in Calais and Jordan – where they performed Hamlet to Syrian, Yemeni, and Central African Republic refugees. They held a performance in Kiev's Maidan Square on the eve of Ukraine's presidential elections. The troupe also held free performances for local school children in eight poorer countries, including Burma, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia.

Naeem Hayat, one of the two actors who has played Hamlet on the tour, recounted to CNA a particularly memorable experience a scene in which his character hides behind a curtain, acting like a child.

“There was maybe a five-year-old child in the front row who, when I jumped out of the curtain, burst out laughing, louder than anyone, any of the grownups had laughed in the whole show,” he recalled. “He laughed louder than anybody, and he just wouldn’t stop laughing.”

“And then what happened was the rest of the audience started laughing at the little kid laughing at Hamlet. And, somewhere in that was a really beautiful bit of innocent play,” he said. “As an actor, you constantly try and strive to keep that sense of childishness, because, that’s when theater’s really alive: when it’s playful, and childish.”

 

 

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Chios, Greece, Apr 15, 2016 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ visit on Saturday with refugees in Greece will show solidarity with those in need and demonstrate a shared Christian commitment to helping them, according to the Vatican spokesman.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said the April 16 visit to the island of Lesbos is “fundamentally humanitarian” in purpose. It is “rooted in Pope Francis’ concern for migrants, a concern that the Pope shares with the Greek Orthodox Church and with Patriarch Bartholomew.”

The Pope will meet with refugees and lunch with them. Then he will sign a joint declaration with two Eastern Orthodox archbishops: Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and Ieronymos II of Athens.
 
Lesbos is often labeled as the “Lampedusa of Greece.” Lampedusa is the Italian island which represent a waypoint for thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing Africa and aiming for Europe. Pope Francis visited that small island in his first trip as Roman Pontiff, in July 2013.
 
Greece is a route by refugees arriving from Syria, seeking safety in Europe.

Just as Lampedusa is closer to Africa than to Italy, Lesbos is closer to Turkey than to the Greek mainland: it is separated from Turkey by the Mytilini Strait, which at its narrowest is fewer than four miles wide.

Fr. Lombardi also noted that the shores of Turkey can be seen from Lesbos. It is this proximity is why thousands of refugees head there.

Fr. Lombardi presented the program of the papal visit to Lesbos at an April 14 press conference.

Pope Francis will arrive in Greece at 10:20 a.m. local time on Saturday. He will be received by the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop Ieronymos, and Bishop Franghiskos Papamanolis, Bishop Emeritus of Syros and president of the Greek Bishops’ Conference.
 
After a private meeting with the Tsipras, the Pope will move by bus to Moria Refugee Camp with the Eastern Orthodox bishops. The camp houses some 2,500 asylum seekers.
 
The three religious leaders will be welcomed at the camp by about 150 youths. They will pass through the central courtyard where refugees are registered and arrive at a tent. There, they will greet about 250 asylum seekers.
 
After this private meeting, the three religious leaders will each deliver a speech. Afterwards, they will sign a joint declaration.
 
Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew, and Archbishop Ieronymos will have lunch with some refugees.
 
After lunch, they will move by bus to the port of Mitylene, the capital of the island, where they wil meet with local citizens and with the Catholic community.
 
After a ceremony in memory of those migrants who have been victims or lost their lives en route, Pope Francis will deliver a speech.

Each of the three religious leaders will say a prayer, and will all observe a moment of silence. Then each of the three leaders will receive a laurel crown each from children, launching the wreaths into the sea.
 
The Pope will then travel to the airport. Before he leaves, he will have three separate private meetings: with Archbishop Ieronymos, with Patriarch Bartholomew, and again with the Tsipras.
 
During the visit, several Vatican leaders will accompany the Pope. These include Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, and the deputy of the Vatican Secretariat of State, Archbishop Angelo Becciu.

Michel Roy, general secretary of Caritas Internationalis, told CNA March 2 that the pressure of refugees on Greece is “enormous.”

“If the refugees get to the small Greek island and cannot move toward Bulgaria or Macedonia, there is huge pressure on Greece, very hardly manageable,” he said.

An estimated 100,000 refugees are expected to arrive at Lesbos within the year. The island itself has only 90,000 inhabitants.
 
The European Union and Turkey have reached an agreement on refugees. Both the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees and Doctors Without Borders have left the refugee facilities there.

Under the agreement, the detained refugees will be sent back to Turkey. Turkey will receive additional E.U. financial aid and will take part in an E.U. resettlement program for refugees.
 
Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, expressed “perplexities” over the agreement in an April 6 interview with Vatican Radio.

He commented: “the poor refugees are not postage things … they are people! I think that a state should behave with a very human approach, because we are talking about people.”

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