(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday afternoon made a visit to the parish of Maria Josefa of the Heart of Jesus in the suburbs of Rome. During Mass, he stressed, that the path to holiness was forgiveness and prayer and that revenge and resentment has no place in the Christian life.Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report Sunday afternoon was an away day for Pope Francis. He made a visit to the Roman parish of Saint Maria Josefa in Ponte di Nona in the east of the city. After greeting parishioners and meeting with a group of children, the Pope celebrated Mass telling the congregation present, never to go down the road of revenge or resentment. Instead, he said, “pray for those who want to do evil: this prevents wars and brings peace.” It is also, the Pope added, the “Christian path to holiness.”Drawing from the readings of the day, Pope Francis spoke about the path to perfection, holiness and sainthood. Jesus, the Holy Father said, explained concretely ...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday afternoon made a visit to the parish of Maria Josefa of the Heart of Jesus in the suburbs of Rome. During Mass, he stressed, that the path to holiness was forgiveness and prayer and that revenge and resentment has no place in the Christian life.
Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report
Sunday afternoon was an away day for Pope Francis. He made a visit to the Roman parish of Saint Maria Josefa in Ponte di Nona in the east of the city. After greeting parishioners and meeting with a group of children, the Pope celebrated Mass telling the congregation present, never to go down the road of revenge or resentment. Instead, he said, “pray for those who want to do evil: this prevents wars and brings peace.” It is also, the Pope added, the “Christian path to holiness.”
Drawing from the readings of the day, Pope Francis spoke about the path to perfection, holiness and sainthood. Jesus, the Holy Father said, explained concretely in the Gospel the necessary tools that are needed to travel this road. He said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you not to resist evil.” That, the Pope stressed means, no revenge. If I have a heart full of resentment and want revenge, he continued, that takes away my holiness.
Someone saying, “you did this to me and you will pay for this”, is not the language of a Christian. Instead, Pope Francis underlined, God tells us to pray for those who slander us.
The Pope went on to say that the great wars we see in the news and in newspapers about the massacre of people, of children is the same hatred that you have in your heart for a certain relative.
“To forgive from the heart”. This Pope Francis said, was the road of "sanctity."
If God “is merciful, holy and perfect, we must be merciful, holy and perfect like him”. This, the Pope observed is “sanctity”: a man or woman who does this deserves to be canonized, become holy. The “Christian life is simple”, he said .
Prayer, observed the Holy Father is “an antidote against hatred, against wars.” If someone doesn’t like you, pray for them, because powerful prayer, stressed Pope Francis, overcomes evil and brings peace.
Pope Francis shared a stage with Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on May 12, 2023, to speak at a two-day conference on "The General State of the Birth Rate," held at Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNARome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).The Vatican announced on Thursday that Pope Francis will speak at an event on Italy's demographic crisis as the country's birth rate sits at a historic low.Pope Francis will address "The General State of the Birth Rate" conference on May 10 at the Conciliazione Auditorium close to the Vatican.The two-day event organized by the Forum of Family Associations and the Foundation for Births seeks to address the 50 years of steady decline in births across Europe, and especially in Italy, and what can be done to reverse it. Births in Italy dropped to a historic low in 2023. Italy's national statistics bureau recorded 379,000 births last year, a 3.6% decline from 2022 and a 34.2% drop from 200...
Father Paul Tatu Mothobi, a member the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (CSS/ Stigmatines) and former Media and Communications Officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC), was found dead of gunshot wounds in South Africa, on April 27, 2024. / Credit: SACBCACI Africa, May 2, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).Father Paul Tatu Mothobi, a member the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (CSS/Stigmatines) and former media and communications officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC), was reportedly murdered last weekend in South Africa.According to a notice from the congregation's South Africa-based provincial secretary, Father Jeremia Thami Mkhwanazi, Tatu died on Saturday, April 27, "after sustaining a gunshot."Tatu, a native of Lesotho's Archdiocese of Maseru, was ministering in South Africa's Archdiocese of Pretoria. According to reports, his lifeless body was found with gunshot wounds in his car on a national road in South Africa, which r...
God "is our peace" and "prayer leads us to meet him," said the archbishop of Bogotá, Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio. / Credit: Colombian Bishops Conference / ScreenshotACI Prensa Staff, May 2, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).The Colombian Bishops' Conference (CEC by its Spanish acronym) has called on all Catholics to join on May 3, Day of the Holy Cross, in a day of prayer for peace and reconciliation in the country."The call is made directly by the bishops and is based on recognizing the serious humanitarian crisis that multiple territories face amid armed conflict and other types of violence, as well as the complex sociopolitical panorama that the nation is experiencing today, permeated by division and polarization," the CEC announced on its website.Since Pope Francis' visit to Colombia in September 2017 and his meeting with victims of the armed conflict, the Church in that country has established a National Day of Prayer for Reconciliation and Peace to be celebrated every May...