Posted on 03/22/2024 08:06 AM ()
Posted on 03/22/2024 07:49 AM ()
The Catholic Church in India is celebrating a special day of prayer and fasting on Friday, with the upcoming general elections serving as a focal point for prayer intentions, amid growing political and religious tensions in the country.
Posted on 03/22/2024 05:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Holy Spirit is like a line prompter at a theater, behind the scenes and constantly whispering to Christians the words of Jesus, said the preacher of the papal household.
"However, he does not mechanically suggest the words of the Gospel, like from a script, but explains them, adapts them and applies them to specific situations," Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa told Pope Francis, cardinals and members of the Roman Curia.
Concluding his series of Friday Lenten meditations March 22, Cardinal Cantalamessa insisted that listening to the Holy Spirit and discerning what the Spirit is saying to individuals and to the church at large is an exercise essential to following Jesus.
"We don't start out knowing the concrete path of holiness God wants for each of us," he said. "God reveals it step by step, so it is not enough to have a well-crafted plan and then follow it. There is no model of perfection that is identical for everyone."
God does not produce saints with a cookie cutter -- "God does not like cloning," he said. "Every saint is an original invention of the Spirit."
Faith, for a Christian, is not just a belief or even a feeling of love for the Lord, the cardinal said, it is a call to follow Jesus concretely in the way one lives and shares in the mission of the church.
And that, too, is different for each person, he said.
A person comes to understand their unique call through prayer, meditating on Scripture, speaking with a spiritual guide and following the teaching of the church, he said. But especially important are the promptings and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which also give the person "the necessary strength and often the joy to accomplish it if the person consents."
Of course, Cardinal Cantalamessa said, understanding that call requires discernment, which is not as easy as judging something as good or bad.
"The most delicate problem about inspirations has always been to discern those that come from the Spirit of God from those that come from the spirit of the world or from your own passions or from the evil spirit," he said.
Jesus told his disciples that a true or false prophecy can be judged by the fruit it produces, the cardinal said, which is a helpful thing to keep in mind as the universal church continues to grow in the process of synodality and its encouragement to listen and pray together to discover the promptings of the Holy Spirit for sharing the Gospel today.
"In the moral field," Cardinal Cantalamessa said, "a fundamental criterion is the Spirit's coherence with itself. One cannot ask for something that is contrary to divine will as expressed in the Scriptures, in the teaching of the church and in the obligations of one's own state in life. A divine inspiration will never ask one to do something the church considers immoral."
"The flesh," he said, tries to make its own arguments and sometimes they sound good, "for example, that God is love and everything that is done for love is from God."
St. Ignatius of Loyola taught that "what comes from the Spirit of God brings with it joy, peace, tranquility, sweetness, simplicity, light. What comes from the spirit of evil, instead, brings with it disturbance, agitation, anxiety, confusion, darkness," he said.
"But it is true that in practice things are more complex," he said. "Inspiration can come from God, and despite that, cause great disturbance. But this is not due to the inspiration, which is sweet and peaceful like everything that comes from God. Rather it is born from resistance to the inspiration or from the fact that we are not ready to do what we are asked to do."
However, he said, "if inspiration is accepted, the heart will soon find itself in a deep peace. God rewards every little victory in this area by making the soul feel its approval, which is the most beautiful thing, the purest joy that exists in this world."
Posted on 03/22/2024 04:43 AM ()
During a commemorative event in New York marking the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the United Nation highlights the crucial role of education in eradicating racial prejudice, and decries ongoing racial discrimination against migrants or refugees of African descent in their countries of destination.
Posted on 03/22/2024 02:59 AM ()
In an interview with Vatican News, Maltese President George Vella speaks about Pope Francis’ commitment to fighting climate change, the Pope’s 2022 visit to Malta, and the president’s gift of six computers to the Mother of Mercy Clinic at St. Peter’s.
Posted on 03/22/2024 01:42 AM ()
Speaking to an Italian television station, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, says that “everyone must do everything possible to put an end to this situation."
Posted on 03/22/2024 00:55 AM ()
Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, the Preacher of the Papal Household, delivers his fifth sermon for Lent 2024 to Roman Curia, reflecting on Jesus' words, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life.'
Posted on 03/21/2024 06:28 AM ()
Roger Vangheluwe, the 87-year-old former bishop of Bruges, has been dismissed from the clerical state after being found guilty of abuse of a minor. Pope Francis approved the sentence following a re-examination of the case in light of "serious new elements" reported to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Posted on 03/21/2024 06:16 AM ()
Ukrainian officials say Russia's military has launched missile attacks on the capital, Kyiv, for the first time in 44 days, injuring 10 people, including a child, while in the north, at least five people died in a separate Russian air raid. The attacks came as Ukraine struck areas inside Russia to push back an ongoing Russian invasion of the country. Amid the clashes, thousands of children are being evacuated from border regions.
Posted on 03/21/2024 05:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church can draw closer to Jesus by accompanying migrants in their pursuit of a better life, Pope Francis said.
In the faces of migrants, the church "discovers the face of Christ," he wrote, and like St. Veronica who offered a cloth to wipe Jesus' face during his passion, the church "brings relief and hope on the 'Way of the Cross' of migration."
The pope wrote his comments in a letter March 21 to participants at a meeting between bishops, church officials and migrants in Lajas Blancas, Panama, near the Darién Gap jungle crossed by thousands of migrants each day. The meeting took place during a three-day conference organized by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development for bishops from Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama to discuss accompanying migrants.
Migrant brothers and sisters "represent the suffering flesh of Christ" since they are "forced to leave their land, to face the risks and tribulations of a hard road without finding another way out," Pope Francis wrote in his message to the group.
Bishops and other members of the church who support migrants "are the face of a mother church that walks with her sons and daughters," he wrote.
Pope Francis urged the migrants to "never forget about your human dignity," and encouraged them to "not be afraid to look others in the eye, because you are not discarded, but you form part of the human family and the family of God's children."
"I also am the son of migrants who left in search of a better future," the pope told them, referencing his upbringing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as the child of Italian immigrants. "There were times when they were left with nothing, even starving, with their hands empty but their hearts full of hope."
The meeting of church officials and migrants took place outside of the Darién Gap jungle that straddles the Panama-Colombia border. Record numbers of migrants have risked their lives to cross the Darién Gap in recent months, subjected to rampant extortion, physical abuse and sexual violence by criminal gangs. More than 500,000 people crossed the gap in 2023, according to data published by the Panamanian government.
In a message to the bishops a day earlier, Pope Francis had written that the church's pastors must break free from indifference in addressing the crisis of forced migration across the Americas and that every migrant challenges Christians to embrace a spirit of hospitality.