Month: July 2023

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Young people today must be open to love and let themselves be led and accompanied by God in the face of life’s challenges, Pope Francis said.

In the second edition of the “Popecast,” produced by Vatican Media in Italian and released July 25, the pope responded to the stories of young people recorded ahead of World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, scheduled for Aug. 1-6.

The first episode of the Vatican Media’s podcast with Pope Francis was released in March, in which he looked back on the first 10 years of his pontificate.

The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life also released a podcast series meant to talk about how its work concretely impacts the lives of people in the church. Its first episode released July 23 focuses on grandparents and the elderly.

Meanwhile, the Popecast’s latest episode focused on marginalized youth, and one person the pope heard from was Giona — Jonah in Italian — a transgender, homosexual and disabled Catholic who described how his faith helped him accept his identity and body despite his disability.

“The Lord always walks with us, even if we are sinners he comes toward us to help us,” the pope said after hearing Giona’s story. “The Lord loves us as we are. This is God’s crazy love.”

Like the prophet Jonah, “people are often stubborn,” he said, “and that stubbornness closes us” to God’s love. Yet the pope urged Giona to “not surrender” and recalled that “God always caresses us” and “walks with us,” even if it is sometimes difficult to feel.

The pope then listened to two young men share how they resorted to crime and violence in response to their troubled backgrounds. Both had experienced run-ins with the law and were now involved with the Kayros Association, a Catholic organization supporting young people in need near Milan.

People make progress in life “with successes and mistakes,” the pope said, and “many times society is cruel to us because one mistake characterizes us for our whole life.”

“You were not alone on your journeys, not even when you made terrible mistakes; the Lord was there, ready to take you by the hand, ready to lift you up ” Pope Francis said. “It was he who created the circumstances in history to lift you both up.”

The pope also told them to not be afraid to dream, calling dreams “seeds of hope, seeds of progress, of strength, to go forward.”

“God is present in every stage of life,” Pope Francis said after hearing the experience of Arianna, a healthcare worker who suffers from bipolar disorder.

She described living on a “seesaw” between having suicidal thoughts and feelings of extreme joy. The pope noted that life’s ups and downs can become a “labyrinth” with no way out, the pope said.

“Always look ahead and don’t lose sight of the horizon, because the horizon is what leads you forward,” he said. “God is the horizon and God is with you accompanying you.”

Pope Francis urged Arianna not to lose a sense of “the adventure of life” or “fall into the labyrinths of our consciousness, which don’t save us in the end.” He also asked that she continue pursuing medical treatment for any psychological conditions she may have.

Valeria, who will accompany a group of young people traveling to World Youth Day, shared that the young people she knows want the church as an institution to be coherent with the message of the Gospel, and that she sees the synod on synodality as a key step toward that result.

“The church is church when it walks, the contrary is a religious sect closed within itself,” the pope said in response. “Each time the church has closed itself it has ended poorly, it has ended up being infertile.”

Pope Francis stressed the need for fostering “unity among diversity” in the church, which he said is achieved by living coherently with the Gospel. “Each person lives life differently, in their own way, but if it is coherent with the Gospel it’s okay.”

“Many times in the church there are fights among little groups, one against the other, but on the morning of Pentecost everyone spoke differently but understood each other in unity,” he said. When a difference becomes akin to a political party, “it kills unity.”

Speaking to Giuseppe, who said he spends most of his time playing video games, the pope said his virtual relationships to other gamers and content creators are “sterile.” Pope Francis warned him against “becoming bored with yourself” and living his life “without poetry,” before encouraging him to “open a window” and look toward a horizon in life to pursue.

Turning to all young people, Pope Francis urged them to attend World Youth Day, responding to those who may not feel like going by saying “it is worth it to take the risk.”

“In life, who doesn’t take risks doesn’t move forward,” he said.

The pope also responded to an audio message from 9-year-old Alessandro asking if there would ever be a “World Children’s Day.”

“It would be nice,” the pope said, “and we can ask grandparents to organize it. I will think about it and see how to do it.”

“Say hello to your grandparents for me,” Pope Francis told him.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Gospel calls Christians to bring the elderly to the center of their lives and away from the margins of families, politics and financial markets that banish them as “unprofitable waste” in society, Pope Francis said.

“Let it not happen that by pursuing the myths of efficiency and performance at full speed we become unable to slow down to accompany those who struggle to keep up,” he said in his homily at a Mass for World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly in St. Peter’s Basilica July 23.

“Please, let us mingle and grow together,” he said.

Elderly persons in wheelchairs were seated in the front row before the altar and alongside Pope Francis. Several grandparents with young children in tow were scattered among the estimated 6,000 people in attendance in the basilica.

“We need a new alliance between young people and the elderly,” Pope Francis told them in his homily, “so that the sap of those who have a long experience of life behind them will nourish the shoots of hope of those who are growing.”

“In this fruitful exchange we can learn the beauty of life, build a fraternal society and in the church we can allow for encounter and dialogue between tradition and the newness of the Spirit,” he said.

Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life – which organizes the world day – was the main celebrant at the altar. The theme for this year’s celebration was “His mercy is from age to age,” taken from St. Luke’s Gospel.

In his homily, the pope related the elderly’s role in society to the three parables Jesus tells in the day’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew.

In the first parable, the devil plants weeds among a wheat crop while the householder is asleep, but rather than tell his slaves to pull them up he allows them to grow until harvest for fear of uprooting the wheat with it.

“The good and the bad are intertwined to the point of appearing inseparable,” Pope Francis said. But, “Christians, enlivened by hope in God, are not pessimists, but neither are they naive people who live in a fairy-tale world, who pretend not to see evil and say ‘all is well.'”

“No, Christians are realists: they know there is wheat and weeds in the world,” he said.

The pope noted the common temptation to create a “pure” society and church that risks making people “impatient, intransigent, even violent toward those who have fallen into error.”

“In that way, together with the weeds we pull up the good wheat and block people from moving forward, from growing and changing,” he said. Instead, by “beating the temptation to divide the wheat from the weeds, we are called to understand the best ways and moments to act.”

The elderly, who have “already come a long way in life,” he said, are examples of embracing life’s beauty as well as its challenges.

“Old age is a blessed time also for this reason: it is the season to be reconciled, to look with tenderness at the light that has advanced despite the shadows, in the faithful hope that the good wheat sowed by God will prevail over the weeds with which the devil has wished to infest our hearts,” said the pope.

He also recalled the parable of the tiny mustard seed that grows into a large bush where birds make nests among its branches.

“At the beginning we are a small seed, then we are nourished by hopes, we fulfill projects and dreams, the most beautiful of which is becoming like that tree, which doesn’t live for itself but makes shade for who wants it and offers space for who wants to build a nest,” said Pope Francis.

He said that grandparents and grandchildren “grow together” like the tree and the birds that settle in its branches, where they “learn the warmth of home and experience the tenderness of an embrace.”

Urging the elderly and young people to engage with one another, the pope turned to the parable of the yeast in which a whole batch of bread is leavened by a small measure of yeast. He encouraged the young and elderly to “mix with one another” and to “come out from yourself to join with others.”

Such intergenerational interaction, he said, “defeats individualism and selfishness, and helps us generate a more humane and fraternal world.”

After Mass, five elderly people in St. Peter’s Basilica symbolically handed over a pilgrim’s cross to five young people traveling to World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, which is scheduled for Aug. 1-6. The gesture represents the elderly’s commitment to “pray for the departing youth and accompany them with their blessing,” the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life said in a statement.

Shortly after, Pope Francis appeared at the window of the papal studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square with a young person who was going to attend World Youth Day and his grandmother on either side of him. The pope noted the significance of a day dedicated to celebrating the elderly right before World Youth Day begins.

“May the closeness of these two days be an invitation to promote an new alliance between generations of which there is so much need; so that the future may be constructed together, in the sharing of experiences and reciprocal care between young people and the elderly,” he said after praying the Angelus.

Noting the strong heat waves in many countries and recent flooding in South Korea, Pope Francis called on governments to act concretely to reduce polluting emissions, and he asked the estimated 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square not to forget the ongoing migration crisis in northern Africa.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Cardinal Matteo Zuppi hand-delivered a letter from Pope Francis to U.S. President Joe Biden as part of his three-day papal mission to help promote humanitarian efforts and open avenues of peace in Ukraine.

The pope had sent the cardinal, who is archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, to Washington July 17-19 for meetings with top church and government leaders, including members of the U.S. Helsinki Commission and the Senate Prayer Breakfast.

Cardinal Zuppi and other members of a Vatican delegation went to the White House July 18 “where they were received by President Joseph R. Biden, to whom Cardinal Zuppi delivered a letter from the Holy Father, emphasizing the pope’s sorrow for the suffering caused by the war,” said a Vatican communique published July 19.

“The meeting, which began shortly after 5 p.m. and lasted over an hour, took place in an atmosphere of great cordiality and mutual listening,” it said.

During the conversation, assurance was made of there being a “full willingness to support humanitarian initiatives, especially for children and those who are most fragile, both to respond to this urgency and to foster paths of peace,” the Vatican said.

Early July 19, the Vatican delegation attended the Senate Prayer Breakfast, which is held Wednesday mornings in the U.S. Capitol for senators to meet, talk and pray together.

During this gathering, the Vatican said, “Cardinal Zuppi had the opportunity to brief the participants on the meetings he had over the various stages of his peace mission. During the meeting, appreciation was expressed for the Holy See’s efforts and the responsibility of each individual to strive for peace was emphasized.”

He also traveled to Russia and Ukraine in recent months to meet with church and government officials on the pope’s behalf.

Cardinal Zuppi arrived in Washington the evening of July 17 and had a meeting with USCCB President Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of Military Services at the apostolic nunciature.

“Some reflections were exchanged on the war in Ukraine and the Holy See’s initiatives in support of victims and peace” during that meeting, the Vatican said.

The next morning the Vatican delegation went to the Rayburn House Office Building and met with some members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission. This independent U.S. government commission seeks to promote human rights, military security and economic cooperation in 57 countries in Europe, Eurasia and North America.

The Vatican delegation, which included Cardinal-designate Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and Msgr. Séamus P. Horgan, charge d’affaires at the apostolic nunciature, presented to the commission “the nature and conduct of the mission entrusted to it by the pope, reflecting together on ways in which it could be made more effective.”

According to Cardinal-designate Pierre, the top priority for Cardinal Zuppi in his meeting with President Biden was the repatriation of children forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia.

The overall objective of that closed-door meeting, he told the Italian daily, La Repubblica, was “to contribute to peace and more precisely to cover the humanitarian aspects, in particular concerning children. The discussion revolved around this.”

When asked if this meant that the immediate goal was facilitating the reunification of Ukrainian children with their families, the cardinal-designate said, “Yes, that is the cardinal’s, and obviously the pope’s, more specific goal, also because it is a more concrete issue.”

“Obviously, however, the idea is to think about peace, in the complicated context that exists,” he said in the interview with the newspaper, published in Italian July 19.

“The cardinal is very realistic, we try to do what is possible,” Cardinal-designate Pierre said.

In general, Cardinal Zuppi’s mission was “to listen and be listened to. To report on what has already happened in order to see how one can proceed,” the papal nuncio said.

“This is a first step. We are realists, we know perfectly well that this is not easy. But the pope wants to contribute to (bringing) attention to a situation that will in any case have to reach an outcome,” Cardinal-designate Pierre said.

Meanwhile, the White House said in a statement July 18 that President Biden shared with Cardinal Zuppi “his wishes for Pope Francis’ continued ministry and global leadership and welcomed the recent nomination of a U.S. archbishop as cardinal,” referring to Chicago-born Cardinal-designate Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.

The U.S. president and Cardinal Zuppi “also discussed the Holy See’s efforts providing humanitarian aid to address the widespread suffering caused by Russia’s continuing aggression in Ukraine, as well as the Vatican’s advocacy for the return of forcibly deported Ukrainian children,” the White House statement said.

Pope Francis had sent Cardinal Zuppi to Washington as part of his ongoing humanitarian efforts to help Ukraine.

The July 17-19 visit is “in the context of the mission intended to promote peace in Ukraine and aims to exchange ideas and opinions on the current tragic situation and to support humanitarian initiatives to alleviate the suffering of the most affected and fragile people, especially children,” the Vatican said in a communique July 17.

The cardinal visited Bucha and Kyiv in early June and met with Ukrainian officials including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In Moscow in late June, he met with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow; Yury Ushakov, a Kremlin foreign policy adviser and former ambassador to the United States; and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, accused by the International Criminal Court of aiding the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Cardinal Zuppi had told reporters at a book presentation in Rome July 4 that the Vatican was working on a “mechanism” to help Ukrainian children that have been taken into Russia, Vatican News reported.

“The children should be able to return to Ukraine,” he said. “The first step is verifying the children and then seeing how to return them, starting with the most fragile.”

“There is no peace plan (or) mediation,” he said, “there is a great aspiration that the violence ends, that human lives can be saved starting with the defense of the youngest.”

The cardinal said July 2 that Pope Francis’ concern is to “create all opportunities to see, to listen and encourage everything that can lead toward a resolution to the conflict.”

“Of course there are small openings, we must look for them,” he said. “It is precisely in the darkness that the light of peace must be sought while knowing no one has a magic wand.”