Author: Eric Deabill

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (CNS) – Building enthusiasm for living and sharing the Christian faith is not a matter of “techniques” but of being joyful and serving others, Pope Francis said.

In an afternoon devoted to the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea Sept. 7, the pope visited with some of the most vulnerable members of society, the Catholics who care for them, and with the country’s bishops, priests, religious, seminarians and catechists.

He started at the Caritas Technical Secondary School in Port Moresby, meeting some 800 students as well as children who were living on the streets and children and adults with disabilities who are assisted by the Callan Services network.

Clemens, who cannot hear and signed while his sister, Genevieve, spoke, said to the pope, “Holy Father, I would like to ask you, first: Why do we have to suffer with our disability? Two: Why am I not able like others? Three: Why this suffering? Four: Is there hope for us, too?”

A young girl said that just having the meeting showed how much the pope loves the street children, “even though we are not productive, sometimes we are troublemakers, we roam around the streets and become (a) burden for others.”

“I would like to ask you Holy Father, why we do not have opportunities like other kids do and how we can make ourselves useful to make our world more beautiful and happy even if we live in abandonment and poverty?” she asked.

Calling the children’s questions “challenging,” the pope responded that every person is unique, and each has talents and difficulties, but God has a mission for each person based on loving others and knowing how to accept love.

“To give love, always, and to welcome with open arms the love we receive from the people we care about: this is the most beautiful and most important thing in our life, in any condition and for any person — even for the pope,” he told the children.

“None of us are a ‘burden,’ as you said,” the pope responded. “We are all beautiful gifts from God, a treasure for one another!”

Pope Francis ended the afternoon at the city’s Shrine of Mary Help of Christians by listening to churchworkers share the joys and challenges of their ministries, including efforts to help people — usually women or children — who endure torture and even face death after being accused of witchcraft.

Sister Lorena Jenal, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Divine Providence, told Pope Francis about one of the 250 women her House of Hope has helped.

“Maria came to us in 2017,” Sister Jenal said. “She was so badly tortured and burnt that we did not know if we could save her life.”

But, she said, “today she is working in our team standing up for human rights and the dignity and equality of women. She witnesses to the importance of love and forgiveness among all people.”

Father Emmanuel Moku, a self-described “late vocation” who was ordained 12 years ago at the age of 52, told the pope that “my clan expects a man to become a father and to work and feed his people. As a seminarian, I was therefore viewed as unfruitful. This made me feel hopeless.”

But after ordination his family was proud to have a priest in the clan, he said. “Only then was I relieved of the pressure of my cultural norms.”

Grace Wrakia, a laywoman who is a member of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, told the pope that she is not sure how long it will take for the church in Papua New Guinea to become truly synodal.

“But it would only take a few men in a strongly paternal society such as mine to believe in and support a woman in order to see her rise above her traditional status in society and bring about change,” she said.

“I want to see change where women are partners and cooperators, where young people are not ignored or neglected but received with open hearts and minds, where priests and religious work as partners and not as competitors, where priests and consecrated men are not regarded as ‘big men’ but as servant leaders,” she said.

Pope Francis encouraged all of them to hold fast and keep trying, inspired by the missionaries who arrived in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1800s. “The first steps of their ministry were not easy. Indeed, some attempts failed. However, they did not give up; with great faith, apostolic zeal and many sacrifices, they continued to preach the Gospel and serve their brothers and sisters, starting again many times whenever they failed.”

More than anything, the pope said, those who truly want to be missionary disciples of Jesus must start at “the peripheries of this country” with “people belonging to the most deprived segments of urban populations, as well as those who live in the most remote and abandoned areas, where sometimes basic necessities are lacking.”

“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition, sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” the pope said. “The church desires especially to be close to these brothers and sisters, because in them Jesus is present in a special way.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Ahead of Hispanic Heritage Month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Cultural Diversity in the Church has released a resource kit “to help illustrate the profound impact of the Hispanic/Latino community within the Catholic Church in the United States,” according to a USCCB press release.

A part of the implementation of the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry approved by the U.S. bishops in the Spring of 2023, the document “underscores the ongoing commitment of the USCCB’s Subcommittee on Hispanic Affairs to recognizing and celebrating the rich cultural heritage and contributions of Hispanic/Latino Catholics,” said the Sept. 4 release.

This resource kit includes statistical information on the Catholic population in the U.S., categorized by race/ethnicity, a statistical profile of Hispanic/Latino ministry, the percentage of Hispanic/Latino Catholics by diocese and the percentage growth of Hispanic/Latino Catholics in the Millennial and Gen Z generations.

It also reports on the growth of the Hispanic/Latino population in the church’s 14 episcopal regions and the estimated Hispanic/Latino population in the U.S. in 2022 by country of origin, as well as a timeline of Hispanic/Latino ministry events and milestones spanning from 1945 to 2024.

Alejandro Aguilera-Titus, assistant director of Hispanic Affairs in the USCCB’s cultural diversity secretariat, said that through the information in this resource, they hope to “help show the vibrant faith and the richness of the Hispanic and Latino communities within our Church and society.”

“It is especially important as we prepare to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month to show the dynamic growth of our community and the contributions made by Hispanics and Latinos as we continue in our work to foster deeper connections and understanding,” said Aguilera-Titus.

The 16-page document highlights important findings, including that Episcopal Region XI, which includes California and Hawaii, had the largest Hispanic population by 2022 with 15,892,963 Hispanics/Latinos and that the U.S. Hispanic population — estimated to be over 63 million people as of April 1, 2023 — is the second largest in the world, surpassed only by Mexico, which was about 128.3 million in 2023.

Likewise, a graph with information from the U.S. Census Bureau that estimates the U.S. Hispanic/Latino population in 2022 by origin indicated that 58.8% of this population is of Mexican origin, followed by a wide margin by the Puerto Rican community, which represents 9.4% of the population.

The document compiles the names of active, retired, and deceased bishops and auxiliary bishops of Hispanic/Latino origin who have served the Catholic Church in the U.S. since 1970. It also states that by 2023, there were 34,092 priests in the United States, and 3,200 of them were estimated to be Hispanic. It also shows that a total of 4,479 parishes in the U.S. have Masses in Spanish and 2,760 U.S. parishes with Hispanic/Latino presence or ministry but no Mass in Spanish, according to data collected in 2024.

Sources cited by this resource kit include the U.S. Census Bureau, Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, V Encuentro reports, and findings from previous studies conducted by the USCCB and its Secretariat for Cultural Diversity in the Church, such as the recently-released Diocesan Survey on Parishes and Hispanic/Latino Ministry.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNS) – While members of every religion must be free to profess and practice their faith, they also should recognize that members of other religions have that right, too, and they all are searching for God, Pope Francis said.

Nasaruddin Umar, the grand imam of the Istiqlal Mosque, welcomed the pope to the mosque compound Sept. 5 and led him directly to the “tunnel of friendship,” a wide underground walkway that connects the mosque and the Catholic cathedral across the busy street.

Like the pope, the imam was dressed in white from head to toe and greeted Pope Francis with a kiss on the cheek. At the end of the meeting, Umar put an arm around the pope’s shoulder and kissed him on the top of the head. Pope Francis, who was seated in his wheelchair, took the imam’s hand and kissed it.

Earlier, facing the entrance to the tunnel, Pope Francis had told the imam and donors who helped build it, “When we think of a tunnel, we might easily imagine a dark pathway. This could be frightening, especially if we are alone. Yet here it is different, for everything is illuminated.”

“I would like to tell you, however, that you are the light that illuminates it,” the pope said, “and you do so by your friendship, by the harmony you cultivate, the support you give each other, and by journeying together, which leads you in the end toward the fullness of light.”

The pope and imam signed “The Istiqlal Declaration,” a short document committing members of both religious communities to defending human dignity, especially when threatened with violence, and to defending the integrity of creation.

“The values shared by our religious traditions should be effectively promoted in order to defeat the culture of violence and indifference afflicting our world,” the declaration said. “Indeed, religious values should be directed toward promoting a culture of respect, dignity, compassion, reconciliation and fraternal solidarity in order to overcome both dehumanization and environmental destruction.”

Engkus Ruswana, a leader of Majelis Luhur Kepercayaan Indonesia, an organization for followers of Indigenous religions, said his faith’s priority “is humanity and community, and the relationship between the human and nature. Indigenous religions, you know, have a good relationship between human beings and nature. Our principle is that we have to care for the Earth, for the world.”

In a large tent draped with the white and red colors of the Indonesian flag, Ruswana joined the imam, the pope and other representatives of the country’s religious communities, including Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Confucians.

The formal meeting began with the chanting of a passage from the Quran by Kayla Nur Syahwa, 16, who won a national Quran recitation contest for children with disabilities, and a reading from the Gospels by a Catholic priest.

Pope Francis asked the religious leaders to consider how the tunnel can be a metaphor for the faith life of Indonesians by providing a meeting ground between the prayer spaces of two communities.

The tunnel, he said, should be a sign that “all of us, together, each cultivating his or her own spirituality and practicing his or her religion, may walk in search of God and contribute to building open societies, founded on reciprocal respect and mutual love, capable of protecting against rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism, which are always dangerous and never justifiable.”

“The visible aspects of religions — the rites, practices and so on — are a heritage that must be protected and respected,” the pope said. “However, we could say that what lies ‘underneath,’ what runs underground, like the ‘tunnel of friendship,’ is the one root common to all religious sensitivities: the quest for an encounter with the divine, the thirst for the infinite that the Almighty has placed in our hearts, the search for a greater joy and a life stronger than any type of death, which animates the journey of our lives and impels us to step out of ourselves to encounter God.”

The Rev. Kriese Anki Gosal, a Presbyterian minister and vice general secretary of the Communion of Churches, the main ecumenical body in Indonesia, said, “The visit of the pope is very amazing for us. We want to have our pope’s message.”

When asked about using “our” to refer to the pope, she said, “He is the pope of all people. He has messages we must pass on,” whether one is a Catholic or not, a Christian or not.

The Rev. Jacklevyn Manuputty, general secretary of the ecumenical group that includes 97 churches and Christian communities, insisted Christians — who make up about 10% of Indonesia’s population — are not minorities. “We are citizens, not minorities. ‘Majority-minority’ are political terms that can and have been misused.”

“We are living in one of the most diverse countries in the world, so dialogue is our lifestyle,” he said. “All over the world there is a growing tendency of populism and identity politics based on race or religion — dialogue is how we promote authenticity.”

(OSV News) – The Catholic bishops of Atlanta prayed “for healing and strength” for those injured during a Sept. 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, where the alleged shooter as 14-year-old Colt Gray, who is alive and in custody. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, at least four people were killed and at least nine injured requiring hospitalization.

In a joint statement late Sept. 4, Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., of Atlanta, joined by the diocese’s auxiliary bishops, said, “Our hearts ache for the lives that have been so cruelly cut short by this devastating tragedy.”

“We grieve and pray with those who lost children and loved ones. We ask God for healing and strength for those who have been injured,” they said. “And we invoke God’s blessing on our first responders and medical personnel, especially during this traumatic time.”

The bishops called the shooting “another grim reminder” that taking additional steps to prevent gun violence “cannot wait for another tragedy to happen.”

“Once again, we implore elected officials to work together, regardless of political or religious affiliation, to enact laws and provide services that will prevent the repetition of such tragedies,” they said.

Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told reporters that two of the deceased were teachers and two were students. Hosey said Gray has been charged with murder and will be prosecuted as an adult.

Apalachee High School will be closed for the rest of the week, said the superintendent, as the school district cooperates with law enforcement.

In an initial statement, the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office said authorities were dispatched to the school when officers from multiple law enforcement agencies responded to a reported active shooting that morning.

The school is located nearly 50 miles outside of Atlanta. A spokesperson for that city’s Grady Health System told CNN the hospital was treating at least one gunshot victim from the school, who was transported to them by helicopter.

Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga., wrote in a post on X that he has “directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School.” He also urged “all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state.”

A spokesperson for the White House said President Joe Biden has been briefed by his Homeland Security Advisor, Liz Sherwood-Randall, “on the tragic shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia and his administration will continue coordinating with federal, state, and local officials as we receive more information.”

In a statement, Biden said, “Jill and I are mourning the deaths of those whose lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of the survivors whose lives are forever changed.”

“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” Biden said. “Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal.”

Biden said his administration is “closely coordinating with officials at the federal, state and local level,” and he is “grateful for the first responders who brought the suspect into custody and prevented further loss of life.”

“Ending this gun violence epidemic is personal to me,” Biden said, noting he signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which he called “the most meaningful gun safety bill in decades,” as well as other executive action on gun violence.

“We’ve made significant progress, but this crisis requires even more,” he said, calling on Republicans and Democrats to work together and “pass common-sense gun safety legislation” after decades of gridlock on the issue.

“We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers,” Biden said. “These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart.”

The high school was in session just one month when the shooting took place.

Last year, the Catholic bishops of the Atlanta province signed a joint statement June 27, 2023, urging “decisive action” by federal and state officials to implement meaningful legislation addressing the “plague of gun violence” nationwide and locally. The bishops said the “ready accessibility of firearms presents an immediate threat to the wellbeing of children,” and called on lawmakers to prevent them “from falling into the hands of those who would carry out violent acts against children in schools, against their families or against themselves.”

JERUSALEM (OSV News) – In what was a devastating Sunday morning for hostage families, Israel said Sept. 1 that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza, including the body of Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents became outspoken global advocates for all hostages to be released.

The military confirmed all six had been killed shortly before the arrival of Israeli forces, The Associated Press reported. The army identified the other dead hostages as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Alexander Lobanov, 33; who, like Hersh, were taken on Oct. 7, 2023, from the music festival. The sixth, Carmel Gat, 40, was abducted from the nearby farming community of Be’eri. All six bodies were discovered in a Gaza tunnel with gunshot wounds.

Pope Francis, in his Sept. 1 Angelus prayer, said, “I once again turn my thoughts with concern to the conflict in Palestine and Israel, which risks spreading to other Palestinian cities. I appeal for the negotiations to continue and for an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, and relief to the people of Gaza, where many diseases are also spreading, such as poliomyelitis.”

The pontiff urged: “May there be peace in the Holy Land, may there be peace in Jerusalem!”

U.S. President Joe Biden, who has met with Goldberg-Polin’s parents, said Sept. 1 he was “devastated and outraged” by the news of Hersh’s death.

“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” he said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sept. 1 on X, formerly Twitter, “Hersh Goldberg-Polin is an American hero who will be remembered for his kindness and selflessness.”

He addressed the parents of Hersh, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and her husband, Jon, who have traveled around the world and talked to world leaders since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and abducted their son and 250 other people, urging action on the release of all hostages, not only their son’s, at world forums, including the United Nations.

“Our hearts break for Jon, Rachel, and their entire family, as well as the other families who found out today their loved ones won’t be coming home. May their memory be a blessing,” Blinken said.

Hours after the hostages were proclaimed dead, massive protests erupted in Israel, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an immediate cease-fire that would bring the remaining hostages home.

Netanyahu said however Sept. 1 that the six hostages found in Gaza Strip’s Rafah were killed in “cold blood” and blamed Hamas for the lack of a cease-fire deal — “whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal,” he said.

After a march of thousands of people in the streets of Israel Sept. 1 and a rare general strike on Sept. 2, Netanyahu did not seem pressured, saying, “No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me. … No one will preach to me on this issue.”

On the afternoon of Sept. 2, thousands of mourners lined the streets of Jerusalem to bid farewell to Hersh.

Since her 23-year-old son had his left arm blown off at the elbow and was taken hostage into Gaza by Hamas, his mother, Rachel, has become the international voice for hostage families.

“Now I no longer have to worry about you. I know you are no longer in danger,” she said at her son’s funeral.

“I want to do hakarat hatov (recognize the good) and thank God right now in front of all of you for giving me this magnificent present of my Hersh,” she added, sobs audible around her, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. “For 23 years, I was privileged to have the most stunning honor to be Hersh’s mama. I’ll take it and say thank you. I just wish it had been for longer.”

“My sweet boy, finally, finally, finally, finally, you’re free,” she said. “I will love you and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life.”

Hers and her family’s shirts were ripped, in keeping with the Jewish tradition of rending one’s clothing upon learning of the death of a loved one.

Addressing the crowd at the funeral, President Isaac Herzog apologized to the murdered hostages and their families for the state’s failure to bring them home alive.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin felt extremely “grateful and privileged” to have met with Pope Francis, along with 11 other hostage families in November 2023, just over a month after her son was taken into Gaza. She showed the pope the video of Hersh, who after his arm was blown off was able to put a tourniquet on it to stop the bleeding as he climbed onto the back of a pick-up truck. The pope was visibly shaken after having seen the video in a Nov. 22 meeting, she told OSV News in February.

“He said something really simple to me, (after seeing the video), to all of us, that what (we’ve) experienced is terrorism, and terrorism is the absence of humanity. Which was really short but so wise because I had, without realizing it really, begun to question humanity,” Goldberg-Polin said.

“And he gave me permission to not lose faith in humanity. I can still have faith and hope that humanity will be victorious over the darkness that we, the hostage families and the hostages themselves, are going through,” she told OSV News as she was still hopeful their son will be back home soon.

On Aug. 29, relatives of hostages taken to Gaza had just gathered to shout out their hope and their pain in Nirim, at the fence around the security zone 1.2 miles from the Gaza Strip. Rachel delivered a heart-wrenching message at the Gaza border.

“Hersh! It’s Mom. … I pray to God he brings you back. Right now. I love you, stay strong, survive,” she shouted in a microphone in hopes her 23-year-old Israeli-American son might hear her.

Earlier in August, Hersh’s parents were speakers at the Democratic National Convention.

“This is a political convention. But needing our only son — and all of the cherished hostages — home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said his father, Jon Polin, Aug. 21 in Chicago. Bowing her head during the ovation, Rachel called on her son to “stay strong, survive.”

On Sept. 1, the Golberg-Polin family released a statement: “With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.

Fighting in Gaza paused for a brief time while polio vaccinations were carried out after U.N. officials confirmed a 10-month-old baby had been partially paralyzed after contracting Gaza’s first case of polio for 25 years. Israel has agreed to a series of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow for the vaccination of children against polio.

(OSV News) – The organization that coordinates efforts related to the National Eucharistic Revival announced Sept. 3 the launch of the Society of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus to boost revival efforts.

In an email to supporters, Jason Shanks, CEO of National Eucharistic Congress Inc., described the society as a way people “can help and remain closely connected to the many ongoing efforts of charity and evangelization, of pilgrimage and procession – of mission – to bring Christ to every corner of our nation.”

Joining the society requires a minimum $10 monthly donation to National Eucharistic Congress Inc. Members will receive a copy of “For the Life of the World: Invited to Eucharistic Mission” by Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, who serves as board chairman of the National Eucharistic Congress Inc., and Tim Glemkowski, the founding CEO of National Eucharistic Congress Inc., who served in that role until Aug. 1.

Society members also receive access to the National Eucharistic Congress digital platform, which includes all of the talks from the July 17-21 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, as well as additional Eucharist-related content.

Information on joining the society can be found at www.eucharisticcongress.org/donate.

Shanks, who took the helm of National Eucharistic Congress Inc. Aug. 1 after serving as president of the OSV Institute for Catholic Innovation in Indiana, described the revival’s next phase as “off to an amazing, grace-led start,” and he encouraged society members to “use the talks from the Congress and the wisdom of Bishop Cozzens’ and Tim’s book to form your heart for mission.”

National Eucharistic Congress Inc. oversaw the planning and execution of this year’s National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and National Eucharistic Congress, two major components of the National Eucharistic Revival. A three-year initiative of the U.S. bishops, the revival launched in 2022 with the aim of deepening Catholics’ understanding of and love for Jesus in the Eucharist.

The revival is now focusing on its Year of Mission, in which Catholics are encouraged to become “Eucharistic missionaries” who share the reality and impact of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist with others. This is especially realized through the revival’s “Walk with One” campaign, which asks Catholics to identify one person whom they can accompany on their faith journey and deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ.

The National Eucharistic Congress Inc. nonprofit was formed in 2022 to support the bishops’ vision for the revival.

Although the bishops’ revival initiative originally was set to formally end with the feast of Pentecost 2025, Shanks told OSV News in August that the organization’s work will continue beyond June and is expected to include future national Eucharistic congresses.

In the Sept. 3 email to supporters, Shanks described the revival’s goal as “re-centering the life of the Catholic Church in America on Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”

“This is where every great Catholic saint and every great Catholic mission began, so it’s where we begin as well,” he wrote. “As we heard time and again at the Congress, He sustains us in the Most Blessed Sacrament as we set out on mission to love and serve Him by loving and serving those made in his image.”

(OSV News) – A “true Eucharistic experience” can recommit the faithful to the care of God’s creation, said two U.S. Catholic bishops in a joint message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

On Aug. 30, Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop A. Elias Zaidan of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace, released a reflection on the centrality of the Eucharist in redeeming humankind and the creation with which it has been divinely entrusted.

The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which takes place Sept. 1, was first proclaimed by the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I in 1989, coinciding with the start of the Orthodox liturgical year.

In 2015, Pope Francis instituted the observance in the Catholic Church, saying that it provided a “fitting opportunity” for Catholics “to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live.”

In June, the pope announced the theme for this year’s day of prayer would be “Hope and Act with Creation.”

The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation also marks the start of the “Season of Creation,” which concludes with the Oct. 4 feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose “Canticle of the Sun” inspired the title and text of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.”

The five-week celebration of a “Season of Creation” had first been proposed in 2007 at the Third European Ecumenical Assembly, with the World Council of Churches moving the following year to endorse the time of prayer and action for environmental stewardship. Following Pope Francis’ designation of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Catholics throughout the world have increasingly participated in the extended “Season of Creation” observance.

In the U.S.,”the message of hope and care for creation resonates deeply with the Catholic community,” which “continues to experience the joy” of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress held in Indianapolis in July, said Archbishop Gudziak and Bishop Zaidan in their message.

Drawing on the insights of both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI, the two bishops shared their thoughts on “hope in the Lord in a scientific age” where “an almost spiritual hope in techno-scientific progress” can cause a drift from a reliance on “amazing grace to amazing gadgets.”

The bishops noted that in his 2007 encyclical “Spe Salvi” (“In hope we were saved”), Pope Benedict XVI identified a profound shift in thought during the early 17th century that replaced hope in Christ with “faith in progress.” Pope Francis underscored the dangers of this shift in “Laudato Si’,” which, as the bishops noted, highlights a “technocratic paradigm whereby the unchecked power of technology drives the progressive devastation of the planet.

“The damaged fruit of our technocratic endeavors, a spoiled planet, is a problem that algorithms, machines and technologies can never solve,” said Archbishop Gudziak and Bishop Zaidan. “If we are to be saved in hope, that hope must be in God.”

The bishops stressed that “we are not left to our own devices” in healing the ravages of environmental exploitation or the ravages of sin on the human condition as a whole, since “God is with us.”

Rebuilding a broken world “can only happen in continuity with the first edifice, which has Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, the rock that holds everything together,” said the bishops.

The Eucharist assures us that “Jesus chose to remain with us in a specific and concrete way, in his Body and Blood.”

For that reason, “it should be of no surprise that the poor man of Assisi (St. Francis) had a profound reverence and respect for the Body and Blood of the Lord,” said Archbishop Gudziak and Bishop Zaidan.

“The ‘root and source’ of St. Francis’ love for peace, poverty and care for creation was Jesus Christ,” they said, referencing the Second Vatican Council’s description of the Eucharist as the source and summit of Christian life.

“The care for creation is constitutive of the Christian life,” they said. “So let us go forth, with hope, to care for all of God’s creation.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Earth is ailing, and it needs the prayers of Catholics as well as their personal commitment to caring for creation, Pope Francis said.

“Let us pray that each of us listen with our hearts to the cry of the Earth and of the victims of environmental disasters and climate change, making a personal commitment to care for the world we inhabit,” the pope said in a video message released Aug. 30 by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention each month, and members of the network pray for that intention each day. Pope Francis’ intention for September is: “For the cry of the Earth,” which coincides with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation Sept. 1 and its inauguration of the monthlong “Season of Creation.”

“If we took the planet’s temperature, it would tell us that the Earth has a fever,” the pope said in the video. “And it is sick, just like anyone who’s sick. But are we listening to this pain? Do we hear the pain of the millions of victims of environmental catastrophes?”

The first victims and those who suffer most, he said, are “the poor, those who are forced to leave their homes because of floods, heat waves or drought.”

To fight poverty and protect nature at the same time, people must change their personal habits, the pope said; but because climate change, pollution and the loss of biodiversity are “caused by humans,” social, economic and political responses also are necessary.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A few hours after he railed against unjust immigration policies at his general audience, Pope Francis and community organizers associated with the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation returned to the theme of welcoming and integrating migrants.

“For us, baptism does not stop at the border,” Joe Rubio, national co-director of IAF for the west-southwest region, told Catholic News Service Aug. 29.

In 20 U.S. dioceses, the foundation and its partners run “Recognizing the Stranger,” a leadership development program that helps immigrants and members of their new parishes develop stronger relationships and work together for the good of their community.

Pope Francis had dedicated his entire general audience talk Aug. 28 to the theme of migration and the obligation to help those seeking safety, freedom and a better life for themselves and their families. He met the community organizers later that day.

While Rubio and his colleagues were in Rome, they also met with Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, to continue discussions on how their organizations could work with similar groups supported by the Latin American bishops’ council, known as CELAM.

“We see that the immigration phenomenon in the Americas is something that is the joint responsibility of the church in North and South America,” Rubio said, so finding ways to work together is something they are exploring. And, Rubio added, there seem to be “similarities between our style of organizing and how the church works, particularly in the poor communities in Latin America.”

The audience with the pope Aug. 28 was the leaders’ third private meeting with Pope Francis, and they left with a gift that doubled as homework: Near the end of their discussion, the pope asked an aide to get each of the organizers a copy in English or Spanish of his three encyclicals and three of his apostolic letters.

They had told the pope they were studying “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” and that they and the people they train read “Power and Responsibility” by Father Romano Guardini, one of the pope’s preferred theologians.

While Pope Francis praised the community organizers for being concrete, for looking around them, listening to people’s needs and then collaborating to find solutions, Rubio said he also told them, “How good it is that you are reading Guardini.”

Joining Rubio in recounting their meeting with the pope to CNS were: Tim McManus, a senior organizer working in Texas, California and Arizona; Elizabeth Valdez, a Houston-based organizer; Liz Hall, lead organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area; and Jorge Montiel, an organizer in Colorado and New Mexico.

Each person at the meeting, they said, had a chance to share his or her personal story with the pope. Montiel said one of the organizers told the pope how she did not want to get involved in community organizing because her experience was that politics always ends up being about power, and power corrupts. But, in the end, the killing of a 6-year-old girl in her neighborhood convinced her to act.

In response, Montiel said, Pope Francis told them, “Faith that does not lead to the work of justice is not real faith.”

In “Fratelli Tutti,” Montiel said, the pope talks a lot about the importance of politics in serving the common good, “but he is way more cautious when talking about power.”

But, Pope Francis told the group, “power is ‘fugitive.’ You either take it or it disappears. Now, it’s more comfortable if you let it go. If you take it, it’s more work because you have to be responsible,” Montiel said the pope told them.