VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Catholic Church must continue discerning its future by listening to everyone, starting with the poorest and excluded, after the assembly of the Synod of Bishops closes its first session, participants said in a letter addressed to the “People of God.”

The two-and-a-half-page letter published Oct. 25 recounted the spirit and activities of the assembly’s first session, held at the Vatican Oct. 4-29, and looked ahead to the assembly’s second session, expressing hope that the months leading up to October 2024 “will allow everyone to concretely participate in the dynamism of missionary communion indicated by the word ‘synod.'”

Participants in the assembly of the Synod of Bishops meeting in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican Oct. 25, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“This is not about ideology, but about an experience rooted in the apostolic tradition,” the synod assembly wrote.

While the letter does not raise specific topics or questions to be addressed in the assembly’s next session — a synthesis report reflecting the work of the first session and next steps is expected to be published Oct. 28 — it did say that to “progress in its discernment, the church absolutely needs to listen to everyone, starting with the poorest.”

“It means listening to those who have been denied the right to speak in society or who feel excluded, even by the Church,” the letter said, specifying the need to listen to victims of racism, particularly Indigenous populations. “Above all, the Church of our time has the duty to listen, in a spirit of conversion, to those who have been victims of abuse committed by members of the ecclesial body and to commit herself concretely and structurally to ensuring that this does not happen again.”

The letter made special reference to the need for listening to the laity, catechists, children, the elderly, families and those who want to be involved in lay ministries and “participate in discernment and decision-making structures” of the church.

It also specified that the church must gather more experiences and testimonies from priests, bishops and consecrated persons, while being “attentive to all those who do not share her faith but are seeking the truth.”

The drafting of the letter was approved by the synod assembly and was discussed both during small group working sessions and among the entire assembly Oct. 23, the synod general secretariat said.

It began by recounting the “unprecedented experience” of men and women participating in discussions and exercising voting rights in a synod assembly by virtue of their baptism and not based on ordination.

The assembly, it said, took place in a “world in crisis, whose wounds and scandalous inequalities resonated painfully in our hearts, infusing our work with a particular gravity, especially since some of us come from countries where war rages.”

The letter also highlighted the “significant room for silence” made at the Pope Francis’ invitation, meant to “foster mutual listening and a desire for communion in the Spirit among us.”

“Trust,” the synod assembly wrote, is what “gives us the audacity and inner freedom that we experienced, not hesitating to freely and humbly express our convergences, differences, desires and questions.”

“Day by day, we felt the pressing call to pastoral and missionary conversion,” the assembly said. “For the Church’s vocation is to proclaim the Gospel not by focusing on itself, but by placing itself at the service of the infinite love with which God loved the world.”

The letter also shared that homeless people near St. Peter’s Square were asked about their expectations of the church on the occasion of the synod and they replied: “Love!”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – In the eyes of the world it would appear “absurd” to begin helping the poor and struggling for justice by spending time in adoration before the Eucharist, Pope Francis said, but that is precisely what an Italy-based religious order has been doing for 100 years.

Pope Francis greets members of the Sister Disciples of Jesus in the Eucharist at the end of a meeting in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican Aug. 25, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

“In the face of immense needs and with almost no resources at their disposal, what sense did it have to tell the sisters to get on their knees in adoration and reparation,” the pope said Aug. 25 as he joined a celebration of the centenary of the Sister Disciples of Jesus in the Eucharist.

But the practice worked, Pope Francis told the sisters and their collaborators at the meeting in the Vatican audience hall.

The prayers and adoration of the early members of the congregation “generated a contagious force, which soon led them to undertake and promote works of material, cultural and spiritual redemption far exceeding all expectations,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Thanking a group of European lawyers for their attention to environmental protection laws, Pope Francis said he was preparing another document on the subject.

“I am writing a second part to Laudato Si’ to update it on current problems,” the pope told the lawyers Aug. 21 during a meeting in the library of the Apostolic Palace. He provided no further information.

Pope Francis speaks to a delegation of European lawyers in the library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Aug. 21, 2023. Thanking the lawyers for their advocacy of environmental protection laws, the pope announced he was writing another document on the environment. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home” was the title of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical letter on the need for an “integral ecology” that respects the dignity and value of the human person, helps the poor and safeguards the planet.

The pope made his remark in the context of thanking the lawyers for their “willingness to work for the development of a normative framework aimed at protecting the environment.”

“It must never be forgotten,” he said, “that future generations are entitled to receive from our hands a beautiful and habitable world, and that this entails grave responsibilities toward the natural world that we have received from the benevolent hands of God.”

Members of the group Pope Francis met with represented presidents of European bars and legal associations who signed a declaration in 2022 calling on members of the European Union and Council of Europe to uphold and respect the rule of law, especially in times of crisis like that created by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“These times of social and economic crisis, as well as a crisis of identity and security, challenge the democracies of the West to provide an effective response, while remaining faithful to their principles,” particularly the promotion of democracy and respect for freedom and human dignity, he said.

“Fear of civil unrest and acts of violence, the prospect of destabilizing change and the need to act effectively in confronting emergency situations, can result in the temptation to make exceptions or to restrict – at least provisionally – the rule of law in the effort to find easy and immediate solutions,” the pope said.

“For this reason,” he told them, “I appreciate your insistence, in one of your proposals, that ‘the rule of law should no longer be subject to the slightest exceptions, including in times of crisis.’ For the rule of law stands at the service of the human person and aims to protect the dignity of each, which admits of no exception.”

The pope cautioned, however, that laws promoting the dignity of the human person must be based on the truth about human beings, their divine origin and their ultimate destination. “Without the constant effort to pursue the truth about the human person, in accordance with God’s plan, individuals become the measure of themselves and their actions.”

“Today, in effect, we are witnessing a tendency to claim more and more individual rights, without taking into account the fact that every human being is part of a social context in which his or her rights and duties are bound up with those of others and with the common good of society itself,” the pope said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has appointed more than 450 participants, including dozens of religious men and women and laypeople from around the world, to attend the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality in October.

And that list is not even complete, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, told reporters at a Vatican news conference July 7. More names are going to be added to the list of nonvoting members, such as experts and representatives of non-Catholic Christian communities, he said.

This is the official logo for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Originally scheduled for 2022, the synod will take place in October 2023 to allow for broader consultation at the diocesan, national and regional levels. (CNS photo/courtesy Synod of Bishops)

For now, the list of voting members is complete, numbering 363 cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay men and women — a first in the history of the synod. Pope Francis made significant changes to who can be a voting member of the synod on synodality and he gave women the right to vote in the synod.

Out of the 364 members who can vote, which includes the pope, 54 are women — either lay or religious; the number of cardinals appointed as members also is 54.

More than a quarter of all the voting members, that is 26.4%, are not bishops, according to the 21-page list of the appointments released July 7 by the Vatican.

Those the pope appointed to take part in the Oct. 4-29 synod include 169 cardinals or bishops representing national bishops’ conferences; 20 cardinals or bishops representing Eastern Catholic churches; five cardinals or bishops representing regional federations of bishops’ conferences; and 20 heads of Vatican dicasteries, which includes one layman, Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication.

The bishops appointed to attend from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are: Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas; Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota; and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.

The pope also appointed five religious men and five religious women to represent the International Union of Superiors General and the Union of Superiors General.

There are an additional 50 papally appointed members, the majority of whom are cardinals and bishops, but they include 11 priests, religious and 1 layman and 1 laywoman. Those from the United States include: Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington; Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego; Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston; Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle; and Jesuit Father James Martin.

Another novelty is a large group of non-bishop voting members who represent the “continental assemblies” and are named “witnesses of the synodal process.” There are 10 members in each group divided by continent: Africa; North America; Latin America; Asia; Eastern Churches and the Middle East; Europe; and Oceania, for a total of 70 individuals who are all priests, religious or lay men and women.

The group for North America includes: Richard Coll, executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the USCCB in Washington; Cynthia Bailey Manns, the adult learning director at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minnesota; Catherine Clifford, a theology professor and expert on the Second Vatican Council; Canadian Sister Chantal Desmarais, a Sister of Charity of St. Mary; Father Iván Montelongo of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas; and Sister Leticia Salazar, chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California.

Among the 16 who are part of the synod’s ordinary council include: U.S. Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey; Canadian Cardinal Gérald C. Lacroix of Québec; and Australian Archbishop Anthony C. Fisher of Sydney.

Nine members will serve as delegate presidents of the assembly and they include: Bishop Flores of Brownsville; Coptic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak; one priest, Italian Father Giuseppe Bonfrate; one nun, Mexican Sister of St. Joseph María de los Dolores Palencia; and one consecrated laywoman, Momoko Nishimura of Japan. Pope Francis will serve as president and Cardinal Mario Grech as the synod’s secretary-general.

The list of nonvoting members is not complete, Cardinal Grech said.

That list released July 7 included two spiritual assistants: British Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe and Italian Benedictine Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini. All synod participants will be expected to attend a three-day retreat before the synod begins in early October.

All of the 57 nonvoting “experts and facilitators” listed as of July 7 are priests and religious and lay men and women. They include: U.S. Sister Maria Cimperman, who is a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart; Jesuit Father David McCallum; and Australian theologian Tracey Rowland.

The theme of the synod is: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission,” and synod members will be called upon to continue to carry forward a “process of spiritual discernment” that was begun in 2021 and continue with a second synod assembly in 2024.

ROME (CNS) – Pope Francis has returned to the Vatican after a nine-day hospital stay and intends to go ahead with his planned trips abroad in August and September, according to his chief surgeon.

“The pope is fine. He’s better than before,” said Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the chief surgeon who operated on the pope June 7 to repair a hernia; he also operated on the pope in 2021.

Pope Francis smiles and waves to people as he leaves Rome’s Gemelli hospital early June 16, 2023, nine days after undergoing abdominal surgery. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“The pope has confirmed all his trips,” the doctor told reporters outside Rome’s Gemelli hospital June 16, right after the pope was released. The pope was scheduled to attend World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 2-6, and to go to Mongolia Aug. 31-Sept. 4.

“As a matter of fact,” Alfieri said, according to Vatican News, “he will be able to embark on them better than before because now he will no longer have the discomfort of his previous ailments. He will be a stronger pope.”

When asked about the pope’s “convalescence” to fully heal from abdominal surgery, Alfieri said, “he doesn’t convalesce; he has already started working.”

“We asked him to do some convalescence (and) this time I’m sure he will listen to us a little bit more because he has important events ahead of him and he has already said personally that he will go through with all of them, including his trips,” Alfieri said.

When the pope emerged from the hospital in a wheelchair the morning of June 16, he greeted well-wishers and journalists who asked him how he was. “I’m still alive,” he said, smiling.

He also expressed his sorrow for the recent deaths of migrants who drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea near Greece.

He was accompanied to an awaiting white Fiat car by his aides and Alfieri, and then, with the front passenger-side window open, waved to others lining the road as he left.

Before returning to the Vatican, he stopped to pray at the icon of Mary, “Salus Populi Romani,” in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a stop he makes before and after every trip abroad and a stop he also made in July 2021 after undergoing colon surgery at the Gemelli.

Then the pope “stopped for a brief private visit to the sisters of the Institute of the Most Holy Child Mary, gathered for their general chapter,” the Vatican press office said. The pope also greeted police outside one of the side entrances into the Vatican to “thank them for their service.”

The Vatican press office said the pope’s Angelus address and prayer with visitors in St. Peter’s Square June 18 was confirmed as well as individual audiences in the coming days.

His general audience June 21 was canceled, however, “to safeguard the Holy Father’s postoperative recovery,” it said in a communique June 16.

Pope Francis underwent a three-hour surgery to repair a hernia June 7. The procedure, under general anesthesia, was performed using a surgical mesh to strengthen the repair and prevent the recurrence of a hernia. Surgeons also removed several adhesions or bands of scar tissue that had formed after previous surgeries decades ago, Alfieri told reporters after the operation.

Alfieri had explained that the pope’s immediate recovery required avoiding undue stress or strain so as not to tear the prosthetic mesh used to reinforce the abdominal wall.

The pope had spent seven days in the hospital in July 2021 after undergoing colon surgery to treat diverticulitis, inflammation of bulges in the intestine. He was also hospitalized for three nights for a respiratory infection in late March.

ROME (CNS) – Pope Francis was scheduled to be released from Rome’s Gemelli hospital June 16 after having abdominal surgery June 7, the Vatican press office said.

His blood tests have been normal, and his recovery has continued smoothly, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters June 15. “The health care team that is following Pope Francis confirmed the Holy Father’s discharge” from the hospital was planned for the morning of June 16, he said in a written communique.

Pope Francis visits children, their parents and staff members of the pediatric oncology and neurosurgery ward located on the same floor as his room in Rome’s Gemelli hospital June 15, 2023. The Vatican said the pope was expected to be released from the hospital the next day. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

The pope spent part of June 15 visiting children in the pediatric oncology and neurosurgery ward located on the same floor as the private suite of rooms set aside for the pope.

He greeted the young patients, who were among those who had sent him letters, drawings and gifts wishing him a speedy recovery, and he gave each of them a rosary and book, Bruni wrote.

Pope Francis witnessed first-hand “the pain of these children, who carry, together with their mothers and fathers, the suffering of the cross on their shoulders every day,” Bruni wrote.

The pope thanked the staff “for their professionalism and efforts to alleviate others’ suffering with tenderness and humanity as well as medication.”

Earlier in the day, he met with and thanked the medical staff and personnel involved with his surgery June 7 and met with hospital administrators, Bruni said.

The evening before, he added, the pope had dinner with “those who have been assisting him since the day of his hospitalization.”

Pope Francis underwent a three-hour surgery to repair a hernia June 7. The procedure, under general anesthesia, was performed using a surgical mesh to strengthen the repair and prevent the recurrence of a hernia. Surgeons also removed several adhesions or bands of scar tissue that had formed after previous surgeries decades ago, according to Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the chief surgeon operating on the pope.

Vatican News reported that the pope’s audiences have been canceled until June 18 as a “precaution.”

ROME (CNS) – Pope Francis had a restful, peaceful first night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital after a successful three-hour operation June 7 for a hernia.

He has been informed of the many messages of “closeness and affection” from well-wishers and he “expresses his gratitude, while asking for continued prayers,” said Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, in a written statement June 8.

A statue of St. John Paul II is seen outside of Rome’s Gemelli hospital June 8, 2023, where Pope Francis is staying in the papal suite on the top floor after undergoing surgery to treat a hernia June 7, 2023. Because of his frequent visits over his three-decade pontificate, the Polish pope affectionately called the hospital “the third Vatican” after his second “home” at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome. (CNS photo/Justin McLellan)

The medical staff in charge of monitoring the 86-year-old pope’s post-operative recovery said that “Pope Francis had a peaceful night, managing to rest extensively,” Bruni said.

The pope “is in good general condition, alert and breathing on his own. Routine follow-up examinations are good. He will observe the necessary post-operative rest for the entire day,” June 8, Bruni added.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, asked that Catholics “keep Pope Francis and all those in the hospital in your prayers.”

“As Pope Francis recovers from surgery, he is strengthened by faith in the healing power of our merciful God,” he said in a written statement released June 7. “Jesus always walks with us and is even closer whenever we need healing and comfort.”

Pope Francis underwent a three-hour abdominal surgery “without complications” June 7 to treat a hernia, according to the Vatican press office.

The 86-year-old pope was taken to Rome’s Gemelli hospital shortly after his general audience June 7. He was put under general anesthesia and underwent abdominal surgery to treat a hernia that developed at the site of abdominal incisions from previous operations, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the chief surgeon operating on the pope, said at a news conference at the hospital following the operation.

Speaking to journalists after the surgery, Alfieri said Pope Francis had a number of internal scars and adhesions from two operations many years ago, possibly in Argentina; one was to treat peritonitis — inflammation of abdominal tissue — caused by an infected gallbladder and another to treat hydatid disease caused by cysts containing a parasite. It was this last operation that had left behind scars in the pope’s abdominal tissue where another hernia had developed.

Alfieri said that during the three-hour operation adhesions were found between the intestine and the membrane that lines the abdomen, that for months caused an “aggravating, painful” intestinal blockage.

The adhesions were freed during the surgery and the opening in the abdomen’s wall that led to the hernia was repaired with prosthetic mesh.

Alfieri, who also operated on the pope in 2021, said the pope had no complications and responded well to the general anesthesia he was administered during this surgery and the one in 2021 that removed part of his colon.

The chief surgeon underscored that, in both operations, all affected tissue had been benign.

“The pope does not have other illnesses,” he said.

Alfieri explained that while the medical team that follows the pope had been discussing the scheduled operation for several days, the final decision to operate was not taken until June 6, when Pope Francis briefly visited the hospital for a medical checkup and tests.

“It was not urgent,” he said, “or else we would have operated on him then.”

Before going to the hospital the pope seemed well and in good spirits, holding his general audience as usual, riding in the popemobile, blessing babies, walking with a cane and meeting special guests afterward. He had held two private meetings before the general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

Vatican News reported he arrived at the Gemelli hospital around 11:30 a.m. local time in the compact Fiat 500 he often rides in. The windows of the papal suite on the 10th floor of the hospital were opened just after 6 p.m.

Alfieri noted that shortly after the surgery Pope Francis was already working and making jokes, and had asked the surgeon in jest: “When are we doing the third (surgery)?”

While Alfieri said recovery for this operation typically lasts about seven days. Vatican News reported that the pope’s audiences have been canceled until June 18 as a “precaution.”

Bruni said June 7 that, for now, all events the pope was scheduled to attend after June 18 were still on his calendar and had not been canceled.

Pope Francis was scheduled to meet with 29 Nobel Peace Prize winners at the Vatican June 10 for an event to celebrate human fraternity. Before going to the hospital, the pope encouraged its organizers to continue with the event as planned without him, a statement from the foundation organizing the event said.

This was Pope Francis’ third hospitalization at the Gemelli hospital, the most recent was from March 29 to April 1 when he was admitted for an acute respiratory infection.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has named U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, to be the next president of the supreme court of Vatican City State.

Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, attends a news conference at the Vatican in this May 10, 2022, file photo. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Until Pope Francis modified the judiciary of the city-state in April, the president of the court always was the prefect of the Apostolic Signature, the Holy See’s highest court. The current president is Cardinal Dominque Mamberti.

The Vatican announced June 2 that Cardinal Farrell, 75, would become president of the Court of Cassation, as the Vatican’s highest civil court is known, beginning Jan. 1. The position is not a fulltime role.

As judges on the court, Pope Francis named Cardinals Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Paolo Lojudice of Siena and Mauro Gambetti, the papal vicar for Vatican City.

All four cardinals were appointed to five-year terms.

The Court of Cassation is the highest court of appeals for Vatican City State and can interpret Vatican City law.

In addition to serving as prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Farrell also is camerlengo or chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church. While the pope is alive, the job is basically just a title. But when a pope dies or resigns, the chamberlain is charged with sealing the papal apartments, chairing consultations about the papal funeral, making the practical preparations for the conclave to elect the next pope, and chairing a committee of cardinals that takes care of the church’s ordinary affairs until a new pope is elected.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – While the release of the working document for the Synod of Bishops on synodality is expected sometime in early June, Pope Francis tried to respond to some of the questions and concerns about the synod process that already have been raised.

Pope Francis speaks to members of the Italian bishops’ conference and diocesan leaders involved in Italy’s national synod process May 25, 2023, in the Vatican audience hall. The pope addressed questions and concerns members of the group submitted about his notion of fostering a “synodal church.” (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Meeting at the Vatican May 25 with members of the Italian bishops’ conference and the people they chose to coordinate work for an Italian synod, the pope gave a succinct description of what he means by a “synodal church”:

“Every baptized person is called to actively participate in the life and in the mission of the church, starting from the specifics of one’s own vocation, in relationship with others and with the charisms given by the Spirit for the good of all. We need Christian communities in which space is enlarged, where everyone can feel at home, where pastoral structures and means foster not the creation of small groups, but the joy of being and feeling co-responsible.”

Evangelization is at stake, he said. “A church weighed down by structures, bureaucracy and formalism will struggle to walk in history at the pace of the Spirit, meeting the men and women of our time.”

“The great enemy of this process,” he said, “is fear.”

Pope Francis said that as he entered the Vatican audience hall for the meeting, someone — using an Argentinian phrase that is not very polite, nor is its translation in Italian, he said — told him that the whole synod process is creating a mess.

“Think about the apostles on the morning of Pentecost,” the pope said. If the synod is “a blank,” he said to laughter, “Pentecost morning was even worse. It was worse. Total disorder. And who provoked that mess? The Holy Spirit. He’s good at creating disorder to move people. But the same Spirit also provoked harmony.”

“Don’t be afraid when there is disorder provoked by the Spirit,” Pope Francis said. One need fear “only when it is provoked by our selfishness or the spirit of evil.”

Speaking just a few days before Pentecost, the pope urged everyone, but especially the fearful, to pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who opens people to listen to others, who makes dialogue fruitful, enlightens discernment and guides choices and decisions.

Pope Francis told the bishops and representatives that he would try to respond to their questions about “the priorities for the church in relation to society, about how to overcome resistance and concerns, on the involvement of priests and lay people, and on the experiences of marginalization.”

Church unity and shared responsibility are essential, he said. An “always lurking” temptation is to rely on “a few ‘qualified actors’ who carry out pastoral activity” while the rest of the faithful stand by and watch.

“Sometimes one gets the impression that religious communities, chanceries and parishes are still too self-referential,” Pope Francis said.

“There seems to creep in, somewhat covertly, a kind of “defensive neoclericalism’ – clericalism is a perversion,” he said. It is “generated by a fearful attitude, by complaints that the world does not understand us anymore, that young people are lost and by a need to reiterate and make one’s influence felt.”

Obviously, the pope said, a “synodal church,” one where all are welcome, where all share the mission and contribute their prayer, time and talents will have an impact on those the Catholic Church still believes have been chosen by God and given special gifts to lead and to discern.

“We must ask the Holy Spirit to make us understand and experience how to be ordained ministers and how to exercise ministry in this time and in this church: never without the Other with a capital ‘O,’ but also never without others with whom we share the journey.”

“This applies to the bishops, whose ministry cannot do without that of priests and deacons” and to priests and deacons who must work with each other and the faithful, the pope said. “But this is also true for the entire community of the baptized, in which each one walks with other brothers and sisters in the school of the one Gospel and in the light of the Spirit.”

Promoting co-responsibility in the church, he said, is not simply a matter of finding a new way to “distribute power.”

Rather, he said, it means learning how to recognize the gifts of each person, particularly those “who still struggle to see their presence recognized in the church, those who do not have a voice, those whose voices are drowned out or even silenced or ignored, those who feel inadequate perhaps because they have difficult or complex life paths (and) are sometimes almost ‘excommunicated’ a priori.”

Part of the goal of synodality, he said, is to “let God’s heart shine through – a heart open to all and for all.”

Pope Francis said those already active in the church need to remember the parable of the wedding feast from Matthew 22. “When none of the invited guests show up, what does that gentleman say? ‘Go to the crossroads and call everyone.’ Everyone: sick, healthy, righteous, sinners, everyone, everyone.”

“We should ask ourselves how much space we make and how much we really listen in our communities to the voices of young people, women, the poor, those who are disappointed, those who have been hurt in life and are angry with the church,” the pope said. “As long as their presence remains sporadic in ecclesial life overall, the church will not be synodal, it will be a church of the few.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christ was born to touch people’s hearts and show that love is the power that changes the course of history, Pope Francis said.

However, the faithful must ask themselves, “Do we want to stand at his side? Do we draw close to him? Do we love his poverty? Or do we prefer to remain comfortably ensconced in our own interests and concerns?” the pope asked in his homily Dec. 24 as part of the nighttime liturgy.

Pope Francis kisses a figurine of the baby Jesus during Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Dec. 24, 2022. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“We are called to be a church that worships a Jesus who is poor and that serves him in the poor,” the pope said, calling for a renewed commitment to charitable action and concrete change.

“The church supports and blesses efforts to change the structures of injustice and sets down but one condition: that social, economic and political change truly benefit the poor,” the pope said, quoting St. Oscar Romero.

The evening Mass, which is often referred to as “midnight Mass,” has not been celebrated at midnight at the Vatican since 2009. Pope Francis celebrated the “Christmas Mass at Night” at 7:30 p.m., as he did in 2020 and 2021.

The Christmas hymn, “Noel,” was sung during the procession, and the Mass began with the Christmas proclamation, or “kalenda,” of Jesus’ birth. The pope, who was seated to the right of the altar, watched as a cloth was lifted, revealing a statue of baby Jesus.

The bells of St. Peter’s Basilica rang loudly announcing the birth of Christ, and several children representing different cultures placed white flowers around the crib of baby Jesus.

In his homily, the pope reflected on the danger of a Christmas filled only with “decorations and gifts, after so much consumerism that has packaged the mystery we celebrate.”

“How do we rediscover the meaning of Christmas?” the pope asked. “We need to look to the manger.”

“In the manger of rejection and discomfort, God makes himself present.”

“He comes there because there we see the problem of our humanity: the indifference produced by the greedy rush to possess and consume,” he said.

It is there that people can discover Jesus’ closeness to humanity, his choice to be present in the poor and marginalized, and his demand for “a concrete faith, made up of adoration and charity, not empty words and superficiality,” Pope Francis said.

The manger, as a feeding trough, can also symbolize a hunger for wealth and power, and people willing to consume “even their neighbors, their brothers and sisters,” he said.

“How many wars have we seen,” the pope asked, and how many places treat human dignity and freedom with contempt?

“This Christmas, too, as in the case of Jesus, a world ravenous for money, power and pleasure does not make room for the little ones, for so many unborn, poor and forgotten children,” especially those “devoured by war, poverty and injustice,” he said.

In Jesus, “every child is present. And we ourselves are invited to view life, politics and history through the eyes of children,” Pope Francis said.

With Jesus – born in a manger – he can become “our food,” feeding a hungry humanity “with his tender love,” he said. “He comes to touch our hearts and to tell us that love alone is the power that changes the course of history.”

On Christmas Eve, God is drawing near, the pope said. “From the manger, as food for your life, he tells you: ‘If you feel consumed by events, if you are devoured by a sense of guilt and inadequacy, if you hunger for justice, I, your God, am with you.'”

He said, “God was born in a manger so that you could be reborn in the very place where you thought you had hit rock bottom. There is no evil, there is no sin, from which Jesus does not want to save you. And he can. Christmas means that God is close to us: Let confidence be reborn!”

Jesus was born, lived and died in poverty, and he shows “where the true riches in life are to be found: not in money and power, but in relationships and persons,” he said.

“Let charity be reborn,” the pope said, and “may we not let this Christmas pass without doing something good” so that a little hope can be “born anew in those who feel hopeless.”

“Jesus is not satisfied with appearances” and good intentions, Pope Francis said.

Jesus wants concrete faith and the truth, he said. “He asks us to go to the bare reality of things, and to lay at the foot of the manger all our excuses, our justifications and our hypocrisies. Tenderly wrapped in swaddling clothes by Mary, he wants us to be clothed in love.”