Catholic News Agency: Vatican

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Jesus 'wants pastors, not combers of sheep,' Pope Francis says

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 18, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 18, 2013 / 01:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Christians are called to be evangelists, seeking out the sheep who are lost rather than staying at home tending to the few who have never left, Pope Francis said at the Vatican's Paul VI Hall. “It's the 99 who we're missing! We have to go out, we must go to them,” the Bishop of Rome said June 17 to the participants of the annual convention of the Diocese of Rome. “The Lord wants pastors, not combers of sheep; pastors! And when a community is closed, always among the same people who talk, this community is not a community that gives life.” Pope Francis opened his speech discussing grace, and its tremendous power to make saints out of sinners, through the freedom it brings. He called the power of grace “revolutionary,” and that it must have a revolutionary effect on the hearts of Christians. “Only one thing is necessary to become saints: accept the grace that the Fath
Categories: Catholic News Agency: Vatican

Pope explains how Christians can love bombers

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 18, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 18, 2013 / 11:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis tackled Jesus’ teaching that Christians must love their enemies by asking a series of provocative questions, such as, how can we love those who “bomb and kill so many people?” As he began his June 18 homily, the Pope illustrated how difficult and wide-ranging Jesus’ teaching on loving one’s enemies can be by posing a series of questions to the congregation. How can we love those who decide to “bomb and kill so many people?” How can we “love those who out of their for love money prevent the elderly from accessing the necessary medicine and leave them to die?” And at the more general level, the Pope asked how Christians can love those who only pursue “their own best interests, power for themselves and do so much evil?” “It seems hard to love your enemy,” he stated, but Jesus asks it of us. It is a teaching that is “so hard
Categories: Catholic News Agency: Vatican

Children's journey of beauty ends with papal visit

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 18, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 18, 2013 / 09:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This coming Sunday, almost 500 disadvantaged children will arrive at the Vatican on a special red train, where they will be greeted by Pope Francis as part of their “Journey of Beauty.” The project focuses on children, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi explained, “because I think that therein lies the root from which we must build a generation of young persons who still have ... the beauty of creativity – that doesn't seem old at the start – who aren't already discouraged the way we are but who are ready to live more the future that awaits them.” The “Children’s Train: A Journey of Beauty” was unveiled during a June 18 press conference at the Vatican’s press office by Cardinal Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and other organizers. The children’s initiative was actually born out of a suggestion by a participant in the pontifical council&r
Categories: Catholic News Agency: Vatican

Jesus makes slaps, insults 'nothing,' Pope declares

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 17, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 17, 2013 / 11:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Jesus makes it possible for Christians to “turn the other cheek” because they have received “all” from him, making slights, insults and even good things “nothing,” Pope Francis said. He delivered his comments in his June 17 homily on Matthew 5:38-42, where Jesus tells his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.” Pope Francis said that Christians should pray that, “when we are confronted with the choice of the slap, the coat, the 100 kilometers, we must pray the Lord to ‘open up our heart’ so that ‘we are benevolent and meek.’ We must pray so that we do not fight for small things, for the ‘nothings’ of daily life.” “A true Ch
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Interim bank appointment means Pope wants cardinals' advice

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 17, 2013
Rome, Italy, Jun 17, 2013 / 10:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The temporary selection of a prelate for the so-called Vatican Bank shows Pope Francis is waiting for the advice of the cardinals he tapped as advisors before deciding the fate of the financial institute, according to a source in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. The appointment of the prelate “must not be charged too much with expectations of a reform. The Pope needed to fill a post and wanted to give a signal that he really cares about the IOR issue, but he also showed the sensibility to make an ‘ad interim’ appointment, presumably waiting for the cardinals’ suggestions,” the anonymous State Secretariat source said June 15. Monsignor Battista Ricca was appointed as prelate for the Institute for Works of Religion, also known by its Italian initials IOR, on June 15. The prelate serves as a liaison between the cardinals’ oversight commission – composed of five cardinals and
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Economy, politics must serve man, Pope tells G8

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 17, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 17, 2013 / 08:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a message to Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, Pope Francis underscored that the “material and spiritual welfare” of every person must be the impetus behind political and economic efforts to remedy the economic crisis and help the poor. The goal of both economics and politics, the Pope said in his June 15 letter, “is to serve humanity, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers’ wombs.” Pope Francis wrote his reply to David Cameron after the British prime minister sent him a letter dated June 5, in which he outlined his priorities for the United Kingdom’s turn as president of the Group of Eight Industrialized Nations, which is meeting June 17-18 in Northern Ireland. The prime minister told the Pope that he wants to help developing and developed nations by “restoring strong and sustainable growth to the world economy.&r
Categories: Catholic News Agency: Vatican

Pope's friendliness impresses Harley-Davidson crowd

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 16, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 16, 2013 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Harley-Davidson owners flocked to St. Peter’s Square today for a chance to greet Pope Francis, and they came away struck by his friendliness and closeness to the people. “To be here and see the Pope is absolutely amazing. He’s so friendly, he’s just so friendly,” said Bob from the Lakeside, England chapter as he spoke to CNA June 16. His fellow Lakeside member Harry agreed. “He’s so friendly and he comes to you,” he commented. A Swiss motorcyclist went even further in her esteem for the new pontiff. “For me, he is the best Pope now – Papa Francesco,” said Simone from Lucerne. For his part, Pope Francis offered a short greeting to the motorcyclists after celebrating a Mass for the Gospel of Life weekend that was organized by the Vatican as part of the ongoing Year of Faith. Before praying the Angelus, the Pope noted with pleasure that Edward Focherini, a jo
Categories: Catholic News Agency: Vatican

Pope: Selfish living leads to slavery, death

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 16, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 16, 2013 / 06:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As he met with thousands of pro-life advocates from around the globe, Pope Francis stressed that the Gospel is the “way to freedom and life,” but lifestyles that are “dictated by selfishness” lead to slavery and death. “Dear brothers and sisters,” the Pope urged, “let us look to God as the God of Life, let us look to his law, to the Gospel message, as the way to freedom and life. The Living God sets us free!” He addressed his homily for the June 16 Mass in St. Peter’s Square to pilgrims from Australia, Asia, Europe and North and South America, who filled the famous piazza up to its gates. They were also joined in the square by around 1,400 people on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles, who came to Rome to celebrate 110 years of the iconic American machine and to receive the Pope’s blessing during the Angelus prayer that followed the Mass.   Pope Francis based h
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Pope calls Jesuit magazine to dialogue without relativism

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 15, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 15, 2013 / 01:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met with the staff of the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica on Friday morning, encouraging them to dialogue with everyone and to avoid the failings of a “self-referential” Church. “Even the Church, when it becomes self-referential, gets sick and old,” Pope Francis said. “May our gaze, well fixed upon Christ, always be prophetic and dynamic towards the future. In this way you will always remain young and daring in your reading of events!” La Civilta Cattolica, whose name means “Catholic civilization,” is a primarily Italian-language review that has been published in Rome since it was founded in 1850. The Pope told the review’s staff that dialogue means “being convinced that the other has something good to say” and “making room for their point of view” without falling into relativism. Dialogue requires one to “lower the defense
Categories: Catholic News Agency: Vatican

Defending life in politics part of New Evangelization, Cardinal Burke states

By: CNA Daily News - Vatican
Source: Catholic News Agency: Vatican
Date: June 15, 2013
Vatican City, Jun 15, 2013 / 09:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Participating in the political process in favor of human life is a part of the New Evangelization, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said as he kicked-off a pro-life weekend at the Vatican. “While the transformation of hearts is the most fundamental means of new evangelization regarding human life, Catholics and all persons of good will must be attentive to all laws, which safeguard the dignity of human life,” Cardinal Burke said June 15 at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome. The morning of formation was part of a weekend dedicated to celebrating Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Evangelium vitae.” It was attended by about 140 people, many of whom were from the United States. Cardinal Burke, who runs the Church’s highest court, began his talk by focusing on how the Gospel of Life is intertwined with evangelizing and the Year of Faith, which the Church is currently celebrating. When he came to
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