ZENIT in Roswell, Georgia, United States "Vatican Spokesman Gives Overview of Pope’s Trip This Weekend..." for Thursday, 23 June 2016Like
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Vatican Spokesman Gives Overview of Pope’s Trip This Weekend by Salvatore Cernuzio
The Armenians are a “sensitive” people that do not forget the good received and the evil suffered, especially the Great Evil, the Metz Yeghern, the genocide (despite this word still provoking upsets in the Turkish government), which at the beginning of the century mowed down the life of one million and a half men, women, elderly and children.
To this pain, still burning after a century, Pope Francis will go to give relief with his trip this Friday through Sunday, during which, in an emotional stop at the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial of Yerevan, he will meet some ten descendants of the survivors of the extermination.
“A very important moment is envisioned,” said Father Federico Lombardi, who in a briefing Tuesday described the salient stages of the Pontiff’s trip – the 14th international one, the first in the Euro-Asian region – together with Monsignor Antraniq Ayvazian, expert on the history, culture and situation of the Church in Armenia, and professor at the University of Yerevan.
Bergoglio’s trip takes place in the wake of John Paul II’s epochal visit in September of 2001, on the occasion of the 1,700th anniversary of the recognition of Christianity as the official religion. Moreover, Father Lombardi explained that the trip to Armenia is inserted in the framework of a two-stage pilgrimage in the Caucasus, which also foresees a visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan at the end of September. This second stage could not be realized now because of the absence of the Georgian Patriarch, committed in Crete given the Pan-Orthodox Council (in which, however, he did not take part). Therefore, there is no political conspiracy, much less so motives linked to the bloody conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, which divides the two regions.
The embrace of the Armenian people, however, could not be postponed. In fact, the Pope’s desire was to undertake a trip that would be the closest possible to the April anniversary of the Metz Yeghern, of which the centenary was observed last year, celebrated by the Pontiff in Saint Peter’s Basilica together with the Catholicos, the highest authority of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
“Francis wished to return the visit,” said Father Lombardi, “and visit the Catholic community and encourage it to manifest its closeness, its support and its friendship.” Meanwhile, the Armenian people anxiously await the arrival of the Bishop of Rome. “There is no other talk than of the Holy Father’s visit. Letters and messages are arriving of the type: ‘Have us see the Pope’; let us see him at least up close,’” explained Monsignor Ayvazian. “There is a filial sentiment toward the universal Father of the Church, despite the fact that 90% of the population is not Catholic, especially at Yerevan. Everything is being lived in a key of joy, of serenity and in the hope that the future of Armenia will be better than the present.”
A present in which the slaughter of 1915-1916, under the Ottoman Empire, still weighs. As stated, Francis will remember it at the Tzitzernakaberd Complex, the so-called ‘swallow’s fortress,’ “obligatory stage for all personalities that visit Armenia,” underscored Father Lombardi. Bergoglio and the Catholicos will be received there by the President and by a group of children carrying photos and memories of the slaughter.
Then the Pope, after laying a floral wreath in the central chamber of the “everlasting flame,” and after songs and readings, will recite a prayer of intercession in Italian, which will be followed by the Our Father recited by each one in his own language. The visit will continue with a walk in the Garden of the Memorial, where a plant will be planted in memory of the visit, then the meeting will be held with the descendants of the persecuted.
All this will take place on Saturday, June 25, in the early hours of the morning. However, the Pontiff will arrive in Armenia the previous day, the 24th, at 3:00 pm (1:00 pm in Italy) after a four-hour flight from Rome. After a very brief welcome ceremony with the political and ecclesiastical authorities in the airport of Yerevan, in the afternoon the Pope will go on a prayer visit to the Armenian Cathedral at Etchmiadzin, where a greeting address is scheduled. This will be the first of five addresses, all in Italian, which the Holy Father will pronounce in the course of his trip.
Francis will go from the Cathedral to Yerevan for his courtesy visit to the President and the official meeting with some 140 political authorities, representatives of the civil society and of the Diplomatic Corps in the Presidential Palace; it will be followed by his personal meting with the Catholicos and the presentation of the delegations, among which are 45 Apostolic Armenian Bishops.
The second day, after the visit to the Memorial, he will go to Gyumri, in the north of the country, main center of the Catholic presence in Armenia. In Vafrtanants Square, dedicated to the martyr hero of the Armenian people, a Votive Mass of Mercy will be celebrated. This is a novelty as “never in Armenia has an open celebration been held in the Square, because in the Armenian tradition one always prays in Church,” explained Father Lombardi. Another novelty is the tour in the popemobile that Francis will take (the only one of the whole trip), who will then go to a convent of Armenian Sisters that run an orphanage.
Planned for Saturday afternoon is a visit to the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral of the Seven Wounds and then to the Armenian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Martyrs, the latter opened in September of 2015 by Cardinal Sandri. At the end of the day, the Holy Father will return to Yerevan for the Ecumenical Prayer Meeting for Peace in the Square of the Republic, “the most important event from the numerical point of view, where tens of thousands of people are expected,” said Father Lombardi.
Sunday, June 26 will open, instead, with a private Mass and a meeting with 14 Armenian Catholic Bishops from different areas of the diaspora and an additional 12 priests, in the Apostolic Palace at Etchmiadzin. Then, at 10 o’clock, Francis will take part in the Divine Liturgy in the Square and, with a ‘break’ of the rule, also in the solemn ecumenical lunch with the Catholicos, the representatives of the churches and the papal entourage (among whom is Cardinal Sandri).
After greeting the delegates and benefactors of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Pontiff will go to the Monastery of Khofr Virap, thought-provoking place close to Mount Ararat, loved by the faithful because, according to tradition, it is the place where Saint Gregory the Illuminator was held prisoner for 13 years. In the room where the well is that imprisoned the Saint ten meters under the earth, the Pope will pray and donate an artistic lamp.
Then, on the Monastery’s balcony, looking at the Ararat, a few steps from the border with Turkey, the Holy Father will release two doves in sign of a strong “desire for peace.” From here he will go to the airport for the return to Rome, foreseen for 8:40 pm Italian time.
Inevitably, during the briefings there were questions from journalists on the reluctance to use the term “genocide,” also on the part of Father Lombardi himself, who preferred to opt for the expression Metz Yeghern. Direct was the answer of the Vatican spokesman, who labelled the question an “obsession” on the part of the press: “None of us denies that there were these massacres, but we don’t want to make of this political-sociological arguments. It’s an enormous tragedy and I prefer to use the term Metz Yeghern, which my Armenian brothers use and which has a much stronger meaning.”
Metz Yeghern, explained in fact Monsignor Ayvazian, means “great uprooting, cutting out all the presence of a people in blood.” It is what happened to the Armenian people already from the first centuries after Christ, culminating then in 1915 with the “historic error,” of which the acknowledgement is still awaited on the part of Turkey.
Interview With Armenian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs on Pope’s Visit by Salvatore Cernuzio
On one hand a people filled with passion and enthusiasm over the Pope’s visit; on the other, a territory bathed in blood from conflicts as that of Nagorno-Karabakh, for decades the theater of a violent territorial conflict, and behind that, the bloody tragedy of the genocide that still causes profound wounds after more than a century.
There are so many historical, political and also spiritual implications that accompany Pope Francis’ visit to Armenia this weekend. It is a visit that the population awaits with fervor and that will seal the friendly relations between the Holy See and the Armenian Apostolic Church. A visit that it is hoped will bring peace and stability in the region at the political and diplomatic level. High and numerous are the population’s expectations, as Garen Nazarian, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, confirms to ZENIT in the exclusive interview that we translate below.
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ZENIT: What are the hopes for the Pope’s visit to Armenia?
Nazarian: Pope Francis’ visit to Armenia has a Pan-Christian meaning, in as much as it is a visit to the nation that first embraced Christianity as the State religion. The passion with which the Armenian people await the Pontiff’s visit is justified also by the fact that on April 12 of last year, on receiving the Catholicos in the Vatican, on the occasion of the Mass for the faithful of Armenian rite, in Saint Peter’s Basilica, for the centenary of the genocide, the Pope shared the sorrow of the Armenian nation and, in a certain sense, invited Turkey to take account of its past. This visit also enables our people in Armenia and those in the diaspora to extend their gratitude and appreciation to His Holiness for his position of principle on the question of the recognition of the Armenian genocide and the repairing of an historic justice. Noted is that during the events that marked the 91st anniversary of the Armenian genocide at Buenos Aires, the then Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio exhorted Turkey to recognize the genocide as “the gravest crime of Ottoman Turkey against the Armenian people and the whole of humanity.” Moreover, the Pontiff’s visit during the year in which the Catholic world celebrates the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy is a solid message in itself, namely, that Mercy is guaranteed also by the demonstration of courage to face the past and not hide the truth behind a wall of silence.
ZENIT: Among the Pontiff’s stages there is also that of the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial Complex, an important moment during which the Pope will remember the victims of the Great Evil. What is expected from that meeting?
Nazarian: The Tzitsernakaberd Memorial Complex has become in time a site of pilgrimage, as well as an almost obligatory stage for Armenia’s important guests, given that it commemorates the one and a half million Armenians killed in the first genocide of the 20th century, by the hand of the Turkish government. Of course the visit of the head of the Catholic Church is of greatest importance for humanity, as recognition of the genocide. Moreover, the celebration, which will be held, dedicated to the memory of the victims will be an optimum instrument of prevention, condemning those horrendous crimes committed against humanity so that they are never repeated again.
ZENIT: In April of 2015, the Pope aroused the anger of Turkey by pronouncing the word “genocide” during the above mentioned Mass of the centenary in the Vatican. The script was repeated recently after the resolution approved by the Bundestag. In your opinion, why does the Turkish government persevere in this attitude?
Nazarian: The reaction of the Turkish leadership is the umpteenth proof that Turkey continues its policy of denial pursued at the State level, thus maintaining the weight of the responsibility for the brutal crime committed by the Authorities of the Ottoman Empire. With the decision to use the word “genocide” in the title and the text of the resolution, the Bundestag admits that Germany – at the time of World War I ally of the Ottomans – has a sense of guilt for not having done anything to stop the killings. But Turkey does not share this point of view and is not in agreement with the numerous countries and international organizations that have recognized the Armenian genocide. This says much about the values of the leadership of that country. The continuous process of recognition of the Armenian genocide by the International Community should be, instead, a strong sign to the Turkish authorities that the denial impedes the development of the values and the realities of the 21stcentury.
ZENIT: The historical truth of the genocide is emerging also thanks to the archives of the Holy See. What is the link between the Armenian government and the Vatican on this dark historical chapter?
Nazarian: The Vatican’s Secret Archives on the genocide were opened in 1991. However, there are not many historians who have had access to them. The content of the documents on the “greatest crime of World War I,” reveal, however, how Pope Benedict XV and the Vatican diplomacy tried to stop the deportations planned by the Armenians in the Syrian desert, to save the victims and to prevent the massacre of an entire nation. Benedict XV wrote a letter to the Sultan, asking for mercy for the innocent Armenians. The then Pontiff made reference also to the failure of any diplomatic intervention, mentioning “the suffering Armenian people, almost completely led to their extermination.” Diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Republic of Armenia were established in 1992: beginning that year numerous visits were carried out by the President of Armenia and the Catholicos to the Vatican. Then, in 2001, John Paul II visited Armenia and during that trip he signed, together with His Holiness Karekin II, a Joint Declaration that reported a historic passage or: “The extermination of one million and a half Armenian Christians, during what was generally indicated as the first genocide of the 20th century, and the subsequent destruction of thousands under the previous totalitarian regime are tragedies that still live in the memory of today’s generations.” The Catholic Church recognizes the Armenian nation as the first Christian nation, and, today they share together the mutual will to surmount the challenges faced by Christians in the Middle East, respect for their human rights and the preservation of Christian values. Moreover, we cooperate actively in the international realm for the creation of peace and justice in the whole world.
ZENIT: A Holy See press release last February, about the book “The Papal Squad in the Dardanelles 1657,” was interpreted as a sign of a thaw between Vatican diplomacy and the Turkish government. In this press release, however, the term “genocide” was not used. Was it a motive of disappointment for you?
Nazarian: As I said, the Vatican’s position on the recognition of the Armenian genocide was clearly expressed in the Joint Declaration signed by John Paul II and Karekin II during the Pope’s visit to Armenia, as well as during Francis’ Mass in April 2015, in which it was affirmed in the heart of the Vatican that the extermination perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians was “the first genocide of the 20th century.” Turkish manipulations cannot change or influence the position on the historical truth and justice.
ZENIT: Shifting attention to the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, I would like to recall the words of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev: “If Armenia continues the provocations, we will use all our capacity to recover our territory.” Therefore, are your provocations rendering the situation incandescent in the region?
Nazarian: In the first place, I would like to stress that it is well known who and what causes provocations, uses bellicose rhetoric at the Presidential level and spreads threats of a military solution to the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite the fact that the negotiations are being carried out under the auspices of the Vice-Presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is the only format at the international level to have a mandate on the resolution of the conflict, Azerbaijan falsifies the essence and the principal reasons of the conflict’s consequences, it attempts to involve other international organizations in the agreement and starts parallel processes that hamper the negotiation process.
Moreover, Azerbaijan is accusing Armenia, as well as the International Community, the OSCE Group represented by the United States, Russia and France, of the lack of progress in the negotiations. In face of these unfounded accusations, some questions could be asked, even if the answer is taken for granted. Who is rejecting the proposals of the Minsk Group at the base of the negotiations? Who is opposing the construction of measures of trust, beginning with the preparation of the societies for a peaceful solution and the creation of an investigation mechanism for violations of the “cease-fire”? Who is accusing the countries of the Vice-Presidents of Minsk’s OSCE, describing them as “provocateurs” and “Islamophobes”? Who is constantly trying to move the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations to other formats that do not have the international mandate to find a solution to the conflict and that have never first resolved a conflict? These questions have only one answer: Azerbaijan.
ZENIT: From many sides there has been talk of episodes of bloody violence …
Nazarian: In the first days of April of this year, Azerbaijan unleashed aggressive military actions against the population of Nagorno-Karabakh. Detachments of the army committed barbarous acts, such as the bombing of schools that killed and wounded innocent children, brutal tortures, mutilations and the killing of three elderly people, among whom was a 92-year-old woman. Then, in a style that reminds one of ISIS, they decapitated three soldiers prisoners of the Armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh, even receiving an award at the Presidential level. Among other things, the President of Azerbaijan is presenting claims for Armenia, stating that the territory separates Turkey and Azerbaijan and that the connection of those territories is an historical injustice. From several points of view, Armenia has confirmed its commitment for a peaceful solution of the situation. Armenia’s position is in line with that of the OSCE mediators and of the International Community, with the certainty that there is no alternative to the problem other than a peaceful solution, and that the determination of the final juridical status of Nagorno-Karabakh is possible only through a juridically binding expression of the will of the people of Karabakh.
ZENIT: Given this difficult scenario, what will the Pope find in Armenia?
Nazarian: He will find a people awaiting him with enthusiasm and great aspirations. Our people believe that His Holiness Francis will give a message of peace and harmony, in order to reinforce the bond between the two Churches and, ultimately, develop Christian values. Armenia truly foresees hosting an historic visit, unique because of its breadth and because of the desire among the people. Moreover, we are more than certain that the Holy Father’s trip will seal the friendly relations that for centuries link Armenia and the Vatican. Let’s hope also that the visit can bring stability to the whole region.
Pope Francis: Benedict XVI ‘Personifies Sanctity’ by Rocío Lancho García
“When I read the works of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, it becomes ever clearer to me that he has done and does ‘theology on his knees’: on his knees because, before even being a very great theologian and teacher of the faith, one sees that he is a man who really believes, who truly prays; one sees that he is a man who personifies sanctity, a man of peace, a man of God.”
Thus begins the Preface that Pope Francis wrote for the book “Teach and Learn the Love of God,” the first volume of the series: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Selected Texts, which is to include seven volumes that will be published annually in Spain by BAC Publishers from 2016 to 2022.
In the Preface, the Pontiff says that Benedict XVI “embodies exemplarily the heart of all priestly action”: a profound rooting in God without which all possible organizational capacity and all alleged intellectual superiority, all money and power are useless. He embodies that constant relationship with the Lord Jesus without whom nothing is true, everything becomes routine, priests become wage earners, bishops bureaucrats and the Church ceases to be the Church of Christ and becomes a product of ours, an NGO, superfluous when all is said and done, says Pope Francis.
I allow myself to say, says the Pope, that if someone at some moment had doubts about the core of his ministry, about its meaning, about its usefulness; if at some moment he had doubts about what men truly expect from us, he should meditate profoundly on the pages that are offered to us in this book, because men expect from us above all what is written and witnessed in this book.
Moreover, reading this volume one sees clearly how the Pope Emeritus, in his 65 years of priesthood, which will be celebrated this June 29, “has lived and lives, has witnessed and witnesses exemplarily the essence of priestly action,” adds the Holy Father.
As Pope Francis explains, Cardinal Ludwig Gerhard Muller has stated with authority that the theological work of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI “places him in that series of very great theologians that have occupied the Chair of Peter, such as, for instance, Pope Leo the Great, saint and doctor of the Church.”
Likewise, the Pontiff says that Benedict XVI continues to witness, perhaps now in an even more luminous way from the Mater Ecclesia convent, “that intimate nucleus of the priestly ministry that deacons, priests and bishops must never forget,” that is, that the first and most important service is not the management of “current affairs,” but to pray for others, uninterruptedly, with soul and body, precisely as the Pope Emeritus does today.
In addition, Pope Francis stresses that prayer, Benedict XVI tells us and witnesses in this book, is the decisive factor: it’s an intercession of which the Church and the world are in greater need than ever. This volume, explains the Holy Father in the Prologue, is addressed in the same measure to priests and to the lay faithful.
Nigeria: “The West Should Not Be Afraid to Ask Us for Help. We Are Ready to Help With Our Priests” by Maria Lozano
Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama heads the Archdiocese of Jos, Nigeria, and serves as the president of the country’s bishops’ conference. With the largest population is Africa, Nigeria—20 million of whose approximately 170 million citizens are Catholic—plays a pivotal role on the continent as it confronts the challenge of endemic corruption and the ongoing threat of Boko Haram. The prelate spoke Wednesday with international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.
Q: You recently called on newly elected President Muhammadu Buharu to ensure that Nigeria remain a “multi-religious country” in which everyone is free to practice their beliefs. Is religious freedom in danger in Nigeria?
Archbishop Kaigama: The President has vowed to protect religious freedom. However, on the level of individual states—and especially in the primarily Muslim north—there is discrimination. For example, Muslim students have their own mosques, while the Christians have to hold their services in classrooms. There is religious instruction for Muslims, but what about for Christians? They do not have the same options. Furthermore, the government does not make it easy for the Christians in the north to build new churches and the Christians do not even have the authorization to buy land privately.
Christians are denied access to a Christian education because of narrow-minded religious prejudices. This means that we create people without faith, without established morals, who can be dangerous for society. We want everyone to be strengthened in their faith and religious identity, to ensure the formation of better citizens for the good of society.
Q: Your message to the president also concerned corruption and the terrorist organization Boko Haram.
Archbishop Kaigama: Both are so dangerous. They undermine the unity and the entire identity of the country. When you let Boko Haram be successful, you destabilize the country. Nigeria is then no longer Nigeria, the magnificent country that it should be. Corruption goes back much further than Boko Haram and it causes the same kind of damage. It eats its way deep into the system, prevents any kind of progress, destabilizes the work of the government and promotes suffering and hardship, which in turn give rise to violence and conflicts. And Christians are just as involved in corruption as Muslims. It is a national problem and something must be done about it.
We do believe that President Buhari is working to tackle these fundamental problems. We have long been praying for the embattled Nigeria. We also composed a prayer against corruption. We have prayed it for years and I believe that God has heard our prayers. Something is being done against corruption, and Boko Haram is being combatted. Our prayers have been answered.
Q: Vocations are booming in Nigeria. That must give you hope.
Archbishop Kaigama: We thank God for the gift of vocations. We have been blessed with vocations, our churches are full and we thank God for this. We would like to return the gift that we were given by the missionaries from Europe. The missionary work here is done and now we feel that we have something to give. The West should not be afraid to ask us for help. We are ready to help with our priests.
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Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries. www.churchinneed.org (USA); www.acnuk.org (UK); www.aidtochurch.org (AUS); www.acnireland.org (IRL); www.acn-aed-ca.org (CAN)www.acnmalta.org (Malta)
Nun Who Will Host the Pope in Armenia Tells of Preparation, Ministry by ZENIT Staff
GYUMRĺ, Armenia — Sister Arousiag proudly points out the dormitory of the convent of Our Lady of Armenia here: it is where Pope Francis will rest for a few hours on the second day of his June 24-26, 2016 visit to Armenia.
“It is the best room we have,” she assures a visitor from the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), which has been supporting the convent for a number of years.
In the background, a group of children is singing in Armenian; they are rehearsing for when the Pope arrives. The children in question are some of the 37 little ones living in the orphanage run by the Sisters—and whose singing the Pope has in fact already heard, in April 2015, during the Mass celebrated at St Peter’s in observance of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
ACN has supported the work of the Sisters here ever since 1997. Their commitments also include running a daycare center for the elderly and a summer camp for orphaned and deprived children. Last year no fewer than 890 young people took part in this summer camp, among them 40 Syrian refugee children.
Upstairs in the convent, where the teenagers live, Anahir, 16, holds a young child in her arms. Her father passed away many years ago and her mom was unable to care for her. She says that the young residents of the convent are “very happy about the Pope’s visit and that they spend a lot of time waiting for this moment.”
The congregation of the Immaculate Conception in Armenia consists of seven Sisters working in various centers throughout the country. Pope Francis will come to this convent after celebrating Holy Mass in the central square of Gyumrí, which is the second largest city in Armenia, one still bearing the marks of the terrible devastation caused by the earthquake of 1988, in which more than 25,000 people died.
“A visit to the first-ever Christian country”—such is the theme of the papal visit to Armenia. To say ‘Armenian’ is to say ‘Christian’ – and this is their greatest source of pride. It was in the year 301 that King Tiridate III first proclaimed Christianity as the religion of the Armenian state, thus making it the first nation in the world to formally adopt Christianity, 12 years before the Emperor Constantine made it legal in the Roman Empire.
Today the majority of the population belongs to the (Orthodox) Armenian Apostolic Church, while the remainder is Armenian Catholics. But for the sisters in the convent, they are not concerned about who is Armenian Orthodox or Armenian Catholic. “It is something we never ask, because it does not concern us; we want to help all people equally,” Sister Arousiag assures us.
“We are very grateful to ACN, because you have helped us for many years. We depend on the support of various different organisations, and ACN is one of the best benefactors we have,” she explains, as we stand in the convent kitchen. A few yards from her, watching attentively, is Rosa, a woman of 72, who ceaselessly touches the cross that hangs around her neck. “I’m very grateful for everything the sisters do for us,” she says. “None of my three sons can take care of me because they live a long way away, and so the sisters are all I have.” In the daycare centre for the elderly, the sisters provide three meals daily and also offer them the chance of a hot bath, something they don’t usually get, because most houses in the area do not have hot water.
Thanks to the generosity of ACN’s benefactors, the sisters of the Immaculate Conception have also been able to offer catechism classes to the orphaned children on their summer camps and been able to improve the daycare centre – in addition to being able to purchase part of the land on which they currently live.
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Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries. www.churchinneed.org (USA); www.acnuk.org (UK); www.aidtochurch.org (AUS); www.acnireland.org (IRL); www.acn-aed-ca.org (CAN)www.acnmalta.org (Malta)
Francis Follows Pope of Great War in Reaching Out to Armenians by ZENIT Staff
From Vatican Radio:
The 14th Apostolic journey abroad of Pope Francis is to Armenia, a landlocked mountainous nation which borders Turkey to the west, to the East Azerbaijan, to the north Georgia and to the South Iran.
This visit, to the first country ever to adopt Christianity as a state religion, begins in the nation’s capital Yerevan and sports a logo which highlights this historic factor along with the dates of the journey which are the 24th to the 26th of June.
It’s a circular logo divided in half by two colours: yellow for the Vatican and purple for the Armenian city of Etchmiadzin, seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church where Pope Francis will be staying. Within the design one can spy the outlines of two significant places in Armenia: snow capped Mount Ararat with its biblical connotations and the Monastery of Kor Virap located on its flanks, which Pope Francis will also visit. A significant monastery where Gregory the Illuminator, credited for the conversion of this nation to Christianity in 301, so at the beginning of the fourth century, was once held prisoner at the bottom of a well.
As we know Pope Francis travels to Armenia in the footsteps of John Paul II who came here in 2001. But there’s an earlier pope connected in a special way to this nation, to be precise, to its darkest chapter.
He’s Benedict XV elected to the See of Peter in 1914, so Roman Pontiff at the time of the Great War. And as historian Professor John Pollard, in his book ‘Benedict XV and the Pursuit of Peace’ writes:
“The Vatican’s relations with the Ottoman Government in Istanbul, had not been good for a long time, but they deteriorated further during the course of the war, due to the Turk’s treatment of Christian populations in their empire and most particularly, the massacre of the Armenians, who were considered disloyal. In April and May 1915 a campaign of what would now be called ‘ethnic cleansing’ was launched against the Christian, mainly Armenian, populations of Anatolia. In July the Apostolic delegate in Constantinople, Monsignor Dolci was instructed to protest against the massacres; the governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary were also asked to bring pressure to bear on their ally to stop the killings, and Benedict himself sent an autograph letter on the 10th of September to the Sultan who in his role as Caliph of Islam, was like the Pope a world-wide religious leader. By the end of the war it was estimated that over a million Armenians had died, either killed outright by the Turks or as a result of maltreatment by starvation”.
For the record on March 12, 1918, Pope Benedict XV sent a second letter to Sultan Muhammad V. But while his diplomatic endeavors may have fallen on deaf ears his humanitarian efforts in assisting Armenian refugees did not, it seems. According to the Jesuit magazine ‘La Civiltà Cattolica’ at the time the Holy See: “mobilized a continual flow of financial aid and supplies in an era when there were no other international humanitarian organizations beyond the Red Cross and the Near East relief.” Significantly too, at the time Benedict XV opened the doors of his summer residence, the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo, to young orphaned refugees from Armenia.
Proof of this is that on Saturday 25th of June when Pope Francis pays tribute to the fallen at the ‘Tzitzernakaberd’ Memorial complex dedicated to the fallen during the massacres of the Armenian population under the Ottoman Empire, which the people of this nation refer to as the ‘Medz Yeghern’ (Great Evil), he’ll be meeting with ten descendants of these same Armenian refugees.
Hear more: http://www.news.va/en/news/armenia-pope-francis-in-continuity-with-benedict-x
Catholics Come Home TV Ministry Reaching Out to Millennials by ZENIT Staff
Catholics Come Home® has announced its upcoming campaign to invite Millennial Catholics home to the Church, through new television commercials and an interactive website, called CatholicsComeHome.com, a companion website to its popular .org site.
Four new evangomercialsTM including “Something More” and “Epic 2.0”, as well as a millennial-focused website, are in response to the growing number of Millennial Catholics (young adults ages 18-34) abandoning their Catholic faith, as well as an effort to reach out to those young adults who consider themselves unaffiliated with any religion.
Pew studies show that 80% of millennials abandon their Catholic faith before age 23. Additionally, more than 100,000 Americans stop practicing their Catholic faith annually, and only 1 out of every 3 attends Church.
“We took to heart numerous studies showing that American millennials are struggling with addictions, suicide, out-of-wedlock births, joblessness, and other significant life challenges at catastrophic rates,” explained founder and president Tom Peterson. “Our hope is to reduce these disheartening statistics and guide young adults toward healthier, joy-filled lifestyles by introducing them to—or reminding them of—the importance of faith.”
In collaboration with other prominent Catholic organizations, Catholics Come Home has conducted focus groups and message concept testing among Millennials prior to developing and launching their new line of ads and accompanying website.
Catholics Come Home plans to air the commercials through traditional radio, cable and network TV channels, as well as through popular online networks like Facebook and YouTube.
Catholics Come Home has helped more than a half million people home to the Church across North America, based on independent statistics provided directly from partner dioceses.. The apostolate will soon be expanding its outreach to several international communities.
View the Something More ad and other Millennial ads.
A History of the Armenian Church by ZENIT Staff
As the Pope leaves Friday for Armenia, the Vatican press office is offering a brief history of the Chu
A biblical land, Armenia is cited in the Old Testament by the name “Kingdom of Urartu” (Ararat). In the foothills of its mountains, Noah would have cultivated vines and become inebriated drinking the wine he produced. Thanks to the Armenian translation of an apocryphal gospel, we know the names of the three Magi: Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. Although according to tradition the apostles Bartholomew and Jude Thaddaeus were the evangelisers of Armenia, it is likely that it was instead the work of missionaries from Syria and Cappadocia. In any case, it was so successful that in 301, thanks to the apostolate of St. Gregory the Illuminator, Armenia became the first nation that embraced Christianity and proclaimed it a state religion, even before the Edict of Milan of 313, by which the Roman Empire tolerated Christianity, and the Edict of Theodosius by which in 380 the Empire recognised Christianity as a state religion.
Initially grouped with the Metropolitan Church of Caesaria of Cappadocia, in Roman territory, the Armenian Church proclaimed its autonomy in the early fifth century, under the jurisdiction of a patriarch who assumed the title of Catholicos, originally attributed to the head of a Christian community outside the confines of the Roman-Byzantine Empire – or rather, outside the jurisdiction of the patriarchs. The heads of the Armenian, Nestorian and Georgian Churches conserve this title. From the 4th century onwards the Armenian ecclesiastical institutions were consolidated and the liturgy assumed its form, strongly influenced by the ancient rite of Jerusalem. At the same time the Armenian alphabet was born, traditionally attributed to the monk Mesrop (360.440), which made it possible to translate into the national language the liturgical texts previously written only in Greek and Syrian.
The Armenian and Catholic Churches separated after the Council of Chalcedon (451), which established the dual nature, human and divine, of Christ. The adherence to monophysitism (one nature) of the Armenian Church was confirmed in two successive national councils held in 506 and 551.
The golden age of Armenian religious architecture began in the sixth and seventh centuries, when a number of monasteries were built in the mountains, and great religious and cultural centres were created. An example of the Armenian religious aesthetic exists nowadays in the form of the large stone crosses (Khatch’kar) formed of a large stone or limestone stele with an enormous cross at its centre, with a variety of rich decorations.
In the eleventh century, openness towards Rome began. The Catholicos Gregory II made a pilgrimage to Rome to honour the relics of the apostles Peter and Paul, and in the subsequent years the various Catholicos acknowledged the Pontiff as Peter’s Successor. From 1205, a number of Catholicos received the pallium in Rome. In the fourteenth century Franciscan and Dominican missionaries arrived in Armenia and established religious centres, but problems with the local hierarchies led to a fracture in 1441, the year in which the Armenian hierarchy split into two branches, Sis and Etchmiadzin. In the eighteenth century there was a religious and cultural reawakening thanks to the priest Mekhit’ar who, after converting to Catholicism, founded a congregation in Constantinople but was persecuted and sought refuge in the island of St. Lazarus in Venice. In 1740 a synod of Armenian bishops gathered in Rome to elect the first Catholic patriarch of Armenian rite, established provisionally in Kraim, Lebanon; in 1742 a new seat of the Armenian Catholic patriarchate was instituted in Bzommar, Lebanon. It transferred to Constantinople in 1866 but returned to Bzommar in 1925, where it remains to this day. The current Catholicos is Grégoire Pierre XX Ghabroyan, and his jurisdiction extends to all the Armenian Catholics of the East and the diaspora.
The Armenian Church is independent and autocephalous, and defines itself as apostolic since it traces its origins to the apostles Thaddaeus and Bartholomew. It maintains good relations in an ecumenical spirit with the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Churches, and has its own leader, the Catholicos, entirely independent of the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the other confessions. Its origin dates back to the schism of the Ecumenical Council of 451. The Armenian Church defines itself as both Orthodox and Catholic, inasmuch as it regards itself to be an expression of true Christian faith and of the universality of the Church. In December 1996, St. John Paul II and His Holiness the Catholicos of All the Armenians, Karekin II, signed a joint declaration in which they affirmed the common origin of the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope’s Q-and-A at Villa Nazareth by ZENIT Staff
Pope Francis visited the community of Villa Nazareth on Saturday, on the 70th anniversary of its foundation by Cardinal Domenico Tardini, Vatican Secretary of State between 1958 and 1961, to offer assistance and aid to poor children orphaned by the war. It was subsequently instituted as a College by the chirograph of St. John XXIII in 1963.
The College is managed by the Domenico Tardini Foundation, chaired by Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, and receives free of charge students of both sexes with a history of excellence in studies but are from families who, on account of their socio-economic or cultural situation, are unable to support them.
After an address, the Holy Father had a dialogue with some of the youth. Here is a ZENIT translation of his words:
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The courage of choice – Valentina Piras
Holy Father, rather than teachers, we young people are in need of credible witnesses. We are often aware of inhabiting a complex reality in which there are no constant points of reference and where experiences without substance are proposed. Sometimes we are youngsters and adults “parked” in life, prey of the illusion of success and of the cult of our ego, incapable of giving ourselves to others. Holy Father, we would like you to say a word to us that will help us to have light in the darkness that dominates our hearts. How can we reawaken the grandeur and courage of choices of wide breadth, of a leap of heart to address educational and affective challenges?
Pope Francis:
Thank you. A key word is: “We young people are in need of credible witnesses.” And this in fact is the logic of the Gospel: to give witness, with one’s life, one’s way of living, the choices made … But witness of what? Of several things — witness, we Christians, of Jesus Christ who is alive, who has accompanied us: He has accompanied us in sorrow; he died for us, but He is alive. Said this way, it seems too clerical. However, I understand the witness that young people seek: it’s the witness of a “humiliation.” A humiliation is a good daily witness! One that awakens you and says to you: “Look, don’t engage in illusions with ideas, with promises …” including illusions very close to us – the illusion of success: “”No, I’ll go on this path and I’ll be successful.” It is the cult of one’s ego. We all know that today the mirror is in fashion! To look at oneself, one’s ego, that narcissism that today’s culture offers us. And when we don’t have testimonies, perhaps our life is going well; we earn well, we have a profession, we have a good job, a family …, however, you said a very strong word: “We are men and women parked in life,” namely, that don’t walk, that don’t go, as conformists: all is habit, a habit that leaves us tranquil; we have what is necessary, nothing is lacking, thank God …”How can we reawaken the grandeur and the courage of wide choices, of leaps of the heart to address educational and affective challenges?” I’ve said the word so many times: risk! Risk. One who doesn’t risk doesn’t walk. “But if I’m mistaken?” Blessed be the Lord! You will be more mistaken if you stay still, still: that’s the mistake, the bad mistake <and> closure. Risk. Risk for noble ideals, risk by soiling your hands, risk as that Samaritan of the parable risked. When in life we are more or less tranquil, there is always the temptation of paralysis. Not to risk: to be tranquil, still … “How can we reawaken the grandeur and courage of wide choices,” you asked, “of leaps of the heart to address educational and affective challenges? Get close to problems; come out of yourself and risk, risk. Otherwise you life will slowly become a paralyzed life; happy, content, with the family, but parked there – to use your word. It’s very sad to see parked lives; it’s very sad to see persons that seem more like museum mummies than living beings. Risk! Risk. If a mistake is made, blessed be the Lord. Risk. <Go> forward! I don’t know, this is what comes to me to tell you.
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The effort of faith in today’s world – Gabriele Giuliano
Dear Pope Francis, we often find in the newspapers dramatic news regarding the tragedy that is affecting the Christian communities scattered in the world: these events lead us to a profound reflection on how much our faith can be witnessed and lived, even to death. This courage of genuine faith really puts everything in question. How can we be credible witnesses of the Gospel; how can we proclaim the message of Christ to the world? Many of us, with all the lacks and limitations intrinsic to the human being, feel these, but they easily discourage us. Does this happen to you? Have you ever had a crisis of faith? Where and how did you find the way to take it up again, not to tire, and to continue in your mandate, first as layman, then as consecrated?
Pope Francis:
But you have asked too personal a question! And I must make the choice … Either I answer the truth, or I engage in a soap opera that is lovely and so on … The tragedy of Christian communities scattered in the world: this is true, but witness is the destiny of Christians — I take up again the word testimony even in difficult situations. I don’t like, and I want to say it clearly, I don’t like when there is talk of genocide of Christians, for instance in the Middle East: this is reductionism; it’s reductionism. The truth is a persecution that leads Christians to fidelity, to coherence in their faith. Let’s not engage in sociological reductionism of what <in fact> is a mystery of the faith: martyrdom. Those 13 – I believe they were Egyptian Coptic Christian men, Saints today, canonized by the Coptic Church – decapitated on the beaches of Libya. They all died saying: “Jesus, help me!” Jesus. But I’m sure that the majority of them did not even know how to read. They weren’t Doctors in Theology. No, no. They were, as one says, ignorant, but they were Doctors of Christian coherence, that is, they were witnesses of faith. And faith makes us witness so many difficult things in life; we also witness the faith with our life. But let’s not deceive ourselves: a bloody martyrdom is not the only way to witness Jesus Christ. It’s the highest, let’s say, heroic. It’s also true that today there are more martyrs than in the first centuries of the Church; it’s true. However, there is the martyrdom of every day: the martyrdom of honesty, the martyrdom of patience in the education of children; the martyrdom of fidelity to love, when it’s easier to take another path, more hidden: the martyrdom of honesty, in this world that can also be called “the paradise of the <tangents>,” it’s so easy: You say this and you’ll have that,” when the courage is lacking to throw dirty money back, in a world where so many parents give their children to eat bread soiled by tangents, the bread they buy with the tangents they earn … Christian witness is there, martyrdom is there: “No, I don’t want this!” “if you don’t want it, you won’t have that job, you won’t be able to go higher.” <And> the martyrdom of silence in face of the temptation to gossip. Jesus says that one who says “stupid” to a brother must go to hell. You know that gossip is like the bomb of a terrorist, of a kamikaze – not of a kamikaze, of a terrorist, <because> at least the kamikaze does have the courage to die – no, gossip is when I throw the “bomb,” I destroy something, and I’m happy. But Christian witness is the martyrdom of every day, the silent martyrdom, and we must speak like this. “But we are martyred men and women; we should have a sad face, a long face.” No. There is the joy ofJesus’s word, like that on the beaches of Libya.
And courage is necessary, and courage is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Martyrdom, martyred Christian life, Christian witness cannot be lived without the courage of the Christian life. Saint Paul uses two words:courage and patience – two words. The courage to go forward and not be ashamed of being a Christian and make yourself seen as a Christian, and the patience to carry on your shoulders the burden of every day, also the sorrows, also one’s sins, one’s incoherence. “But can one be Christian with sins?” Yes. We are all sinners, all of us. A Christian is not a man or a woman that has the asepsis of laboratories, he is not like distilled water! A Christian is a man, a woman capable of betraying his/her ideal with sin. He/she is a weak man and woman. But we must be reconciled with our weakness. And thus the nose [aspect] becomes a bit more humble, more humble.
Truth is not in one’s appearance. “I’m not a sinner,” like that Pharisee who prayed before the Lord: “I thank you that I’m not like this one, or that one, like that other one”; he soiled everyone but he was clean. He strutted. Allow me, it’s a bit … it’s not very correct, no, in fact, what I will now say isn’t licit, but the image will help you. The Christian coherence with the truth is to feel ourselves sinners and in need of forgiveness. Instead, one who boasts of being a perfect Christian, is like a turkey: but how beautiful the turkey is! — it’ seen, it’s a beautiful reality … Excuse me, but <have it> turn around, that’s also the reality of the turkey! And Christ’s message to the world is like that: we are sinners, and Jesus has loved us, He has healed us, or we are always on the way to being healed. And He loves us, and the intrinsic imitations and also the extrinsic limitations we see, for instance, the hypocrisy in the Church. The hypocrisy of Christians — these limitations discourage us, and so faith enters in crisis. And here the impudent question: “Have you ever had a crisis of faith?” This is a question you ask the Pope! You are courageous! “Where and how did you find the way to take it up again, not to get tired and to continue in your mandate, as layman first, as consecrated later?” I find myself in crisis with the faith so many times and sometimes I’ve had the impudence to reproach Jesus: “But why do you permit this?” and even doubt: “But is this the truth or a dream?” — and <I did> this as a boy, as a seminarian, as a priest, as a Religious, as a Bishop and as Pope. But howsoever in the world have you been like this, when You have given Your life?” A Christian who hasn’t felt this at some time, whose faith hasn’t entered in crisis, is lacking something: he is a Christian that is content with some worldliness and goes forward in life in this way. I was told — because I don’t know Chinese, I have so much difficulty with languages, look, I don’t know Chinese, but I was told that the word crisis is made up in Chinese with two ideograms: one is the ideogram risk and the other with the ideogram opportunity. It’s true. When one enters in crisis – as when Jesus said to Peter that the devil would have put him in crisis [“sifted”], as one does with wheat, and so many times the devil, life, one’s neighbor, so many persons make us “spring” like wheat, put us in crisis — there is always a danger, a risk, a risk not in the good sense, and an opportunity. A Christian – I learnt this – must not be afraid to enter in crisis: it’s a sign that he is going forward, that he is not anchored to the bank of the river or the seashore, that he has taken off and goes forward. And there are problems there, crises, incoherence, and the crisis of one’s sin, which makes us so ashamed. And how can we not get tired? It’s a grace. Ask the Lord for it: “Lord, may I not tire. Give me the grace of patience, of going forward, of waiting for peace to come.” I don’t know. It seems to me I should answer this way.
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The professional and affective vocation – Giacomo Guarini
Holy Father, today everything is directed to the affirmation of the individual and the person seems to get lost as a being capable of giving himself and of receiving love. Love is no longer understood as a movement towards the other’s good but as a means for individual gratification; in a particular way, we don’t hide the difficulties that concern us young graduates, often humiliated by the lack of concrete prospects for our future and unable to bring to fulfilment the professional and affective vocation that, thanks to Villa Nazareth, we discovered. Therefore, how to make of work a place of vocation, in a world governed by unbridled individualism? How should relations be lived as mirror of the love of God, also during the engagement, in a context in which every desire of gratuitousness seems to fail?
Pope Francis:
You said a word that I like very much: gratuitousness. We often forget the meaning of gratuitousness, and we forger that gratuitousness is the language of God. He created us gratuitously; He has recreated us gratuitously in Jesus; and Jesus himself admonishes us: “What you received freely, give freely.” Gratuitousness. In this civilization of the “do ut des,” I give you this and that, everything is negotiated; gratuitousness runs the danger of disappearing. And sometimes, or many times – I think it’s one of the most common habits –Christianity becomes Pelagian: everything is purchased. “I do this and I am holier,” “I do this and I’m more perfect,” “I do this and I’m more Christian,” “I don’t do this and my Christianity is not …” We also have this attitude of the “do ut des” with God. But in the Old Testament the Lord already said to us: “I have no need of your sacrifices. Look around you and help others. Be just in the stipend.” And what you call “the affirmation of the individual,” this individualism leads us to very grave injustices – human injustices. I won’t say “social” because someone might say: “But this priest is a Socialist.” No, no, human! It is to a degree individual gratification which has nothing to do with the gratuitousness that Jesus Christ proposes to us, that God teaches us, which is in fact the language of God: gratuitousness. We must put ourselves on this wavelength of gratuitousness. Individual gratifications, hedonism: this is also a culture of hedonism. Personal satisfaction is sought. And today we must work so hard to distinguish the saints from those who disguise themselves to appear like saints! <There are> so many disguised Christians who aren’t Christians, because they don’t know gratuitousness. They live otherwise.
‘How to make of work a place of vocation?” To respond to the first call, the call that every one of us receives and which is the same that humanity received in Adam: go, cultivate the earth, multiply, rule the earth, work … “How to make of work a place of vocation?” Perhaps the strongest word here is work. It is one thing to work and quite another is to do things for profit and also to profit from others. The culture of work … In many underdeveloped countries there is the culture of the subsidy: aid is given but one is not taught to work. It does me so much good to think of Don Bosco, at the end of the eight hundreds, in that Masonic, priest hating, poor Turin, where boys were on the street … What did he do? Did he go there with holy water? No. He did emergency education, he made them study to learn simple trades, and thus enter into the culture of work. He saw in that risk an opportunity, an opportunity in that religious crisis, and he opened a human and religious horizon to those individuals. Work, which is not the same thing as “doing things,” so that the family fails, the marriage fails. I get enthusiastic, for instance, with politics, and I go here and there and then I don’t take care of my wife or my husband or the children. I have a habit, in Confession, when a married man or woman tell me they have children and that perhaps they lose patience …, I ask a question: “But how many children do you have?” Often they are scared: but what will the next question be? And <my> second question is: “And tell me, do you play with them? Do you take time to play with your children, to listen to them, to have an area of communication with them?” – “But, Father – an answer – when I go out to work in the morning, the children are asleep, and when I return, they are sleeping.” This slaving work, which does not allow one to live the gratuitousness of the gift of love, of God’s gift, perhaps isn’t the fault of this man or this woman: it’s the fault of the situation, it’s the fault of injustice, of the moral injustice that we live in this society. But I say this: take care of the family, take care of your husband, take care of your wife, take care of the children. And I allow myself something I have very much at heart: take care of the grandparents! Take care of the grandparents. They are our memory! In this disposable culture, it’s so easy to discard the grandparents: either in their home, or in the rest home, and not go to see them. Now it has changed somewhat because, as there is not much work and they have their pension, now we go to the grandparents! Take care of the grandparents. That prophecy of the prophet Joel in chapter III touches my heart: “Grandparents will dream,” and it will be in fact the dream, the capacity to dream of great things, which will make youngsters, young people go forward.
I’ll stop here, otherwise I’ll never end.
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The new poverties – Maria Elena Tagliaboschi
Holy Father, the economic crisis, the considerable migratory flows, demographic changes, the incompatibility of times of work with those of the care of children, are only some of the phenomenons that are strongly affecting the development of society in the industrialized countries. All this is fostering the birth of new poverties: elderly alone, the unemployed and precarious growing strongly who do not find the space due to them in the labor market; young couples suffocated by huge expenses in running a family. These changes make us feel lost and always poorer, before economically, in hope, in desires, in passions. With what spirit can we, young people and adults, address these situations which often involve us?
Pope Francis
Forgive me, I took too long. In regard to this question, I have answered so many things. But I shall go, perhaps, to the crux of the problem. What we must review is the style of today’s economy. Today – and I say this because I wrote about it in Evangelii Gaudium – there is an economy that kills. In the world, in the global economy, man, woman is not at the center: the god money is there, and this kills us: on a winter’s morning you can find a homeless individual frozen to death., in Risorgimento Square, or many children on the street who have nothing to eat, and also drug addicts… This doesn’t make news; it doesn’t make news. However, if the stock markets of Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, New York fall by two or three points there is a great international tragedy! We are slaves of this economic system that kills – slaves and victims. Today it’s common to work illegally, because if you don’t work illegally, you have no work. It’s common. Today it’s common to be given a work contract from September to June, and what happens with July and August? Eat some air! Then one is given another contract from September, without healthcare, without the possibility of a pension. This is called “slave labor,” and the majority of us live in this system of slave labor.
The migratory flows: they flee in part because of hunger, because their country has been exploited and they are hungry. And they flee in part from war, which is in fact the affair at this moment that renders more money; the arms traffickers. And the same one that sells, that traffics the arms to this country that is at war with that one, is the same one who sells to the one at war with it! It is also a difficulty to have humanitarian aid reach countries at war or with guerrillas: so many times the Red Cross has not succeeded. But arms always arrive; there is no customs that stop them! Why? Because it’s precisely the affair that renders more — the god money … we are slaves. A young girl told me last year that she had seen <an ad> in the newspaper <for a job> and she went there and there was a queue of people who were after the jobs. And the employer saw her Curriculum and said to her: “Yes, yes, this might do, yes, you can go. Your work will be 10-11 hours a day, more or less, not more than 11 <and> your stipend 650 euros a month.” And the girl said: “But this isn’t just!” “But, if you like it, take it; if you don’t like it, look at the queue behind you … Goodbye!” And this is our daily bread, and from these injustices come so many new poverties, so many new poverties. Once I went to a shantytown of Buenos Aires, and there were new people there. I went to visit them in teirt little hut of a bit of wood and a bit of tin that they had made, but the furniture was good. And I had the courage to ask: “But how is this possible, I don’t understand …” And <the man> said to me: “Father, up to last month we could pay the rent, now we can’t.” And so the shantytowns grow. It’s a great injustice. And we must speak clearly: this is a mortal sin. And it makes me indignant, it upsets me when, for instance, something that is current – <people> come to have a child baptized and they bring one [as godfather], and he is told: “But you haven’t married in church; you can’t be a godfather because marriage, to get married in church is important.” But then they bring another one who is a swindler, an exploiter of people, a trafficker of children, but he is a “good Catholic,” he gives alms to the Church … “Ah, yes, you can be a godfather.” But we have turned our values upside down! The economic world, as it is arranged in the world today isimmoral. I’m speaking in general, but there are exceptions. There are good people, there are countries that are seeking to change this; there are institutions that work against this. But the global atmosphere is that man and woman have been removed from the center of the economy, and the god money is there. I believe that with this I’ve answered your question.
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From the center to the peripheries – Tonino Casamassimi
Holy Father, the comparison with the fundamental values of this Community must lead to question ourselves continually on the seriousness of our commitment in the world and of our service to our neighbor. A reality such as Villa Nazareth is filled with meaning precisely in the measure in which it succeeds in having well-trafficked talents fructify outside its walls, not only physical. From whence the attempt to open ourselves ever more – in our littleness and among various difficulties – to commitment in civil and social life, to an active presence not confined to this physical place but extended to all the territories in which members of our Community live and operate, to a reflection and to a concrete project of welcome of the neighbor who comes from distant lands. In what ways and with what spirit can we reinforce our commitment in the world, to live seriously that encounter with the peripheries of existence to which you exhort, and which finds profound roots in the evangelical message?
Pope Francis
To make talents fructify – we will be judged on this: what did I do with my talents, with what I received, with what the Lord gave me gratuitously? It’s a question we must ask ourselves. Can a do more? Can I give more? Can I share more? Talents, not only money, talents! And what is one of the most important talents of Villa Nazareth since its foundation? You said the word: hospitality. We are living in a civilization of closed doors, of closed hearts. We defend ourselves, we defend ourselves from one another: “This is mine; this is mine,” — fear of receiving — fear of receiving. And I’m not only speaking of the reception of immigrants, which is a great problem; it is also a global political problem. But also daily hospitality, hospitality to one who seeks me to bore me with his complaints, with his problems, and seeks in me a word of comfort and also the possibility of opening wide a “small window” to go outside. It upsets me, it upsets me when I see churches with the doors closed; it upsets one. There might be justifiable motives, but a church of closed doors means that that Christian community has a closed heart, it’s enclosed in itself. And we must take up again the sense of hospitality, of receiving. And this is very simple, it’s what happens in Rome daily: I think it’s one of the works, or if you wish to call it in terms of the apostolate, one of the things of which we are in greatest need, is the apostolate of the ear. We don’t have time to listen. We have lost our ability, <to listen>: “Not I, I don’t have time to go to listen to their complaints; no, they upset me, it’s better if I do something else that is more useful, doesn’t waste time …” If we don’t do this, we are not receiving others. And if we don’t receive them we are not Christians, and we will not be welcomed in the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s mathematical. It’s so; it’s the logic of the Gospel. It’s so. And you who had the experience of hospitality here, in this House, have a great social and ecclesial responsibility: to teach, to have it understood that this is the door of the Christian way. When we were baptized we were received by the Christian community – a beautiful liturgical ceremony where the parish priest explained things well, everything … But am I capable of carrying this sacramental hospitality forward, with the sign of the Trinity? Am I capable of carrying it forward in my way of living the faith? Or do I prefer to look the other way? {It’s} better to say: “I haven’t understood,” “I haven’t heard,” “I didn’t know”… Instead, this [hospitality] gives fruit, it gives fruit. <It’s> hospitality that makes talents fructify. There is the great reception of those that come from distant lands. And there is the little welcome, when you – father or mother – return from work and your adolescent son or daughter is there who is in difficulty and wants to say something to you or at least is in need of your listening to something …”I’m too busy, let’s do it tomorrow …” This is the moment of grace: to receive. “But, Father, this is a torture!” No, it’s mortification; it’s mortification. It’s the cross of every day. Jesus said to us: “He who would follow me must take up his cross,” He did not say ”take morphine to sleep well”; “take up his cross and follow me.” And hospitality is a cross, but a good cross, because it makes us remember the reception that the Good God had and has for us, every time we go to Him to be reconciled, to ask for advice, to ask for forgiveness … Reception.
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The challenges of the family – Massimo Moretti with his wife Giorgia Lagattola
Holy Father, the family today is solicited by the culture of the provisional. The couple is undermined by the temptation to seek the greatest happiness possible in a dimension that, marriage notwithstanding, risks remaining individual. We know we can count on the indissoluble grace of the Sacrament, but we don’t always have the strength and constancy to draw from this treasure. How can we keep alive the flame of our love and what value does the promise of eternity that we exchanged with one another have for today’s world?
Pope Francis:
I have said some things about the family today, but I will take one or two of your words — that on the culture of the provisional: I repeat this always. Some people that marry don’t know what they are doing. They marry … “But do you know that this is a Sacrament?” – Yes, yes, and therefore I must first go to Confession. Yes, yes, I will do so, and I will go to Communion as well.” – And do you know that this is for life?” – “Yes, yes, I know it, I know it.” But they don’t know it, because this culture of the provisional penetrates so much in us, in our values, in our judgments, which then means – so to speak –, simply means: “Yes, yes, I will be married while love lasts, and when love doesn’t last, the marriage is over.” It’s not said, but the culture of the provisional leads one to this. And I believe the Church must work a lot on this point with the preparation for marriage. There is a chapter in Amoris Laetitia,dedicated to this. A lady – I said this at Saint John Lateran the other evening – a lady once said to me: “You priests are wily: to become priests you study for eight years, then things go well, but if things don’t go well, you don’t feel <right> anymore; you find a girl you like and, after a while, you engage in a procedure. You go to the Holy See and you are given a dispensation; you marry and form a family. And we, who receive a Sacrament that is indissoluble and for life, which is the mystery of Christ and of the Church and lasts our whole life, are prepared with three or four conferences?” It’s true: preparation for marriage. It’s better not to get married, not to receive the Sacrament if one is not sure of the fact that there is a sacramental mystery there, that in fact Christ’s embrace of the Church is there; if you are not well prepared .
Then there is the cultural and social dimension. It’s true, to marry is a social event, it has always been a social event, always, because, in all cultures, it’s good to marry: there are so many beautiful, beautiful rites in cultures. When a youth goes to get the girl and brings her … there are so many beautiful things, which indicate this beauty of marriage. However, in the consumerist culture, this social aspect, of worldliness, sometimes fosters the provisional and doesn’t help one to take [marriage] seriously. The other evening I recounted that I called a youth that I knew: I telephoned him because his mother had said he was getting married, and I met him when I went to say Mass here at Ciampino. I said to him: I was told you are getting married …” “Yes, yes” – In what church will you do so?” “But we truly don’t know, because it depends on my girl’s dress that it be in tune with the church because of the beauty …” “Ah, how lovely, how lovely … And when?” – “In a few weeks” – “Ah, all right, all right. Are you preparing yourselves well?” – “Yes, yes, now we are going, we are looking for a restaurant that’s not too far away, and also for the sweets, and this and that, and that …” <But>, what meaning doe this marriage have? It’s purely a social event, a social event. I wonder: are these good, engaged individuals free of the hedonist, consumerist, worldly culture, or does the social event make them fall into this lack of freedom? — because the Sacrament of Marriage can be received only with freedom. If you’re not free, don’t receive it.
And then, there is something we must take care of. I like to meet, be it at the Masses at Saint Martha’s or at the General Audiences, spouses observing their 50th and 60th <anniversary>, because I always speak with them, they tell me things … they are happy. Once I heard it said by one of these couples what they all wanted to say, but they succeeded in saying it [I asked them]: 60 years. Who had more patience?” “Ah, both!” — they always say the same thing – And then: “Did you quarrel?” – “Almost every day, but there’s no problem.” – “Are you happy?” – and I am moved, because they look at one another in the eyes <and say>: “Father we are in love.” This is great! After 60 years, this is great. And this is one of the fruits of the Sacrament of Marriage: grace does this. If only everyone could understand this! And there is something else that I would like to say. We all know that there is quarrelling in marriage; sometimes plates fly, these are things of every day. But the advice I always give is this: never end the day without making peace, because I fear the “cold war” of the day after. Yes, it is most dangerous! When you get angry, and end up angry and don’t make peace that <same> day, it becomes worse; it worsens, it worsens. “But how do I make peace, Father? Must I make a speech, kneel down?” – “No, do this [he does the gesture of a caress] and <that’s> enough.” It’s a gesture; it’s the language of gesture. And among the gestures – please – don’t forget to caress one another: a caress is one of the most sacred languages in marriage. Caresses: I love you so much … Caresses … Spouses that are able to caress one another, to love one another in this way, but also with the body, with everything, always … Caresses … I believe that with this the strength of the Sacrament can be maintained, because the Lord also caresses his Bride, the Church, with so much tenderness. Let’s go forward in this way.
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A community and its mission – Luca Monteferrante
Holy Father, we are a community that wishes to remain faithful to the special charism received by the Founder and to the mission entrusted to it by the Church as Association of lay faithful called to protect, defend and make it fructify. We feel strongly the desire to ask your help in the discernment of the signs of the present time and on the possible ways to follow them together. They are signs of crisis that exhibit the efforts and wounds of our living but that, at the same time, disclose potentialities and seeds of novelty, spurring us to open new ways in the desert of our lives, as an exercise of creativity of thought and of life inspired by the Spirit. Therefore we ask you, on this special occasion, to help us to understand the meaning of Jesus’ invitation addressed to Nicodemus to be “born again from on high,” as a community that questions itself in face of the depreciation of culture as instrument of the promotion of man; the organization of work that puts in danger the areas of personal and family life: the world of professions that asks to give up quotas of personal freedom to access responsible roles; the crisis of the communal dimension and of the value of fraternity caused by rhythms of life incompatible with participation in shared experiences.
Pope Francis:
But the answer comes to me from that word that Saint Paul said when he was in the midst of the storm, before arriving at Malta. “Either we are all saved or no one <is saved>.” This is the communal aspect, you are also this; your charism, your association “either the whole is saved, or it’s not saved – either all or none. You must not allow divisions among you. And if there are some divisions, encounter each other, quarrel, tell one another the truth, get angry, but from there a stronger unity will emerge. Always save your unity. Don’t be afraid to quarrel, to discuss …, but save your unity – always within, always within. And this is an important instrument to save your unity: either we’re all saved or no one is saved — particularisms, here, are awful, awful.
[In the question] there is “discernment of the signs of the times,” “seeds of novelty,” such as “giving up quotas of freedom to access responsible roles” … Three things: the first I’ve said, either all or none. Second: form sons, form disciples with this “Mysticism” [interior attitude], and leave the torch to them, that they may carry it forward. There are no eternal directors: the only eternal one is the Eternal Father. We must all pass the torch to sons to carry it forward. To make disciples, to form disciples is a renunciation, but it’s a renunciation of wisdom. To take a step “aside” so that a son can take things forward. Help him, protect him, but don’t hyper-protect him: leave him free. And He who does all this work of maintaining unity, creativity, new challenges, new sons is the Holy Spirit. It’s prayer to the Holy Spirit. It’s necessary to ask Him because it is He who consoles us in difficulties; it is He who is joy: the Holy Spirit is the joy of the Church. It is He who helps us, who gives us joy. The Holy Spirit is harmony; it is He who from the diversities He himself creates, makes the harmony of the whole Church. The Holy Spirit is beauty. We recall that time when Paul went to a new Christian community and asked them: “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” – “But we did not even know that a Holy Spirit existed” (cf. Acts 19:2). And how many institutions end badly, or lose the charism of the origins, because they have forgotten the Holy Spirit, who is a consoler in difficulties, who is joy, who is harmony, who is beauty?
And so, I thank you for the patience you have had in listening to this “Lenten sermon,” which were seven: like the “sermons of the seven words,” which in Argentina lasted three hours! Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do; thank you for the witness. And, please, I ask you to pray for me, because this work isn’t easy. Pray for me. Thank you.
[Original text: Italian] [Translation by ZENIT]
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A History of the Armenian Church by ZENIT Staff
As the Pope leaves Friday for Armenia, the Vatican press office is offering a brief history of the Chu
A biblical land, Armenia is cited in the Old Testament by the name “Kingdom of Urartu” (Ararat). In the foothills of its mountains, Noah would have cultivated vines and become inebriated drinking the wine he produced. Thanks to the Armenian translation of an apocryphal gospel, we know the names of the three Magi: Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar. Although according to tradition the apostles Bartholomew and Jude Thaddaeus were the evangelisers of Armenia, it is likely that it was instead the work of missionaries from Syria and Cappadocia. In any case, it was so successful that in 301, thanks to the apostolate of St. Gregory the Illuminator, Armenia became the first nation that embraced Christianity and proclaimed it a state religion, even before the Edict of Milan of 313, by which the Roman Empire tolerated Christianity, and the Edict of Theodosius by which in 380 the Empire recognised Christianity as a state religion.
Initially grouped with the Metropolitan Church of Caesaria of Cappadocia, in Roman territory, the Armenian Church proclaimed its autonomy in the early fifth century, under the jurisdiction of a patriarch who assumed the title of Catholicos, originally attributed to the head of a Christian community outside the confines of the Roman-Byzantine Empire – or rather, outside the jurisdiction of the patriarchs. The heads of the Armenian, Nestorian and Georgian Churches conserve this title. From the 4th century onwards the Armenian ecclesiastical institutions were consolidated and the liturgy assumed its form, strongly influenced by the ancient rite of Jerusalem. At the same time the Armenian alphabet was born, traditionally attributed to the monk Mesrop (360.440), which made it possible to translate into the national language the liturgical texts previously written only in Greek and Syrian.
The Armenian and Catholic Churches separated after the Council of Chalcedon (451), which established the dual nature, human and divine, of Christ. The adherence to monophysitism (one nature) of the Armenian Church was confirmed in two successive national councils held in 506 and 551.
The golden age of Armenian religious architecture began in the sixth and seventh centuries, when a number of monasteries were built in the mountains, and great religious and cultural centres were created. An example of the Armenian religious aesthetic exists nowadays in the form of the large stone crosses (Khatch’kar) formed of a large stone or limestone stele with an enormous cross at its centre, with a variety of rich decorations.
In the eleventh century, openness towards Rome began. The Catholicos Gregory II made a pilgrimage to Rome to honour the relics of the apostles Peter and Paul, and in the subsequent years the various Catholicos acknowledged the Pontiff as Peter’s Successor. From 1205, a number of Catholicos received the pallium in Rome. In the fourteenth century Franciscan and Dominican missionaries arrived in Armenia and established religious centres, but problems with the local hierarchies led to a fracture in 1441, the year in which the Armenian hierarchy split into two branches, Sis and Etchmiadzin. In the eighteenth century there was a religious and cultural reawakening thanks to the priest Mekhit’ar who, after converting to Catholicism, founded a congregation in Constantinople but was persecuted and sought refuge in the island of St. Lazarus in Venice. In 1740 a synod of Armenian bishops gathered in Rome to elect the first Catholic patriarch of Armenian rite, established provisionally in Kraim, Lebanon; in 1742 a new seat of the Armenian Catholic patriarchate was instituted in Bzommar, Lebanon. It transferred to Constantinople in 1866 but returned to Bzommar in 1925, where it remains to this day. The current Catholicos is Grégoire Pierre XX Ghabroyan, and his jurisdiction extends to all the Armenian Catholics of the East and the diaspora.
The Armenian Church is independent and autocephalous, and defines itself as apostolic since it traces its origins to the apostles Thaddaeus and Bartholomew. It maintains good relations in an ecumenical spirit with the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Churches, and has its own leader, the Catholicos, entirely independent of the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the other confessions. Its origin dates back to the schism of the Ecumenical Council of 451. The Armenian Church defines itself as both Orthodox and Catholic, inasmuch as it regards itself to be an expression of true Christian faith and of the universality of the Church. In December 1996, St. John Paul II and His Holiness the Catholicos of All the Armenians, Karekin II, signed a joint declaration in which they affirmed the common origin of the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope’s Q-and-A at Villa Nazareth by ZENIT Staff
Pope Francis visited the community of Villa Nazareth on Saturday, on the 70th anniversary of its foundation by Cardinal Domenico Tardini, Vatican Secretary of State between 1958 and 1961, to offer assistance and aid to poor children orphaned by the war. It was subsequently instituted as a College by the chirograph of St. John XXIII in 1963.
The College is managed by the Domenico Tardini Foundation, chaired by Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, and receives free of charge students of both sexes with a history of excellence in studies but are from families who, on account of their socio-economic or cultural situation, are unable to support them.
After an address, the Holy Father had a dialogue with some of the youth. Here is a ZENIT translation of his words:
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The courage of choice – Valentina Piras
Holy Father, rather than teachers, we young people are in need of credible witnesses. We are often aware of inhabiting a complex reality in which there are no constant points of reference and where experiences without substance are proposed. Sometimes we are youngsters and adults “parked” in life, prey of the illusion of success and of the cult of our ego, incapable of giving ourselves to others. Holy Father, we would like you to say a word to us that will help us to have light in the darkness that dominates our hearts. How can we reawaken the grandeur and courage of choices of wide breadth, of a leap of heart to address educational and affective challenges?
Pope Francis:
Thank you. A key word is: “We young people are in need of credible witnesses.” And this in fact is the logic of the Gospel: to give witness, with one’s life, one’s way of living, the choices made … But witness of what? Of several things — witness, we Christians, of Jesus Christ who is alive, who has accompanied us: He has accompanied us in sorrow; he died for us, but He is alive. Said this way, it seems too clerical. However, I understand the witness that young people seek: it’s the witness of a “humiliation.” A humiliation is a good daily witness! One that awakens you and says to you: “Look, don’t engage in illusions with ideas, with promises …” including illusions very close to us – the illusion of success: “”No, I’ll go on this path and I’ll be successful.” It is the cult of one’s ego. We all know that today the mirror is in fashion! To look at oneself, one’s ego, that narcissism that today’s culture offers us. And when we don’t have testimonies, perhaps our life is going well; we earn well, we have a profession, we have a good job, a family …, however, you said a very strong word: “We are men and women parked in life,” namely, that don’t walk, that don’t go, as conformists: all is habit, a habit that leaves us tranquil; we have what is necessary, nothing is lacking, thank God …”How can we reawaken the grandeur and the courage of wide choices, of leaps of the heart to address educational and affective challenges?” I’ve said the word so many times: risk! Risk. One who doesn’t risk doesn’t walk. “But if I’m mistaken?” Blessed be the Lord! You will be more mistaken if you stay still, still: that’s the mistake, the bad mistake <and> closure. Risk. Risk for noble ideals, risk by soiling your hands, risk as that Samaritan of the parable risked. When in life we are more or less tranquil, there is always the temptation of paralysis. Not to risk: to be tranquil, still … “How can we reawaken the grandeur and courage of wide choices,” you asked, “of leaps of the heart to address educational and affective challenges? Get close to problems; come out of yourself and risk, risk. Otherwise you life will slowly become a paralyzed life; happy, content, with the family, but parked there – to use your word. It’s very sad to see parked lives; it’s very sad to see persons that seem more like museum mummies than living beings. Risk! Risk. If a mistake is made, blessed be the Lord. Risk. <Go> forward! I don’t know, this is what comes to me to tell you.
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The effort of faith in today’s world – Gabriele Giuliano
Dear Pope Francis, we often find in the newspapers dramatic news regarding the tragedy that is affecting the Christian communities scattered in the world: these events lead us to a profound reflection on how much our faith can be witnessed and lived, even to death. This courage of genuine faith really puts everything in question. How can we be credible witnesses of the Gospel; how can we proclaim the message of Christ to the world? Many of us, with all the lacks and limitations intrinsic to the human being, feel these, but they easily discourage us. Does this happen to you? Have you ever had a crisis of faith? Where and how did you find the way to take it up again, not to tire, and to continue in your mandate, first as layman, then as consecrated?
Pope Francis:
But you have asked too personal a question! And I must make the choice … Either I answer the truth, or I engage in a soap opera that is lovely and so on … The tragedy of Christian communities scattered in the world: this is true, but witness is the destiny of Christians — I take up again the word testimony even in difficult situations. I don’t like, and I want to say it clearly, I don’t like when there is talk of genocide of Christians, for instance in the Middle East: this is reductionism; it’s reductionism. The truth is a persecution that leads Christians to fidelity, to coherence in their faith. Let’s not engage in sociological reductionism of what <in fact> is a mystery of the faith: martyrdom. Those 13 – I believe they were Egyptian Coptic Christian men, Saints today, canonized by the Coptic Church – decapitated on the beaches of Libya. They all died saying: “Jesus, help me!” Jesus. But I’m sure that the majority of them did not even know how to read. They weren’t Doctors in Theology. No, no. They were, as one says, ignorant, but they were Doctors of Christian coherence, that is, they were witnesses of faith. And faith makes us witness so many difficult things in life; we also witness the faith with our life. But let’s not deceive ourselves: a bloody martyrdom is not the only way to witness Jesus Christ. It’s the highest, let’s say, heroic. It’s also true that today there are more martyrs than in the first centuries of the Church; it’s true. However, there is the martyrdom of every day: the martyrdom of honesty, the martyrdom of patience in the education of children; the martyrdom of fidelity to love, when it’s easier to take another path, more hidden: the martyrdom of honesty, in this world that can also be called “the paradise of the <tangents>,” it’s so easy: You say this and you’ll have that,” when the courage is lacking to throw dirty money back, in a world where so many parents give their children to eat bread soiled by tangents, the bread they buy with the tangents they earn … Christian witness is there, martyrdom is there: “No, I don’t want this!” “if you don’t want it, you won’t have that job, you won’t be able to go higher.” <And> the martyrdom of silence in face of the temptation to gossip. Jesus says that one who says “stupid” to a brother must go to hell. You know that gossip is like the bomb of a terrorist, of a kamikaze – not of a kamikaze, of a terrorist, <because> at least the kamikaze does have the courage to die – no, gossip is when I throw the “bomb,” I destroy something, and I’m happy. But Christian witness is the martyrdom of every day, the silent martyrdom, and we must speak like this. “But we are martyred men and women; we should have a sad face, a long face.” No. There is the joy ofJesus’s word, like that on the beaches of Libya.
And courage is necessary, and courage is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Martyrdom, martyred Christian life, Christian witness cannot be lived without the courage of the Christian life. Saint Paul uses two words:courage and patience – two words. The courage to go forward and not be ashamed of being a Christian and make yourself seen as a Christian, and the patience to carry on your shoulders the burden of every day, also the sorrows, also one’s sins, one’s incoherence. “But can one be Christian with sins?” Yes. We are all sinners, all of us. A Christian is not a man or a woman that has the asepsis of laboratories, he is not like distilled water! A Christian is a man, a woman capable of betraying his/her ideal with sin. He/she is a weak man and woman. But we must be reconciled with our weakness. And thus the nose [aspect] becomes a bit more humble, more humble.
Truth is not in one’s appearance. “I’m not a sinner,” like that Pharisee who prayed before the Lord: “I thank you that I’m not like this one, or that one, like that other one”; he soiled everyone but he was clean. He strutted. Allow me, it’s a bit … it’s not very correct, no, in fact, what I will now say isn’t licit, but the image will help you. The Christian coherence with the truth is to feel ourselves sinners and in need of forgiveness. Instead, one who boasts of being a perfect Christian, is like a turkey: but how beautiful the turkey is! — it’ seen, it’s a beautiful reality … Excuse me, but <have it> turn around, that’s also the reality of the turkey! And Christ’s message to the world is like that: we are sinners, and Jesus has loved us, He has healed us, or we are always on the way to being healed. And He loves us, and the intrinsic imitations and also the extrinsic limitations we see, for instance, the hypocrisy in the Church. The hypocrisy of Christians — these limitations discourage us, and so faith enters in crisis. And here the impudent question: “Have you ever had a crisis of faith?” This is a question you ask the Pope! You are courageous! “Where and how did you find the way to take it up again, not to get tired and to continue in your mandate, as layman first, as consecrated later?” I find myself in crisis with the faith so many times and sometimes I’ve had the impudence to reproach Jesus: “But why do you permit this?” and even doubt: “But is this the truth or a dream?” — and <I did> this as a boy, as a seminarian, as a priest, as a Religious, as a Bishop and as Pope. But howsoever in the world have you been like this, when You have given Your life?” A Christian who hasn’t felt this at some time, whose faith hasn’t entered in crisis, is lacking something: he is a Christian that is content with some worldliness and goes forward in life in this way. I was told — because I don’t know Chinese, I have so much difficulty with languages, look, I don’t know Chinese, but I was told that the word crisis is made up in Chinese with two ideograms: one is the ideogram risk and the other with the ideogram opportunity. It’s true. When one enters in crisis – as when Jesus said to Peter that the devil would have put him in crisis [“sifted”], as one does with wheat, and so many times the devil, life, one’s neighbor, so many persons make us “spring” like wheat, put us in crisis — there is always a danger, a risk, a risk not in the good sense, and an opportunity. A Christian – I learnt this – must not be afraid to enter in crisis: it’s a sign that he is going forward, that he is not anchored to the bank of the river or the seashore, that he has taken off and goes forward. And there are problems there, crises, incoherence, and the crisis of one’s sin, which makes us so ashamed. And how can we not get tired? It’s a grace. Ask the Lord for it: “Lord, may I not tire. Give me the grace of patience, of going forward, of waiting for peace to come.” I don’t know. It seems to me I should answer this way.
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The professional and affective vocation – Giacomo Guarini
Holy Father, today everything is directed to the affirmation of the individual and the person seems to get lost as a being capable of giving himself and of receiving love. Love is no longer understood as a movement towards the other’s good but as a means for individual gratification; in a particular way, we don’t hide the difficulties that concern us young graduates, often humiliated by the lack of concrete prospects for our future and unable to bring to fulfilment the professional and affective vocation that, thanks to Villa Nazareth, we discovered. Therefore, how to make of work a place of vocation, in a world governed by unbridled individualism? How should relations be lived as mirror of the love of God, also during the engagement, in a context in which every desire of gratuitousness seems to fail?
Pope Francis:
You said a word that I like very much: gratuitousness. We often forget the meaning of gratuitousness, and we forger that gratuitousness is the language of God. He created us gratuitously; He has recreated us gratuitously in Jesus; and Jesus himself admonishes us: “What you received freely, give freely.” Gratuitousness. In this civilization of the “do ut des,” I give you this and that, everything is negotiated; gratuitousness runs the danger of disappearing. And sometimes, or many times – I think it’s one of the most common habits –Christianity becomes Pelagian: everything is purchased. “I do this and I am holier,” “I do this and I’m more perfect,” “I do this and I’m more Christian,” “I don’t do this and my Christianity is not …” We also have this attitude of the “do ut des” with God. But in the Old Testament the Lord already said to us: “I have no need of your sacrifices. Look around you and help others. Be just in the stipend.” And what you call “the affirmation of the individual,” this individualism leads us to very grave injustices – human injustices. I won’t say “social” because someone might say: “But this priest is a Socialist.” No, no, human! It is to a degree individual gratification which has nothing to do with the gratuitousness that Jesus Christ proposes to us, that God teaches us, which is in fact the language of God: gratuitousness. We must put ourselves on this wavelength of gratuitousness. Individual gratifications, hedonism: this is also a culture of hedonism. Personal satisfaction is sought. And today we must work so hard to distinguish the saints from those who disguise themselves to appear like saints! <There are> so many disguised Christians who aren’t Christians, because they don’t know gratuitousness. They live otherwise.
‘How to make of work a place of vocation?” To respond to the first call, the call that every one of us receives and which is the same that humanity received in Adam: go, cultivate the earth, multiply, rule the earth, work … “How to make of work a place of vocation?” Perhaps the strongest word here is work. It is one thing to work and quite another is to do things for profit and also to profit from others. The culture of work … In many underdeveloped countries there is the culture of the subsidy: aid is given but one is not taught to work. It does me so much good to think of Don Bosco, at the end of the eight hundreds, in that Masonic, priest hating, poor Turin, where boys were on the street … What did he do? Did he go there with holy water? No. He did emergency education, he made them study to learn simple trades, and thus enter into the culture of work. He saw in that risk an opportunity, an opportunity in that religious crisis, and he opened a human and religious horizon to those individuals. Work, which is not the same thing as “doing things,” so that the family fails, the marriage fails. I get enthusiastic, for instance, with politics, and I go here and there and then I don’t take care of my wife or my husband or the children. I have a habit, in Confession, when a married man or woman tell me they have children and that perhaps they lose patience …, I ask a question: “But how many children do you have?” Often they are scared: but what will the next question be? And <my> second question is: “And tell me, do you play with them? Do you take time to play with your children, to listen to them, to have an area of communication with them?” – “But, Father – an answer – when I go out to work in the morning, the children are asleep, and when I return, they are sleeping.” This slaving work, which does not allow one to live the gratuitousness of the gift of love, of God’s gift, perhaps isn’t the fault of this man or this woman: it’s the fault of the situation, it’s the fault of injustice, of the moral injustice that we live in this society. But I say this: take care of the family, take care of your husband, take care of your wife, take care of the children. And I allow myself something I have very much at heart: take care of the grandparents! Take care of the grandparents. They are our memory! In this disposable culture, it’s so easy to discard the grandparents: either in their home, or in the rest home, and not go to see them. Now it has changed somewhat because, as there is not much work and they have their pension, now we go to the grandparents! Take care of the grandparents. That prophecy of the prophet Joel in chapter III touches my heart: “Grandparents will dream,” and it will be in fact the dream, the capacity to dream of great things, which will make youngsters, young people go forward.
I’ll stop here, otherwise I’ll never end.
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The new poverties – Maria Elena Tagliaboschi
Holy Father, the economic crisis, the considerable migratory flows, demographic changes, the incompatibility of times of work with those of the care of children, are only some of the phenomenons that are strongly affecting the development of society in the industrialized countries. All this is fostering the birth of new poverties: elderly alone, the unemployed and precarious growing strongly who do not find the space due to them in the labor market; young couples suffocated by huge expenses in running a family. These changes make us feel lost and always poorer, before economically, in hope, in desires, in passions. With what spirit can we, young people and adults, address these situations which often involve us?
Pope Francis
Forgive me, I took too long. In regard to this question, I have answered so many things. But I shall go, perhaps, to the crux of the problem. What we must review is the style of today’s economy. Today – and I say this because I wrote about it in Evangelii Gaudium – there is an economy that kills. In the world, in the global economy, man, woman is not at the center: the god money is there, and this kills us: on a winter’s morning you can find a homeless individual frozen to death., in Risorgimento Square, or many children on the street who have nothing to eat, and also drug addicts… This doesn’t make news; it doesn’t make news. However, if the stock markets of Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, New York fall by two or three points there is a great international tragedy! We are slaves of this economic system that kills – slaves and victims. Today it’s common to work illegally, because if you don’t work illegally, you have no work. It’s common. Today it’s common to be given a work contract from September to June, and what happens with July and August? Eat some air! Then one is given another contract from September, without healthcare, without the possibility of a pension. This is called “slave labor,” and the majority of us live in this system of slave labor.
The migratory flows: they flee in part because of hunger, because their country has been exploited and they are hungry. And they flee in part from war, which is in fact the affair at this moment that renders more money; the arms traffickers. And the same one that sells, that traffics the arms to this country that is at war with that one, is the same one who sells to the one at war with it! It is also a difficulty to have humanitarian aid reach countries at war or with guerrillas: so many times the Red Cross has not succeeded. But arms always arrive; there is no customs that stop them! Why? Because it’s precisely the affair that renders more — the god money … we are slaves. A young girl told me last year that she had seen <an ad> in the newspaper <for a job> and she went there and there was a queue of people who were after the jobs. And the employer saw her Curriculum and said to her: “Yes, yes, this might do, yes, you can go. Your work will be 10-11 hours a day, more or less, not more than 11 <and> your stipend 650 euros a month.” And the girl said: “But this isn’t just!” “But, if you like it, take it; if you don’t like it, look at the queue behind you … Goodbye!” And this is our daily bread, and from these injustices come so many new poverties, so many new poverties. Once I went to a shantytown of Buenos Aires, and there were new people there. I went to visit them in teirt little hut of a bit of wood and a bit of tin that they had made, but the furniture was good. And I had the courage to ask: “But how is this possible, I don’t understand …” And <the man> said to me: “Father, up to last month we could pay the rent, now we can’t.” And so the shantytowns grow. It’s a great injustice. And we must speak clearly: this is a mortal sin. And it makes me indignant, it upsets me when, for instance, something that is current – <people> come to have a child baptized and they bring one [as godfather], and he is told: “But you haven’t married in church; you can’t be a godfather because marriage, to get married in church is important.” But then they bring another one who is a swindler, an exploiter of people, a trafficker of children, but he is a “good Catholic,” he gives alms to the Church … “Ah, yes, you can be a godfather.” But we have turned our values upside down! The economic world, as it is arranged in the world today isimmoral. I’m speaking in general, but there are exceptions. There are good people, there are countries that are seeking to change this; there are institutions that work against this. But the global atmosphere is that man and woman have been removed from the center of the economy, and the god money is there. I believe that with this I’ve answered your question.
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From the center to the peripheries – Tonino Casamassimi
Holy Father, the comparison with the fundamental values of this Community must lead to question ourselves continually on the seriousness of our commitment in the world and of our service to our neighbor. A reality such as Villa Nazareth is filled with meaning precisely in the measure in which it succeeds in having well-trafficked talents fructify outside its walls, not only physical. From whence the attempt to open ourselves ever more – in our littleness and among various difficulties – to commitment in civil and social life, to an active presence not confined to this physical place but extended to all the territories in which members of our Community live and operate, to a reflection and to a concrete project of welcome of the neighbor who comes from distant lands. In what ways and with what spirit can we reinforce our commitment in the world, to live seriously that encounter with the peripheries of existence to which you exhort, and which finds profound roots in the evangelical message?
Pope Francis
To make talents fructify – we will be judged on this: what did I do with my talents, with what I received, with what the Lord gave me gratuitously? It’s a question we must ask ourselves. Can a do more? Can I give more? Can I share more? Talents, not only money, talents! And what is one of the most important talents of Villa Nazareth since its foundation? You said the word: hospitality. We are living in a civilization of closed doors, of closed hearts. We defend ourselves, we defend ourselves from one another: “This is mine; this is mine,” — fear of receiving — fear of receiving. And I’m not only speaking of the reception of immigrants, which is a great problem; it is also a global political problem. But also daily hospitality, hospitality to one who seeks me to bore me with his complaints, with his problems, and seeks in me a word of comfort and also the possibility of opening wide a “small window” to go outside. It upsets me, it upsets me when I see churches with the doors closed; it upsets one. There might be justifiable motives, but a church of closed doors means that that Christian community has a closed heart, it’s enclosed in itself. And we must take up again the sense of hospitality, of receiving. And this is very simple, it’s what happens in Rome daily: I think it’s one of the works, or if you wish to call it in terms of the apostolate, one of the things of which we are in greatest need, is the apostolate of the ear. We don’t have time to listen. We have lost our ability, <to listen>: “Not I, I don’t have time to go to listen to their complaints; no, they upset me, it’s better if I do something else that is more useful, doesn’t waste time …” If we don’t do this, we are not receiving others. And if we don’t receive them we are not Christians, and we will not be welcomed in the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s mathematical. It’s so; it’s the logic of the Gospel. It’s so. And you who had the experience of hospitality here, in this House, have a great social and ecclesial responsibility: to teach, to have it understood that this is the door of the Christian way. When we were baptized we were received by the Christian community – a beautiful liturgical ceremony where the parish priest explained things well, everything … But am I capable of carrying this sacramental hospitality forward, with the sign of the Trinity? Am I capable of carrying it forward in my way of living the faith? Or do I prefer to look the other way? {It’s} better to say: “I haven’t understood,” “I haven’t heard,” “I didn’t know”… Instead, this [hospitality] gives fruit, it gives fruit. <It’s> hospitality that makes talents fructify. There is the great reception of those that come from distant lands. And there is the little welcome, when you – father or mother – return from work and your adolescent son or daughter is there who is in difficulty and wants to say something to you or at least is in need of your listening to something …”I’m too busy, let’s do it tomorrow …” This is the moment of grace: to receive. “But, Father, this is a torture!” No, it’s mortification; it’s mortification. It’s the cross of every day. Jesus said to us: “He who would follow me must take up his cross,” He did not say ”take morphine to sleep well”; “take up his cross and follow me.” And hospitality is a cross, but a good cross, because it makes us remember the reception that the Good God had and has for us, every time we go to Him to be reconciled, to ask for advice, to ask for forgiveness … Reception.
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The challenges of the family – Massimo Moretti with his wife Giorgia Lagattola
Holy Father, the family today is solicited by the culture of the provisional. The couple is undermined by the temptation to seek the greatest happiness possible in a dimension that, marriage notwithstanding, risks remaining individual. We know we can count on the indissoluble grace of the Sacrament, but we don’t always have the strength and constancy to draw from this treasure. How can we keep alive the flame of our love and what value does the promise of eternity that we exchanged with one another have for today’s world?
Pope Francis:
I have said some things about the family today, but I will take one or two of your words — that on the culture of the provisional: I repeat this always. Some people that marry don’t know what they are doing. They marry … “But do you know that this is a Sacrament?” – Yes, yes, and therefore I must first go to Confession. Yes, yes, I will do so, and I will go to Communion as well.” – And do you know that this is for life?” – “Yes, yes, I know it, I know it.” But they don’t know it, because this culture of the provisional penetrates so much in us, in our values, in our judgments, which then means – so to speak –, simply means: “Yes, yes, I will be married while love lasts, and when love doesn’t last, the marriage is over.” It’s not said, but the culture of the provisional leads one to this. And I believe the Church must work a lot on this point with the preparation for marriage. There is a chapter in Amoris Laetitia,dedicated to this. A lady – I said this at Saint John Lateran the other evening – a lady once said to me: “You priests are wily: to become priests you study for eight years, then things go well, but if things don’t go well, you don’t feel <right> anymore; you find a girl you like and, after a while, you engage in a procedure. You go to the Holy See and you are given a dispensation; you marry and form a family. And we, who receive a Sacrament that is indissoluble and for life, which is the mystery of Christ and of the Church and lasts our whole life, are prepared with three or four conferences?” It’s true: preparation for marriage. It’s better not to get married, not to receive the Sacrament if one is not sure of the fact that there is a sacramental mystery there, that in fact Christ’s embrace of the Church is there; if you are not well prepared .
Then there is the cultural and social dimension. It’s true, to marry is a social event, it has always been a social event, always, because, in all cultures, it’s good to marry: there are so many beautiful, beautiful rites in cultures. When a youth goes to get the girl and brings her … there are so many beautiful things, which indicate this beauty of marriage. However, in the consumerist culture, this social aspect, of worldliness, sometimes fosters the provisional and doesn’t help one to take [marriage] seriously. The other evening I recounted that I called a youth that I knew: I telephoned him because his mother had said he was getting married, and I met him when I went to say Mass here at Ciampino. I said to him: I was told you are getting married …” “Yes, yes” – In what church will you do so?” “But we truly don’t know, because it depends on my girl’s dress that it be in tune with the church because of the beauty …” “Ah, how lovely, how lovely … And when?” – “In a few weeks” – “Ah, all right, all right. Are you preparing yourselves well?” – “Yes, yes, now we are going, we are looking for a restaurant that’s not too far away, and also for the sweets, and this and that, and that …” <But>, what meaning doe this marriage have? It’s purely a social event, a social event. I wonder: are these good, engaged individuals free of the hedonist, consumerist, worldly culture, or does the social event make them fall into this lack of freedom? — because the Sacrament of Marriage can be received only with freedom. If you’re not free, don’t receive it.
And then, there is something we must take care of. I like to meet, be it at the Masses at Saint Martha’s or at the General Audiences, spouses observing their 50th and 60th <anniversary>, because I always speak with them, they tell me things … they are happy. Once I heard it said by one of these couples what they all wanted to say, but they succeeded in saying it [I asked them]: 60 years. Who had more patience?” “Ah, both!” — they always say the same thing – And then: “Did you quarrel?” – “Almost every day, but there’s no problem.” – “Are you happy?” – and I am moved, because they look at one another in the eyes <and say>: “Father we are in love.” This is great! After 60 years, this is great. And this is one of the fruits of the Sacrament of Marriage: grace does this. If only everyone could understand this! And there is something else that I would like to say. We all know that there is quarrelling in marriage; sometimes plates fly, these are things of every day. But the advice I always give is this: never end the day without making peace, because I fear the “cold war” of the day after. Yes, it is most dangerous! When you get angry, and end up angry and don’t make peace that <same> day, it becomes worse; it worsens, it worsens. “But how do I make peace, Father? Must I make a speech, kneel down?” – “No, do this [he does the gesture of a caress] and <that’s> enough.” It’s a gesture; it’s the language of gesture. And among the gestures – please – don’t forget to caress one another: a caress is one of the most sacred languages in marriage. Caresses: I love you so much … Caresses … Spouses that are able to caress one another, to love one another in this way, but also with the body, with everything, always … Caresses … I believe that with this the strength of the Sacrament can be maintained, because the Lord also caresses his Bride, the Church, with so much tenderness. Let’s go forward in this way.
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A community and its mission – Luca Monteferrante
Holy Father, we are a community that wishes to remain faithful to the special charism received by the Founder and to the mission entrusted to it by the Church as Association of lay faithful called to protect, defend and make it fructify. We feel strongly the desire to ask your help in the discernment of the signs of the present time and on the possible ways to follow them together. They are signs of crisis that exhibit the efforts and wounds of our living but that, at the same time, disclose potentialities and seeds of novelty, spurring us to open new ways in the desert of our lives, as an exercise of creativity of thought and of life inspired by the Spirit. Therefore we ask you, on this special occasion, to help us to understand the meaning of Jesus’ invitation addressed to Nicodemus to be “born again from on high,” as a community that questions itself in face of the depreciation of culture as instrument of the promotion of man; the organization of work that puts in danger the areas of personal and family life: the world of professions that asks to give up quotas of personal freedom to access responsible roles; the crisis of the communal dimension and of the value of fraternity caused by rhythms of life incompatible with participation in shared experiences.
Pope Francis:
But the answer comes to me from that word that Saint Paul said when he was in the midst of the storm, before arriving at Malta. “Either we are all saved or no one <is saved>.” This is the communal aspect, you are also this; your charism, your association “either the whole is saved, or it’s not saved – either all or none. You must not allow divisions among you. And if there are some divisions, encounter each other, quarrel, tell one another the truth, get angry, but from there a stronger unity will emerge. Always save your unity. Don’t be afraid to quarrel, to discuss …, but save your unity – always within, always within. And this is an important instrument to save your unity: either we’re all saved or no one is saved — particularisms, here, are awful, awful.
[In the question] there is “discernment of the signs of the times,” “seeds of novelty,” such as “giving up quotas of freedom to access responsible roles” … Three things: the first I’ve said, either all or none. Second: form sons, form disciples with this “Mysticism” [interior attitude], and leave the torch to them, that they may carry it forward. There are no eternal directors: the only eternal one is the Eternal Father. We must all pass the torch to sons to carry it forward. To make disciples, to form disciples is a renunciation, but it’s a renunciation of wisdom. To take a step “aside” so that a son can take things forward. Help him, protect him, but don’t hyper-protect him: leave him free. And He who does all this work of maintaining unity, creativity, new challenges, new sons is the Holy Spirit. It’s prayer to the Holy Spirit. It’s necessary to ask Him because it is He who consoles us in difficulties; it is He who is joy: the Holy Spirit is the joy of the Church. It is He who helps us, who gives us joy. The Holy Spirit is harmony; it is He who from the diversities He himself creates, makes the harmony of the whole Church. The Holy Spirit is beauty. We recall that time when Paul went to a new Christian community and asked them: “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” – “But we did not even know that a Holy Spirit existed” (cf. Acts 19:2). And how many institutions end badly, or lose the charism of the origins, because they have forgotten the Holy Spirit, who is a consoler in difficulties, who is joy, who is harmony, who is beauty?
And so, I thank you for the patience you have had in listening to this “Lenten sermon,” which were seven: like the “sermons of the seven words,” which in Argentina lasted three hours! Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do; thank you for the witness. And, please, I ask you to pray for me, because this work isn’t easy. Pray for me. Thank you.
[Original text: Italian] [Translation by ZENIT]
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