Pope Francis - Page 76

On Tuesday morning Pope Francis sent out a tweet commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

A papal tradition has come to a bizarre end. For years, popes have sent out white doves as a symbol of peace after an annual meeting with young people from the youth movement called Catholic Action.

“God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline,” said Pope Francis Monday, citing Saint Paul. The Pope went after spiritual wimpiness, saying that timidity and shame are the enemies of Christians.

“It’s an ugly thing that we Christians are divided,” said Pope Francis Sunday. “Jesus wants us united in one single body,” he said. In his weekly Angelus message, the Pope spoke of the week of prayer for Christian unity, which

The media help communication, said Pope Francis, “when they enable people to share their stories, to stay in contact with distant friends, to thank others or to seek their forgiveness, and to open the door to new encounters.”

Our mother’s womb, said Pope Francis, “is the first ‘school’ of communication, a place of listening and physical contact where we begin to familiarize ourselves with the outside world within a protected environment, with the reassuring sound of the mother’s heartbeat.”

Pope Francis wants to one day walk across the U.S.-Mexico as a gesture of support for immigrants. “To enter the United States from the border with Mexico would be a beautiful gesture of brotherhood and support for immigrants,” Pope Francis

The relationship between the Catholic Church and China is “an open wound, which must be treated and cured,” says Joseph Wei Jingyi, the underground bishop of Qiqihar, in northeast China.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis denied rumors that he is a teetotaler, drinking only mate tea, an herbal infusion typical of certain Latin American countries. “I’m not a teetotaler,” he said. “I drink a little wine from Italy and other countries from around the world. But just a little.” The Pope’s grandfather, in fact, was winemaker of Piedmontese origin.

Just days after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, a band of five young immigrants desecrated a statue of the Virgin Mary at the parish of San Barnaba in the Italian city of Perugia, breaking it and urinating on it.

It is not unusual for U.S. presidents to reference the pope in their State of the Union addresses. President Obama’s decision to quote Pope Francis in Tuesday’s address follows on Lyndon Johnson’s citation of Pope Paul VI in 1968 and Bill Clinton’s reference to Pope John Paul II in 2000.

“Some people say that large families and the birth of so many children are among the causes of poverty,” said Pope Francis Wednesday, an opinion that he characterized as “simplistic.” The Pope pointed to economic systems that trample the human person as the true cause of poverty. “This is the main reason for poverty, not families,” he said.

In a special appeal at the end of his weekly General Audience Wednesday in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope Francis asked for prayers for the victims of the events of recent days in “beloved Niger.” The Pope also forcefully condemned “the brutality towards Christians, children and churches” perpetrated there in recent days.

While reasserting that Catholic couples should be open to life, Pope Francis also said they should practice “responsible parenthood,” not just having all the children they can.

During his trip to the United States next September, Pope Francis is planning to address a joint session of Congress as well as visit the White House, according to the Vatican’s permanent observer to the U.N. in New York. Francis aims to visit the White House on September 23 and will celebrate Mass at Washington’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception later that same day.

Bishop Mylo Vergara of Pasig expressed deep gratitude and joy for Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines, noting that Francis is a man of surprises, but that he, too, was surprised.

The question of whether to canonize or not to canonize Father Junipero Serra has raged now that Pope Francis has decided to nominate Serra for sainthood. The dichotomy among Californians triggered by Serra’s nomination springs from significantly different viewpoints.

The testimony of a sobbing 12-year-old girl, a survivor of drugs and prostitution, stirred Francis Sunday morning, moving him to set aside his prepared text to talk for over half an hour off the cuff. The young girl, Glyzelle Palomar,

In Sunday’s Mass in Rizal Park, Manila, Pope Francis told the throng of some 6 million that the devil’s lies are the greatest threat to God’s plan for our lives. “Often he hides his snares behind the appearance of sophistication, the allure of being ‘modern,’ ‘like everyone else,’” the Pope said.

Though the final figures are not yet in, reports estimate that some six million people attended Pope Francis’ Mass is Manila on Sunday, making it one of the largest gatherings in human history.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco has called the Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of marriage laws “the most significant Court decision since the Court’s tragic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision making abortion a constitutional right.”

Authorities in the Philippines engaged in an extensive effort to clear Manila’s streets of homeless children, a Daily Mail report uncovered, to shield Pope Francis from witnessing the crushing poverty the capital’s homeless face. Children were rounded up and caged in jail cells, made to eat scraps of food on the floor, and beaten by older inmates.

There is very little concern in the Muslim-controlled world about giving offense to other faiths. Governments dominated by Islam tend to explicitly demote other religions to second-class status–if they’re lucky. Advocating other religions is a swift route to imprisonment or execution, as Pastor Saeed Abedini can attest

On Thursday’s “Hannity,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue, Fox News Contributor Father Jonathan Morris, USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers, and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity clashed over comments by Pope Francis regarding the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. Donohue doubled down

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that while “there is no justification” for the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, it isn’t “very sensible to insult someone” in an interview CNN’s Jake Tapper released on Thursday. In reaction to Pope Francis’

“I believe that religious freedom and freedom of speech are both fundamental human rights,” Pope Francis said on his flight to the Philippines Thursday morning. But “freedom of expression has limits,” he added.

In a surprise announcement on his plane trip to Manila Thursday, Pope Francis said that he is planning to canonize the founder of California’s first missions and the father of the California wine industry when he visits the US next fall.

According to several news sources, rumors are circulating of an imminent Venezuelan coup on reigning President Nicolás Maduro.

More than half a million people attended a seafront mass in Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, as Pope Francis announced that Reverend Joseph Vaz had been canonized as a saint. Vaz was a 17th century Indian missionary who revived the faith in Sri Lanka during a time of anti-Catholic persecution by Dutch colonists, who were Protestant Calvinists.

All Christians ask is for the freedom to carry out their mission, Pope Francis said in his homily at a Mass attended by a half million people.

In his interreligious meeting with more than 1,000 representatives of Sri Lanka’s four major religious communities—Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian—Pope Francis called on leaders to denounce acts of violence committed in the name of religion.

On arriving to Sri Lanka Tuesday morning, Pope Francis was adorned with a garland of yellow and white flowers around his neck and greeted by a children’s choir that serenaded him in English and Italian.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio gave Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State who is the second most important official at the Vatican, a mock-up of New York’s new municipal identification card and said the cards will influence the

Pope Francis baptized 33 children on Sunday morning, the day that Christians celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In his homily, the Pope told parents to teach their children that “you cannot be a Christian outside the

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who both describe themselves as nonreligious, will head to The Vatican some time in early January to visit with Pope Francis on a special VIP visit.

In a significant gesture, the Turkish government has authorized the construction of a Syriac Christian church in Istanbul, the first to be built since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. The decision came during a meeting on Friday