The Weekly Francis

Introduction

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of documents, speeches, and other texts brought into an ebook format.

The Weekly Francis was inspired by Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin who came up with the idea to create a weekly link page to the words of the Holy Father.

All texts are © Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Considering the increasing prevalence of electronic book readers and their ease in reading textual documents this provides an ideal format in making available the words of Pope Francis. This ebook compilation is provided as a public service with no associated fees.

Jeff Miller The Curt Jester blog

Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin's blog can be found at JimmyAkin.org

While this ebook publication take it's cue from Jimmy Akin's weekly post with links, it is done without association and any copyright problems or formatting mistakes are entirely my own.

Index of Source Links

List of direct document links on Vatican.va used.

Angelus

- 26 May 2013

General Audiences

- 22 May 2013

Homilies

- 26 May 2013 - Visit to the Roman Parish of Sts Elizabeth and Zachariah

Speeches

- 21 May 2013 - Visit to the homeless shelter “Dono di Maria”: Meeting with the Missionaries of Charity

- 24 May 2013 - To participants in the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

- 25 May 2013 - Meeting with the members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation

Papal Tweets

- @pontifex, 28 May 2013

- @pontifex, 29 May 2013

- @pontifex, 31 May 2013

- @pontifex, 1 June 2013

- @pontifex, 2 June 2013

Angelus/Regina Caeli

26 May 2013 - Angelus

POPE FRANCIS

ANGELUS

Saint Peter's Square

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Sunday, 26 May 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Good morning! This morning I made my first visit to a parish in the Diocese of Rome. I thank the Lord and I ask you to pray for my pastoral service to this Church of Rome whose mission is to preside in universal charity.

Today is the Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity. The light of Eastertide and of Pentecost renews in us every year the joy and amazement of faith: let us recognize that God is not something vague, our God is not a God “spray”, he is tangible; he is not abstract but has a name: “God is love”. His is not a sentimental, emotional kind of love but the love of the Father who is the origin of all life, the love of the Son who dies on the Cross and is raised, the love of the Spirit who renews human beings and the world. Thinking that God is love does us so much good, because it teaches us to love, to give ourselves to others as Jesus gave himself to us and walks with us. Jesus walks beside us on the road through life.

The Most Holy Trinity is not the product of human reasoning but the face with which God actually revealed himself, not from the heights of a throne, but walking with humanity. It is Jesus himself who revealed the Father to us and who promised us the Holy Spirit. God walked with his people in the history of the People of Israel and Jesus has always walked with us and promised us the Holy Spirit who is fire, who teaches us everything we do not know and from within us guides us, gives us good ideas and good inspirations.

Today we do not praise God for a specific mystery, but for himself, “for his immense glory”, as the liturgical hymn says. We praise him and we thank him because he is Love, and because he calls us to enter into the embrace of his communion which is eternal life.

Let us entrust our praise to the hands of the Virgin Mary. She, the most humble of creatures, thanks to Christ has already arrived at the destination of the earthly pilgrimage: she is already in the glory of the Trinity. For this reason Mary our Mother, Our Lady, shines out for us as a sign of sure hope. She is the Mother of Hope; on our journey, on our way, she is Mother of Hope. She is also the Mother who comforts us, the Mother of consolation and the Mother who accompanies us on the journey. Let us now pray to Our Lady all together, to Our Mother who accompanies us on the way.

After the Angelus:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Fr Giuseppe Puglisi, a priest and martyr, killed by the Mafia in 1993, was beatified yesterday in Palermo. Fr Puglisi was an exemplary priest, especially dedicated to the pastoral care of youth. In teaching boys in accordance with the Gospel he saved them from the criminal underworld and thus the latter sought to get the better of him by killing him. However, in fact it is he who won, with the Risen Christ. I think of all the suffering of men and women, and also of children, who are exploited by so many forms of mafia, which exploit them by forcing them to do a job that enslaves them, with prostitution, with so many social pressures. Behind this exploitation, behind this slavery, there are “mafias”. Let us pray the Lord to convert the heart of these people. They cannot do this! They cannot make slaves of us, brothers and sisters! We must pray the Lord! Let us pray that these members of the Mafia be converted to God and let us praise God for the luminous witness borne by Fr Giuseppe Puglisi, and let us set store by his example!

I greet with affection all the pilgrims present, the families, the parish groups who have come from Italy, Spain, France and so many other countries. I greet in particular the Associazione Nazionale San Paolo degli Oratori e dei Circoli Giovanili, founded 50 years to serve youth. Dear friends, may St Philip Neri, whom we are commemorating today, and Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi, sustain your commitment. I greet the group of Chinese Catholics present here who are gathered in Rome to pray for the Church in China, invoking the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians.

I address a thought to all those who are promoting the “Day of Relief” for the sick who are travelling on the last stretch of their earthly journey; as well as the Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla. Thank you for your dedication! I greet the Associazione Nazionale Arma di Cavalleria, and the faithful from Fiumicello near Padua. Have a good Sunday and a good lunch!

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

General Audiences

22 May 2013 - General Audience

POPE FRANCIS

GENERAL AUDIENCE

Saint Peter's Square

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

In the Creed, immediately after professing our faith in the Holy Spirit, we say: “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church”. There is a profound connection between these two realities of faith: indeed it is the Holy Spirit who gives life to the Church, who guides her steps. Without the constant presence and action of the Holy Spirit the Church could not live and could not carry out the task that the Risen Jesus entrusted to her: to go and make disciples of all nations (cf. Mt 28:19).

Evangelizing is the Church’s mission. It is not the mission of only a few, but it is mine, yours and our mission. The Apostle Paul exclaimed: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). We must all be evangelizers, especially with our life! Paul VI stressed that “Evangelizing is... the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 14).

Who is the real driving force of evangelization in our life and in the Church? Paul VI wrote clearly: “it is the Holy Spirit who today, just as at the beginning of the Church, acts in every evangelizer who allows himself to be possessed and led by him. The Holy Spirit places on his lips the words which he could not find by himself, and at the same time the Holy Spirit predisposes the soul of the hearer to be open and receptive to the Good News and to the Kingdom being proclaimed (ibid., n. 75). To evangelize, therefore, it is necessary to open ourselves once again to the horizon of God’s Spirit, without being afraid of what he asks us or of where he leads us. Let us entrust ourselves to him! He will enable us to live out and bear witness to our faith, and will illuminate the heart of those we meet.

This was the experience at Pentecost. “There appeared” to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room with Mary, “tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3-4). In coming down upon the Apostles the Holy Spirit makes them leave the room they had locked themselves into out of fear, he prompts them to step out of themselves and transforms them into heralds and witnesses of the “mighty works of God” (v. 11). Moreover this transformation brought about by the Holy Spirit reverberated in the multitude that had arrived “from every nation under heaven” (v. 5) for each one heard the Apostles’ words as if they had been “speaking in his own language” (v. 6).

This is one of the first important effects of the action of the Holy Spirit who guides and brings to life the proclamation of the Gospel: unity, communion. It was in Babel, according to the Biblical account, that the dispersion of people and the confusion of languages had begun, the results of the act of pride and conceit of man who wanted to build with his efforts alone, without God, “a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen 11:4). At Pentecost these divisions were overcome. There was no longer conceit with regard to God, nor the closure of some people to others; instead, there was openness to God, there was going out to proclaim his word: a new language, that of love which the Holy Spirit pours out into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5); a language that all can understand and that, once received, can be expressed in every life and every culture. The language of the Spirit, the language of the Gospel, is the language of communion which invites us to get the better of closedness and indifference, division and antagonization.

We must all ask ourselves: how do I let myself be guided by the Holy Spirit in such a way that my life and my witness of faith is both unity and communion? Do I convey the word of reconciliation and of love, which is the Gospel, to the milieus in which I live. At times it seems that we are repeating today what happened at Babel: division, the incapacity to understand one another, rivalry, envy, egoism. What do I do with my life? Do I create unity around me? Or do I cause division, by gossip, criticism or envy? What do I do? Let us think about this.

Spreading the Gospel means that we are the first to proclaim and live the reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, unity and love which the Holy Spirit gives us. Let us remember Jesus’ words: “by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13: 34-35).

A second element is the day of Pentecost. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit and standing “with the eleven”, “lifted up his voice” (Acts 2:14) and “confidently” (v. 29), proclaimed the Good News of Jesus, who gave his life for our salvation and who God raised from the dead. This is another effect of the Holy Spirit’s action: the courage to proclaim the newness of the Gospel of Jesus to all, confidently, (with parrhesia) in a loud voice, in every time and in every place.

Today too this happens for the Church and for each one of us: the fire of Pentecost, from the action of the Holy Spirit, releases an ever new energy for mission, new ways in which to proclaim the message of salvation, new courage for evangelizing. Let us never close ourselves to this action! Let us live the Gospel humbly and courageously!

Let us witness to the newness, hope and joy that the Lord brings to life. Let us feel within us “the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing” (Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi, n, 80). Because evangelizing, proclaiming Jesus, gives us joy. Instead, egoism makes us bitter, sad, and depresses us. Evangelizing uplifts us.

I will only mention a third element, which, however, is particularly important: a new evangelization, a Church which evangelizes, must always start with prayer, with asking, like the Apostles in the Upper Room, for the fire of the Holy Spirit. Only a faithful and intense relationship with God makes it possible to get out of our own closedness and proclaim the Gospel with parrhesia. Without prayer our acts are empty, and our proclamation has no soul, it is not inspired by the Spirit.

Dear friends, as Benedict XVI said, today the Church “feels the wind of the Holy Spirit who helps us, who shows us the right road; and so, we are on our way, it seems to me, with new enthusiasm, and we thank the Lord” (Address to the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 27 October 2012). Let us renew every day our trust in the Holy Spirit’s action, the trust that he acts within us, that he is within us, that he gives us apostolic zeal, peace and joy. Let us allow him to lead us. May we be men and women of prayer who witness to the Gospel with courage, becoming in our world instruments of unity and of communion with God. Thank you.

Greetings:

I invite all of you to pray with me for the victims, especially the children, of the disaster in Oklahoma. May the Lord himself console everyone, in particular parents who have lost a child in such a tragic way. I offer a cordial welcome to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today’s Audience, including those from England, Ireland, India, Canada and the United States. My special greeting goes to the pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Hartford and the Alumni Association of the Catholic University of America. In these days when the Church celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, I invoke upon you and your families his gifts of wisdom and peace. God bless you all.

Lastly, an affectionate thought to the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. May the Virgin Mary, dear young people, be a teacher of tenderness and love; may she support you, dear sick people, especially the Italian thalassemics of Rome, in the moments of your harshest loneliness and suffering; and may she be an example to you, dear newlyweds, of how to live your conjugal relationship in unity and harmony.

Appeal

Friday, 24 May, is the day dedicated to the liturgical Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, venerated with deep devotion at the Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai.

I ask all the world’s Catholics to join in prayer with the brothers and sisters who are in China, to implore from God the grace to proclaim humbly and joyfully Christ who died and was raised, to be faithful to his Church and to the Successor of Peter, and to live daily life in the service of their country and their fellow citizens, in a manner consistent with the faith they profess.

Making our own a few words of the prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan, I would like to invoke Mary with you in this way: “Our Lady of Sheshan, support the commitment of all those in China who among their daily labours continue to believe, to hope and to love, so that they may never be afraid to talk to the world about Jesus and about the world to Jesus”.

Mary, faithful Virgin, sustain Chinese Catholics, make their challenging tasks ever more precious in the eyes of the Lord, and give growth to the affection and participation of the Church which is in China on the journey of the universal Church.

Homilies

26 May 2013 - Homily - Visit to the Roman Parish of Sts Elizabeth and Zachariah

VISIT TO THE ROMAN PARISH OF STS ELIZABETH AND ZACHARIAH

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Sunday, 26 May 2013

At the start of the Eucharistic Celebration, the Holy Father, after the greeting of the parish priest, said:

Dear First Watchman, dear Second Watchman, dear Watchmen,

I like what you said: that the word “outskirts” has a negative connotation but also a positive one. Do you know why? Because we understand reality better from the outskirts not the centre. We understand it better. Also, what you said: about becoming watchmen, wasn’t it?

Thank you for this office, for your work as watchmen. I thank you too for your welcome on this day of the Feast of the Trinity. There are priests here whom you know well, the two secretaries of the Pope, the Pope who is in the Vatican, isn’t he? Today the Bishop of Rome has come here. And these two work hard. But today one of them, Fr Alfred, is celebrating the anniversary of his priestly ordination: 29 years. Give him a round of applause! Let us pray for him and ask for at least another 29 years for him. Shall we? Let us begin Mass like this, with a spirit of devotion, in silence, all praying together for all of us.

Later the Holy Father gave a homily in the form of a dialogue with the children who are First Communicants this year.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In his greeting the Parish Priest reminded me of something beautiful about Our Lady. Our Lady, as soon as she had heard the news that she was to be the Mother of Jesus and the announcement that her cousin Elizabeth was expecting a child — the Gospel says — she went to her in haste, she did not wait. She did not say: “But now I am with child I must take care of my health. My cousin is bound to have friends who can care for her”. Something stirred her and she “went with haste” to Elizabeth (cf. Lk 1:39). It is beautiful to think this of Our Lady, of our Mother, that she hastens, because she intends to help. She goes to help, she doesn't go to boast and tell her cousin: “listen, I’m in charge now, because I am the Mother of God!”. No, she did not do that. She went to help! And Our Lady is always like this. She is our Mother who always hurries to us whenever we are in need.

It would be beautiful to add to the Litany of Our Lady something like this: “O Lady who goes in haste, pray for us!”. It is lovely, isn’t? For she always goes in haste, she does not forget her children. And when her children are in difficulty, when they need something and call on her, she hurries to them. This gives us a security, the security of always having our Mother next to us, beside us. We move forward, we journey more easily in life when our mother is near. Let us think of this grace of Our Lady, this grace that she gives us: of being close to us, but without making us wait for her. Always! She — lets us trust in this — she lives to help us. Our Lady who always hastens, for our sake.

Our Lady also helps us to understand God and Jesus well, to understand Jesus’ life well and God’s life, and to understand properly what the Lord is, what the Lord is like and, God is. I ask you children: “Who knows who God is?”. Raise your hand. Tell me? There! Creator of the earth. And how many Gods are there? One? But I have been told that there are three: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! How can this be explained? Is there one or are there three? One? One? And how is it possible to explain that one is the Father, another the Son and the other the Holy Spirit? Louder, Louder! That girl is right. They are three in one, three Persons in one.

And what does the Father do? The Father is the beginning, the Father who created all things, who created us. What does the Son do? What does Jesus do? Who can tell me what Jesus does? Does he love us? And then? He brings the word of God! Jesus comes to teach us the word of God. This is excellent! And what then? What did Jesus do on earth? He saved us! And Jesus came to give his life for us. The Father creates the world; Jesus saves us.

And what does the Holy Spirit do? He loves us! He gives you love! All the children together: the Father creates all, he creates the world; Jesus saves us; and the Holy Spirit? He loves us! And this is Christian life: talking to the Father, talking to the Son and talking to the Holy Spirit. Jesus has saved us, but he also walks beside us in life. Is this true? And how does he walk? What does he do when he walks beside us in life? This is hard. Anyone who knows this wins the Derby! What does Jesus do when he walks with us? Louder! First: he helps us. He leads us! Very good. He walks with us, he helps us, he leads us and he teaches us to journey on.

And Jesus also gives us the strength to work. Doesn’t he? He sustains us! Good! In difficulty, doesn’t he? And also in our school tasks! He supports us, he helps us, he leads us, he sustains us. That’s it! Jesus always goes with us. Good. But listen, Jesus gives us strength. How does Jesus give us strength? You know this, you know that he gives us strength! Louder, I can’t hear you! In Communion he gives us strength, he really helps us with strength. He comes to us. But when you say, “he gives us Communion”, does a piece of bread make you so strong? Isn’t it bread? Is it bread? This is bread, but is what is on the altar bread? Or isn’t it bread? It seems to be bread. It is not really bread. What is it? It is the Body of Jesus. Jesus comes into our heart.

So let us all think about this: the Father has given us life; Jesus has given us salvation, he accompanies us, he leads us, he supports us, he teaches us; and the Holy Spirit? What does he give us? He loves us! He gives us love. Let us think of God in this way and ask Our Lady, Our Lady our Mother, who always hurries to our aid, to teach us to understand properly what God is like: what the Father is like, what the Son is like, and what the Holy Spirit is like. So be it.

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Speeches

21 May 2013 - Speech - Visit to the homeless shelter "Dono di Maria": Meeting with the Missionaries of Charity

VISIT AT THE HOMELESS SHELTER "DONO DI MARIA":

MEETING WITH THE MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY

ADDRESS OF POPE FRANCIS

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good evening,

I address an affectionate greeting to you all; in an entirely special way to you, dear guests of this Home, which is especially yours, since it was intended and established for you. I thank all those who, in various ways, support this beautiful place in the Vatican. My presence this evening is meant above all to be a sincere ‘thank you’ to the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who have been working here for 25 years, with many volunteers, to care for so many people in need. Thank you from my heart! You, dear Sisters, together with the Missionaries of Charity [Fathers and Brothers] and their collaborators, make visible the Church’s love for the poor. With your daily service, you are — as a Psalm says — the hand of God that satisfies the hunger of every living thing (cf. Ps 145[144]:16). In these years, how many times have you bent over those in need, like the Good Samaritan, you looked them in the eye and you gave them your hand to raise them up! How many mouths have you fed with patience and dedication! How many wounds, especially spiritual, have you bandaged! Today I would like to pause on three words that are familiar to you: house, gift and Mary.

1. This building, desired and inaugurated by Blessed John Paul II – indeed this is something between saints, between blesseds! John Paul II, Teresa of Calcutta; and holiness is passed on; and this is beautiful. It is a “home”. And when we say “home” we mean a place of hospitality, a dwelling, a pleasant human environment where one stays readily, finds oneself, feels inserted into a territory, in a community. Yet more profoundly, “home” is a word with a typically familiar flavour, which recalls warmth, affection, the love that can be felt in a family. Hence the “home” represents the most precious human treasures, that of encounter, that of relations among people, different in age, culture and history, but who live together and together help one another to grow. For this reason, the “home” is a crucial place in life, where life grows and can be fulfilled, because it is a place in which every person learns to receive love and to give love. This is “home”. And this is what this Home has tried to be for 25 years! On the border between the Vatican and Italy, it is a strong appeal to us all, to the Church, to the City of Rome to be more and more of a family, a “home” open to hospitality, care and brotherhood.

2. There is then a second very important word: the word “gift”, which qualifies this Home and describes its typical identity. It is a Home, in fact, that is characterized by gift, by mutual gift. What do I mean? I wish to say that this Home gives hospitality, material and spiritual sustenance to you, dear guests, who have come from different parts of the world; but you are also a gift for this Home and for the Church. You tell us that to love God and neighbour is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person the face of the Lord to be served, to serve him concretely. And you are, dear brothers and sisters, the face of Jesus. Thank you! You “give” the possibility to all those who work in this place to serve Jesus in those who are in difficulty, who are in need of help. This Home then is a luminous transparency of the charity of God, who is a good and merciful Father to all. Open hospitality is lived here, without distinctions of nationality or religion, according to the teaching of Jesus: “You received without pay, give without pay” (Mt 10:8). We must recover the whole sense of gift, of gratuitousness, of solidarity. Rampant capitalism has taught the logic of profit at all costs, of giving to get, of exploitation without looking at the person… and we see the results in the crisis we are experiencing! This Home is a place that teaches charity, a “school” of charity, which instructs me to go encounter every person, not for profit, but for love. The music — let us call it — of this Home is love. And this is beautiful! I am pleased that seminarians from the whole world come here to have a direct experience of service. The future priests can thus practice an essential aspect of the mission of the Church and set store by it for their pastoral ministry.

3. Finally there is one last characteristic of this Home: it qualifies itself as a gift “of Mary”. The Holy Virgin made of her existence an unceasing and beautiful gift to God, because she loved the Lord. Mary’s example is an incentive to those who live in this Home, and for all of us, to live in charity for our neighbour not out of some sort of social duty, but beginning from the love of God, from the charity of God. And also — as we heard from Mother — Mary is the one who leads us to Jesus and teaches us how to go to Jesus; and the Mother of Jesus is our own and makes a family, with us and with Jesus. For us Christians, love of neighbour springs from love of God; and it is its most limpid expression. Here one tries to love one’s neighbour, but also to allow oneself to be loved by one’s neighbour. These two attitudes go together, one cannot be exercised without the other. Printed on the letterhead of the Missionaries of Charity are these words of Jesus: “as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Loving God in our brethren and loving our brethren in God.

Dear friends, thanks again to each one of you. I pray that this Home will continue to be a place of hospitality, of gift, of charity, in the heart of our City of Rome. May the Virgin Mary always watch over you, and my Blessing accompany you. Thank you.

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

24 May 2013 - Speech - To participants in the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

ADDRESS OF HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE PLENARY OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL

FOR THE PASTORAL CARE OF MIGRANTS AND ITINERANT PEOPLE

Clementine Hall

Friday, 24 May 2013

Your Eminences,

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am pleased to welcome you on the occasion of the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. It is the 20th since Blessed John Paul II raised the former Pontifical Commission to the rank of Pontifical Council 25 years ago.

I congratulate you on having reached this goal and thank the Lord for all he has enabled you to achieve. I greet with affection Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, your President, and I am grateful to him for having conveyed your common sentiments. I greet the Secretary, the Members, the Consultors and the Officials of the Dicastery. Thank you for the attention you pay to so many difficult situations in the world. Dear Cardinal, you mentioned Syria and the Near East, which are ever present in my prayers.

The theme of your Meeting is “The Pastoral Solicitude of the Church in the Context of Forced Migration”. It coincides with the publication of the Dicastery’s Document, entitled Welcoming Christ in Refugees and Forcibly Displaced Persons. Pastoral Guidelines. The Document draws attention to the millions of refugees, evacuees and stateless persons, and also touches on the scourge of trafficking in human beings which ever more frequently concerns children, involved in the worst forms of exploitation, who are recruited in armed conflicts.

I reaffirm here that the “trade in people” is a vile activity, a disgrace to our societies that claim to be civilized! Exploiters and clients at all levels should make a serious examination of conscience both in the first person and before God! Today the Church is renewing her urgent appeal that the dignity and centrality of every individual always be safeguarded, with respect for fundamental rights, as her social teaching emphasizes. She asks that these rights really be extended for millions of men and women on every continent wherever they are not recognized. In a world in which a lot is said about rights, how often is human dignity actually trampled upon! In a world in which so much is said about rights, it seems that the only thing that has any rights is money. Dear brothers and sisters, we are living in a world where money commands. We are living in a world, in a culture where the fixation on money holds sway.

You have rightly taken to heart the situations in which the family of nations is called to intervene, in a spirit of brotherly solidarity, with programmes of protection, often against a background of dramatic events that affect the life of so many people almost every day. I express my appreciation and gratitude and I encourage you to continue on the path of service to the poorest and most marginalized of your brothers and sisters.

Let us remember Paul VI’s words: “For the Catholic Church, no one is a stranger, no one is excluded, no one is far away” (Homily for the closing of the Second Vatican Council, 8 December 1965). Indeed, we are a single human family that is journeying on toward unity, making the most of solidarity and dialogue among peoples in the multiplicity of differences.

The Church is mother and her motherly attention is expressed with special tenderness and closeness to those who are obliged to flee their own country and exist between rootlessness and integration. This tension destroys people. Christian compassion — this “suffering with”, compassion — is expressed first of all in the commitment to obtain knowledge of the events that force people to leave their homeland, and, where necessary, to give voice to those who cannot manage to make their cry of distress and oppression heard. By doing this you also carry out an important task in sensitising Christian communities to the multitudes of their brethren scarred by wounds that mark their existence: violence, abuse, the distance from family love, traumatic events, flight from home, uncertainty about the future in refugee camps. These are all dehumanizing elements and must spur every Christian and the whole community to practical concern.

Today, however, dear friends, I would like to ask you all to see a ray of hope as well in the eyes and hearts of refugees and of those who have been forcibly displaced. A hope that is expressed in expectations for the future, in the desire for friendship, in the wish to participate in the host society also through learning the language, access to employment and the education of children. I admire the courage of those who hope to be able gradually to resume a normal life, waiting for joy and love to return to brighten their existence. We can and must all nourish this hope!

Above all I ask leaders and legislators and the entire international community above all to confront the reality of those who have been displaced by force, with effective projects and new approaches in order to protect their dignity, to improve the quality of their life and to face the challenges that are emerging from modern forms of persecution, oppression and slavery.

They are human people, I stress this, who are appealing for solidarity and assistance, who need urgent action but also and above all understanding and kindness. God is good, let us imitate God. Their condition cannot leave us indifferent. Moreover, as Church we should remember that in tending the wounds of refugees, evacuees and the victims of trafficking, we are putting into practice the commandment of love that Jesus bequeathed to us when he identified with the foreigner, with those who are suffering, with all the innocent victims of violence and exploitation. We should reread more often chapter 25 of the Gospel according to Matthew in which he speaks of the Last Judgement (cf. vv. 31-46). And here I would also like to remind you of the attention that every Pastor and Christian community must pay to the journey of faith of Christian refugees and Christians uprooted from their situations by force, as well as of Christian emigrants. These people need special pastoral care that respects their traditions and accompanies them to harmonious integration into the ecclesial situations in which they find themselves. May our Christian communities really be places of hospitality, listening and communion!

Dear friends, let us not forget the flesh of Christ which is in the flesh of refugees: their flesh is the flesh of Christ. It is also your task to direct all the institutions working in the area of forced migration to new forms of co-responsibility. This phenomenon is unfortunately constantly spreading. Hence your task is increasingly demanding in order to promote tangible responses of closeness, journeying with people, taking into account the different local backgrounds.

Upon each one of you I invoke the motherly protection of Mary Most Holy, that she may illuminate your study and your action. For my part I assure you of my prayers, closeness and also admiration for all that you are doing in this area, while I bless you warmly. Many thanks.

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

25 May 2013 - Speech - Meeting with the members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation

ADDRESS OF POPE FRANCIS

TO THE CENTESIMUS ANNUS PRO PONTIFICE FOUNDATION

Clementine Hall

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Your Eminences,

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,

Distinguished and Dear Friends,

Good morning to you all!

I am very glad to meet you on the occasion of the International Conference of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation on the theme: “Rethinking Solidarity for Employment: the Challenges of the 21st Century”. I cordially greet each one of you and thank Dr Domingo Sugranyes, your President, in particular for his courteous words.

The Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation was set up by Blessed John Paul II 20 years ago and is called after the Encyclical he signed on the centenary of Rerum Novarum. So it is that the context of his reflection and action is the social doctrine of the Church. The popes of the past century contributed to this area in various ways, including in particular Benedict xvi with his Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, as well as with memorable discourses.

I would therefore like to thank you for your commitment to deepening and spreading knowledge of the Church’s social doctrine with your courses and your publications. I think your service to the social magisterium, as lay people who live in society, in the world of economics and work is really beautiful and important.

The theme of your conference is oriented to work in the perspective of solidarity, which is a structural value of the social doctrine, as Blessed John Paul II reminded us. In 1981, 10 years before writing the Encyclical Centesimus Annus, he wrote the Encyclical Laborem Exercens, entirely focused on human work.

What does “rethinking solidarity mean?”. It does not of course mean calling into question the recent magisterium which, on the contrary, is increasingly showing how farsighted and up to date it is. Rather than “rethinking”, it seems to me to mean two things: first of all combining the magisterium with social and economic development since it is constant and rapid it reveals ever new aspects. Secondly, “rethinking” means deepening knowledge, reflecting further to enhance all the fruitfulness of a value — solidarity in this case — which draws in depth from the Gospel, that is, from Jesus Christ, and so as such contains an inexhaustible potential.

Today’s economic and social crisis makes this “rethinking” ever more urgent and highlights even more clearly the truth and timeliness of affirmations of the social magisterium such as the one we read in Laborem Exercens: “As we view the whole human family... we cannot fail to be struck by a disconcerting fact of immense proportions: the fact that, while conspicuous natural resources remain unused, there are huge numbers of people who are unemployed or under-employed and countless multitudes of people suffering from hunger. This is a fact that without any doubt demonstrates that... there is something wrong” (n. 18).

Unemployment — the lack or loss of work — is a phenomenon that is spreading like an oil slick in vast areas of the west and is alarmingly widening the boundaries of poverty. Moreover there is no worse material poverty, I am keen to stress, than the poverty which prevents people from earning their bread and deprives them of the dignity of work.

Well, this “something wrong” no longer regards only the south of the world but also the entire planet. Hence the need “to rethink solidarity” no longer as simply assistance for the poorest, but as a global rethinking of the whole system, as a quest for ways to reform it and correct it in a way consistent with the fundamental human rights of all human beings. It is essential to restore to this word “solidarity”, viewed askance by the world of economics — as if it were a bad word — the social citizenship that it deserves. Solidarity is not an additional attitude, it is not a form of social alms-giving but, rather, a social value; and it asks us for its citizenship.

The current crisis is not only economic and financial but is rooted in an ethical and anthropological crisis. Concern with the idols of power, profit, and money, rather than with the value of the human person has become a basic norm for functioning and a crucial criterion for organization. We have forgotten and are still forgetting that over and above business, logic and the parameters of the market is the human being; and that something is men and women in as much as they are human beings by virtue of their profound dignity: to offer them the possibility of living a dignified life and of actively participating in the common good. Benedict XVI reminded us that precisely because it is human, all human activity, including economic activity, must be ethically structured and governed (cf. Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate, n. 36). We must return to the centrality of the human being, to a more ethical vision of activities and of human relationships without the fear of losing something.

Dear friends, thank you once again for this meeting and for the work you carry out. I assure each one of you, all your loved ones, my remembrance in prayer, as I bless you warmly. Many thanks.

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Papal Tweets

28 May 2013 - 2 June 2013

- “Dear young people, the Church expects great things of you and your generosity. Don’t be afraid to aim high.” @pontifex, 28 May 2013

- “The Church is born from the supreme act of love on the Cross, from Jesus’ open side. The Church is a family where we love and are loved.” @pontifex, 29 May 2013

- “The whole of salvation history is the story of God looking for us: he offers us love and welcomes us with tenderness.” @pontifex, 31 May 2013

- “In this Year of Faith, we pray to the Lord that the Church may always be a true family that brings God’s love to everyone.” @pontifex, 1 June 2013

- “The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.” @pontifex, 2 June 2013

Table of Contents

Introduction

Index of Source Links

Angelus/Regina Caeli

26 May 2013 - Angelus

General Audiences

22 May 2013 - General Audience

Homilies

26 May 2013 - Homily - Visit to the Roman Parish of Sts Elizabeth and Zachariah

Speeches

21 May 2013 - Speech - Visit to the homeless shelter "Dono di Maria": Meeting with the Missionaries of Charity

24 May 2013 - Speech - To participants in the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

25 May 2013 - Speech - Meeting with the members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation

Papal Tweets

28 May 2013 - 2 June 2013