By Carol Glatz Catholic
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The proof of being on a path of conversion and holiness always consists in loving one’s neighbor, Pope Francis said.
“As long as there is a brother or sister to whom we close our hearts, we will still be far from being disciples as Jesus asks us,” he said before reciting the Angelus prayer with those gathered in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 25.
The pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading (Mt 22:34-40) in which Jesus said the greatest commandment was loving the Lord with all one’s heart, soul and mind, and the second commandment was loving one’s neighbor as oneself.
With this, “Jesus establishes two essential principles for believers of all times,” the pope said.
The first is that love – not anxious or contrived obligation – must always be the driving force behind following God’s commandments, he said.
“The second fundamental principle is that love must tend together and inseparably toward God and toward one’s neighbor,” the pope said.
“This is one of the major innovations of Jesus’ teachings, and he helps us understand that it is not true love of God if it is not expressed in the love of the other,” and, vice versa, it is not true love of the other if it is not rooted in one’s relationship with God, he said.
Love for God is expressed most of all in prayer and adoration, Pope Francis said, and love for one’s neighbor is expressed by being close to people, listening to them, sharing and caring for others.
“So often we overlook listening to others because it is boring or because it takes up my time,” he said; such feelings even arise when someone else needs someone close during times of trial or sorrow.
“However, we always find time to gossip. All the time! We don’t have time to comfort the afflicted, but lots of time for gossiping. Be careful!” he said.
Communion is a gift “to be invoked each day, but also a personal commitment so that our life is not left to become enslaved by the idols of the world,” he said.
“The proof of our journey of conversion and holiness always consists in love of neighbor,” the pope said.
God’s mercy “does not allow us to be discouraged, but rather calls us to begin anew each day to live the Gospel consistently,” he added.

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – People who think politics is sinking to new lows may find comfort in knowing Pope Francis also is concerned about the debasement of what church teaching has described as a “lofty vocation.”
“Political life no longer has to do with healthy debates about long-term plans to improve people’s lives and to advance the common good, but only with slick marketing techniques primarily aimed at discrediting others. In this craven exchange of charges and countercharges, debate degenerates into a permanent state of disagreement and confrontation,” the pope wrote in his new encyclical.
The encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” was published Oct. 4 and urges Christians and all people of goodwill to recognize the equal dignity of all people and to work together to build a world where people love and care for one another as brothers and sisters.
Building that world, he insisted, requires “encounter and dialogue,” processes that allow people to speak from their experience and culture, to listen to one another, learn from one another and find ways to work together for the common good.
“Today, in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools,” the pope wrote. “Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways, one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion.”
The “social aggression” often found on social media has spilled over into mainstream political discourse, he said. “Things that until a few years ago could not be said by anyone without risking the loss of universal respect can now be said with impunity, and in the crudest of terms, even by some political figures.”
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement that “in analyzing conditions in the world today, the Holy Father provides us with a powerful and urgent vision for the moral renewal of politics and political and economic institutions from the local level to the global level, calling us to build a common future that truly serves the good of the human person.”
“For the church,” he added, “the pope is challenging us to overcome the individualism in our culture and to serve our neighbors in love, seeing Jesus Christ in every person, and seeking a society of justice and mercy, compassion and mutual concern.”
In the encyclical Pope Francis had particularly harsh words for politicians who have “fomented and exploited” fear over immigration, ignoring the fact that migrants and refugees “possess the same intrinsic dignity as any person.”
“No one will ever openly deny that they are human beings,” he said, “yet in practice, by our decisions and the way we treat them, we can show that we consider them less worthy, less important, less human. For Christians, this way of thinking and acting is unacceptable, since it sets certain political preferences above deep convictions of our faith: the inalienable dignity of each human person regardless of origin, race or religion.”
Pope Francis often has insisted that he is not calling for open borders and unregulated migration and, in the document, he again insists on the right of people not to be forced to migrate.
International aid to help people overcome extreme poverty in their homelands is essential, he said, but if such development takes too long, people do have the right to migrate to ensure the good of their families.
“Certain populist political regimes, as well as certain liberal economic approaches, maintain that an influx of migrants is to be prevented at all costs,” he wrote. “One fails to realize that behind such statements, abstract and hard to support, great numbers of lives are at stake.”
For Christians, he said, the answer cannot be to simply bow out of political engagement. Instead, they must act at a local level to build relationships of trust and assistance and support politicians and political platforms that promote the common good.
“Whereas individuals can help others in need, when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the ‘field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity,’” he said.
Getting practical, Pope Francis explained that “if someone helps an elderly person cross a river, that is a fine act of charity. The politician, on the other hand, builds a bridge, and that too is an act of charity” but on a larger scale.

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Human beings must change their relationship with nature and view it not as an “object for unscrupulous use and abuse” but as a gift they are charged by God to care for and protect, Pope Francis said.
People are called to contemplate creation as a reflection of “God’s infinite wisdom and goodness” and not act as if people are the “center of everything” and the “absolute rulers of all other creatures,” the pope said Sept. 16 during his weekly general audience. “Exploiting creation – this is sin,” he said. “We believe that we are at the center, claiming to occupy God’s place and thus we ruin the harmony of creation, the harmony of God’s design. We become predators, forgetting our vocation as guardians of life.”
The audience was held in the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace. While the pope maintained his distance when greeting most of the faithful, he approached several pilgrims to sign autographs, speak directly to them or briefly swap his signature zucchetto for one brought as a gift.
Continuing his series of talks on “healing the world,” the pope reflected on the theme of “caring for the common home and contemplative attitude.”
Contemplation, he said, is the best “antidote against the disease of not taking care of the common home” and falling “into an unbalanced and arrogant anthropocentrism,” in which humans place themselves and their needs “at the center of everything.”

“It is important to recover the contemplative dimension, that is, to look at the earth, at creation as a gift, not as something to be exploited for profit,” the pope said. “When we contemplate, we discover in others and in nature something much greater than their usefulness.”
Departing from his prepared remarks, the pope warned that those who are incapable of contemplating nature and creation, are often incapable of contemplating their fellow human beings.
“Those who live to exploit nature, end up exploiting people and treating them like slaves,” the pope said. “This is a universal law: if you do not know how to contemplate nature, it will be very difficult for you to contemplate people, the beauty of people, your brother, your sister.”
Recalling a Spanish proverb, the pope also cautioned that exploiting creation brings costly consequences because “God always forgives; we forgive sometimes; (but) nature never forgives.”
Citing a recent report that the Pine Island and Thwates glaciers in Antarctica are collapsing due to global warming, Pope Francis said the consequential rising sea levels “will be terrible,” and he called on people to “guard the inheritance God has entrusted to us so that future generations can enjoy it.”
“Each one of us can and must become a guardian of the common home, capable of praising God for his creatures (by) contemplating them and protecting them,” the pope said.

(Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju)

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – If people took seriously the Gospel call to forgive one another, the world would be a much better place, Pope Francis said.
“How much suffering, how many wounds, how many wars could be avoided if forgiveness and mercy were the style of our life,” he said Sept. 13 before reciting the Angelus prayer with visitors in St. Peter’s Square.
The pope was commenting on the day’s Gospel reading, Matthew 18:21-35, in which Jesus tells his disciples to forgive “not seven times but 77 times.”
“In the symbolic language of the Bible,” the pope explained, “this means that we are called to forgive always.”
Jesus’ admonition is especially important for family life, he said. “How many families are disunited, do not know how to forgive each other? How many brothers and sisters bear resentment within? It is necessary to apply merciful love to all human relationships: between spouses, between parents and children, within our communities, in the church and in society and politics as well.”
In the day’s Gospel passage, Jesus emphasizes his point with the parable of the merciful king who forgives the enormous debt of his servant and yet that servant refuses to forgive the small debt of another servant. When the king hears about it, he hands the man over “to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.”
“In the parable we find two different attitudes: God’s – represented by the king who forgives a lot, because God always forgives – and the human person’s,” the pope said. “The divine attitude is justice pervaded with mercy, whereas the human attitude is limited to justice.”
Pope Francis told the people in the square that while he was celebrating Mass that morning, “I paused, touched by a phrase in the first reading from the book of Sirach. The phrase (in the Italian Lectionary) says, ‘Remember your end and stop hating.’ A beautiful phrase.”
“Just think,” the pope said, “you will be in a coffin and will you take your hatred there with you? Think of your end and stop hating, stop resenting.”
Pope Francis said that he knows it is not an easy command to follow because, even when a person thinks he or she has forgiven another, “resentment returns like a bothersome fly in the summer that keeps coming back.”
True forgiveness, he said, “is not something we do in a moment; it is something continuous against that resentment, that hatred that keeps coming back.”
When Christians pray the Lord’s Prayer, they say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
“These words contain a decisive truth,” the pope said. “We cannot claim God’s forgiveness for ourselves if we in turn do not grant forgiveness to our neighbor. It is a condition.”
Pope Francis summarized his talk: “Think of your end, of God’s forgiveness and stop hating. Reject resentment, that bothersome fly that keeps coming back. If we do not strive to forgive and to love, we will not be forgiven and loved either.”

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A lack of respect for human life from conception to natural death and a lack of respect for the environment are both signs of a person claiming power over something that is not theirs to control, Pope Francis said.
“They are the same indifference, the same selfishness, the same greed, the same pride, the same claim to be the master and despot of the world that lead human beings on the one hand to destroy species and plunder natural resources and, on the other, to exploit poverty, to abuse the work of women and children, to overturn the laws of the nuclear family (and) to no longer respect the right to human life from conception to its natural end,” the pope said Sept. 3.
Pope Francis made his remarks in a speech written for a group of laypeople advising the French bishops’ conference on ways to promote and implement the teaching of “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.”
The group, which included the actress Juliette Binoche, traveled to Rome by train as a carbon-saving alternative to traveling by plane.

The Vatican press office said the pope handed his prepared text to members of the group and then had an unscripted conversation with them, telling them that his own “ecological conversion” began in 2007 by listening to Brazilian bishops at the Latin American bishops’ meeting in Aparecida, Brazil.
At the time, “I understood nothing,” he said. But he began listening and studying and dialoguing with scientists and theologians. The result was “Laudato Si’,” the encyclical published in 2015.
Ecological concern is a Christian concern, he said.
“The Bible teaches us that the world was not born in of chaos or by accident but by a decision of God who called it – and always will call it – into existence out of love,” the pope said. “The universe is beautiful and good, and contemplating it allows us to glimpse the infinite beauty and goodness of its author.”
Christians have a moral obligation to respect the creation God has entrusted to them “as a garden to cultivate, protect, make grow according to its potential,” he said. “And if human beings have the right to make use of nature for their own needs, they cannot in anyway claim to be its owners or despots, but only administrators who must give an account of their use.”
Jesus taught his followers to live in harmony, with justice, in peace and recognizing others as brothers and sisters, the pope said. But “when one considers nature only as an object of profit and self-interest – a vision that consolidates the whim of the strongest – then harmony is shattered and serious inequality, injustice and suffering result.”

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Church teaching on giving priority to the well-being of the poor and marginalized is not a political or ideological choice; it lies at the very heart of the Gospel, Pope Francis said.
The preferential option for the poor, which includes feeding the hungry and drawing close to the excluded, “is the key criterion of Christian authenticity,” he said Aug. 19 during his weekly general audience.
The principle also would include making sure that any vaccine developed for the novel coronavirus helps everyone, he added.
“It would be sad,” he said, if priority for a vaccine “were to be given to the richest. It would be sad if this vaccine were to become the property of this nation or another, rather than universal and for all.”
During his audience, livestreamed from the library of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis continued a series of talks on the principles of the church’s social doctrine as a guide for healing and building a better future, particularly as the world is struggling with a pandemic and its negative effects.

In fact, he said, a proper response to the pandemic is twofold:
“On the one hand, it is essential to find a cure for this small but terrible virus, which has brought the whole world to its knees. On the other, we must also cure a larger virus, that of social injustice, inequality of opportunity, marginalization and the lack of protection for the weakest.”
“It would be a scandal if all of the economic assistance we are observing – most of it with public money – were to focus on rescuing those industries that do not contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, the promotion of the least, the common good or the care of creation,” the pope said.
These are the four criteria that should be used “for choosing which industries should be helped: those which contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, to the promotion of the least, to the common good and the care of creation.”
Pope Francis said the COVID-19 pandemic “has exposed the plight of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world” and it has made those inequalities and discrimination even worse.
One of the responses that must not be missing is the preferential option for the poor, he said.
This key element of the church’s social teaching “is not a political option, nor is it an ideological option,” he said; it is “at the center of the Gospel.”
Jesus “stood among the sick, the poor, the excluded, showing them God’s merciful love,” he said.
The preferential option for the poor is a duty for all Christians and communities, he said, and it means doing more than providing needed assistance; it requires remedying the root causes and problems that lead to the need for aid.
“Many people want to return to normality” and get back to business, the pope said, but this “normality” must not entail ongoing social injustice and the degradation of the environment.
“The pandemic is a crisis, and we do not emerge from a crisis the same as before: either we come out of it better or we come out of it worse,” he said. “We must come out of it better” and build something different.
The world needs an economy and remedies that do not “poison society, such as profits not linked to the creation of dignified jobs,” but rather profits that benefit the general public.
“We must act now to heal the epidemics caused by small, invisible viruses and to heal those caused by the great and visible social injustices,” he said.
By “starting from the love of God, placing the peripheries at the center and the last in first place,” he said, “a healthier world will be possible.”
The pope concluded by praying, “May the Lord help us and give us the strength to come out of it better, responding to the needs of today’s world.”

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Decrying the unimaginable “hell” migrants experience in detention centers, Pope Francis urged all Christians to examine how they do or don’t help – as Jesus commanded – the people God has placed in their path.
Christians must always seek the face of the Lord, who can be found in the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned and foreigners, the pope said on the anniversary of his first pastoral visit as pope to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Jesus warned everyone, “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me,” and Christians today must look at their actions every day and see if they have even tried to see Christ in others, the pope said in his homily during Mass July 8.
“Such a personal encounter with Jesus Christ is possible also for us, disciples of the third millennium,” he said.
The Mass, held in the chapel of the pope’s residence, marked the seventh anniversary of his first apostolic journey to an island that has been a major destination point for migrants seeking a new life in Europe.
However, since 2014, at least 19,000 people have died, drowning in the Mediterranean Sea during those boat crossings. Pope Francis mourned their deaths during his 2013 visit with prayers and tossing a floral wreath into the rippling water.
In his homily at the Vatican chapel July 8, he remembered those who are trapped in Libya, subjected to terrible abuse and violence and held in detention centers that are more like a “lager,” the German word for a concentration camp. He said his thoughts were with all migrants, those embarking on a “voyage of hope,” those who are rescued and those who are pushed back.
“Whatever you did, you did for me,” he said, repeating Jesus’ warning.
The pope then took a moment to tell the small congregation – all wearing masks and sitting at a distance from one another – what had struck him about listening to the migrants that day in Lampedusa and their harrowing journeys.
He said he thought it strange how one man spoke at great length in his native language, but the interpreter translated it to the pope in just a few words.
An Ethiopian woman, who had witnessed the encounter, later told the pope that the interpreter hadn’t even translated “a quarter” of what was said about the torture and suffering they had experienced.
“They gave me the ‘distilled’ version,” the pope said.
“This happens today with Libya, they give us a ‘distilled’ version. War. Yes, it is terrible, we know that, but you cannot imagine the hell that they live there,” in those detention camps, he said.
And all these people did was try to cross the sea with nothing but hope, he said.
“Whatever you did … for better or for worse! This is a burning issue today,” the pope said.
The ultimate goal for a Christian is an encounter with God, he said, and always seeking the face of God is how Christians make sure they are on the right path toward the Lord.
The day’s first reading from the Book of Hosea described how the people of Israel had lost their way, wandering instead in a “desert of inequity,” seeking abundance and prosperity with hearts filled with “falsehood and injustice,” he said.
“It is a sin, from which even we, modern Christians, are not immune,” he added.
The prophet Hosea’s words call everyone to conversion, “to turn our eyes to the Lord and see his face,” Pope Francis said.
“As we undertake to seek the face of the Lord, we may recognize him in the face of the poor, the sick, the abandoned, and the foreigners whom God places on our way. And this encounter becomes for us a time of grace and salvation, as it bestows on us the same mission entrusted to the apostles,” he said.
Christ himself said “it is he who knocks on our door, hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned, seeking an encounter with us and requesting our assistance,” the pope said.
The pope ended his homily by asking Our Lady, the solace of migrants, “help us discover the face of her son in all our brothers and sisters who are forced to flee from their homeland because of the many injustices that still afflict our world today.”

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – True prayer is a “fight” with God in which those who think they are strong are humbled and faced with the reality of their own mortal condition, Pope Francis said.
The story of Jacob wrestling with God throughout the night is a reminder that although prayer reveals “that we are only poor men and women,” God also has a “blessing reserved for those who have let themselves be changed by him,” the pope said June 10 during his weekly general audience.
“This is a beautiful invitation to let ourselves be changed by God. He knows how to do it because he knows each of us. ‘Lord, you know me,’ each one of us can say. ‘Lord, you know me. Change me,’” the pope said.
In the audience, livestreamed from the library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican, the pope continued his series of talks on prayer. And before concluding the audience, he reminded the faithful of the June 12 observance of the World Day Against Child Labor.
Calling child labor a “phenomenon that deprives boys and girls of their childhood,” the pope said that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced children and young people in many countries to work in “jobs that are inappropriate for their age to help their families in conditions of extreme poverty.”
He also warned that “in many cases, these are forms of slavery and imprisonment, resulting in physical and psychological suffering.”
The pope’s concern for child labor comes nearly a week after the death in Pakistan of Zhora Shah, an 8-year-old child maid who allegedly was beaten to death by her employers after accidentally releasing their prized parrots. The case has sparked outrage in Pakistan and around the world.
“Children are the future of the human family,” Pope Francis said. “It is up to all of us to foster their growth, health and serenity!”
In his main talk, the pope reflected on the story of Jacob, an “unscrupulous man” who despite the odds, “seems to succeed in every feat in his life.”
“Jacob – we would say in today’s modern language – is a ‘self-made man.’ With his ingenuity, he is able to conquer everything he wants. But he is missing something: he lacks the living relationship with his own roots,” the pope said.
It is on a return trip to see his brother Esau – whom he defrauded for an inheritance – that Jacob encounters the stranger who fights with him. Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pope said that this struggle is “the symbol of prayer as a battle of faith and as the triumph of perseverance.”
Overcome by a strike to the hip, the stranger – whom Jacob later realized is God – blesses him and gives him the name “Israel.” The pope said that Jacob ultimately enters the promised land with a limp, but also “with a new heart.”
“Before he was a confident man, he trusted in his own cunning,” he said. “He was a man impervious to grace, resistant to mercy. But God saved what was lost.”
“We all have an appointment with God in the night,” Pope Francis said. “He will surprise us when we do not expect it, when we find ourselves truly alone.”
But, the pope said, “we need not fear because in that moment, God will give us a new name that contains the meaning of our whole life.”

Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju

By Junno Arocho
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – While isolation, social distancing and economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic prove to be a challenge, Christians are called by God to take part in the church’s mission in the world, Pope Francis wrote in a message for World Mission Sunday 2020.
“The impossibility of gathering as a church to celebrate the Eucharist has led us to share the experience of the many Christian communities that cannot celebrate Mass every Sunday,” the pope wrote in his message, which was released by the Vatican May 31.
“In all of this, God’s question: ‘Whom shall I send?’ is addressed once more to us and awaits a generous and convincing response: ‘Here am I, send me!’” he said.
World Mission Sunday will be celebrated Oct. 18 at the Vatican and in most dioceses.
In his message, the pope said that despite the suffering and challenges posed by COVID-19, the church’s “missionary journey” continues. Although pain and death “make us experience our human frailty,” it also serves as a reminder of “our deep desire for life and liberation from evil.”
“In this context, the call to mission, the invitation to step out of ourselves for love of God and neighbor presents itself as an opportunity for sharing, service and intercessory prayer,” he wrote. “The mission that God entrusts to each one of us leads us from fear and introspection to a renewed realization that we find ourselves precisely when we give ourselves to others.”

To be a “church on the move,” he explained, is neither a program nor “an enterprise to be carried out by sheer force of will,” but rather follows the prompting of the Holy Spirit “who pushes you and carries you.”
Pope Francis said the celebration of World Mission Sunday offers an opportunity to reaffirm that one’s prayers, reflections and offerings are ways “to participate actively in the mission of Jesus in his church.”
He also reminded Christians that the mission of evangelization is “a free and conscious response to God’s call” that can only be discerned by one’s “personal relationship of love with Jesus present in his church.”
“In all of this, God’s question, ‘Whom shall I send?’ is addressed once more to us and awaits a generous and convincing response: ‘Here am I, send me!’” the pope said. “God continues to look for those whom he can send forth into the world and to the nations to bear witness to his love, his deliverance from sin and death, his liberation from evil.”