Vatican City, May 10, 2017 / 11:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Following his trip to Egypt last month, Pope Francis sent a message Wednesday to the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Tawadros II, expressing his hope that their Churches will continue to work toward unity in the sacraments. “Along this path we are sustained by the powerful intercession and example of the martyrs. May we continue to advance together on our journey towards the same Eucharistic table, and grow in love and reconciliation,” Pope Francis said in his letter to the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch May 10. “I take this opportunity to offer my prayerful best wishes for your peace and health, as well as my joy and gratitude for the spiritual bonds uniting the See of Peter and the See of Mark.” Pope Francis’ message marked the fourth anniversary of his meeting with Tawadros II in Rome on May 10, 2013; the day has become an annual celebration of fraternal love between the Catholic and Coptic Orthodox Churches. Pope Francis and the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch also met April 28 during Francis’ two-day trip to Cairo. During the encounter, the two signed a joint declaration indicating their gratitude for the chance “to exchange a fraternal embrace and to join again in common prayer.” In his letter to the patriarch, Francis thanked the leader for his hospitality and for the common prayer they shared during the meeting. He also noted, in particular, the agreement made that both Churches would acknowledge the validity of baptisms performed in the other Church. Quoting from the statement, Francis said he is “especially grateful that we have strengthened our baptismal unity in the body of Christ by declaring together ‘that we, with one mind and heart, will seek sincerely not to repeat the baptism that has been administered in either of our Churches for any person who wishes to join the other.’ Our bonds of fraternity 'challenge us to intensify our common efforts to persevere in the search for visible unity in diversity, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit'.” The Pope also gave assurance of his continued prayers for Tawadros II and for peace in Egypt and the Middle East. He called on the Holy Spirit, especially during the Easter season, to “fill our hearts with his grace and kindle in them the fire of his love.” “May the Spirit of peace bestow on us an increase of hope, friendship and harmony,” he continued. He concluded the letter saying that “with these sentiments, on this special occasion which has rightly become known as the day of friendship between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, I exchange with Your Holiness a fraternal embrace of peace in Christ our Lord.” The Coptic Orthdox Church is an Oriental Orthodox Church, meaning it rejected the 451 Council of Chalcedon, and its followers had historically been considered monophysites – those who believe Christ has only one nature – by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, though they are not considered so any longer. The May 2013 meeting between Francis and Tawadros marked the first visit of a Coptic Orthodox patriarch to Rome in 40 years. Shenouda III, Tawadros' predecessor, visited Bl. Paul VI in 1973, and St. John Paul II returned the visit to Egypt in 2000. Read more

Vatican City, May 10, 2017 / 05:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Days before his trip to Fatima, Pope Francis said Mary’s ‘yes’ at the Annunciation was more than a yes to bearing the Son of God, but was also an acceptance of everything she would endure after – something every mother experiences with a new child.   “It was not easy to answer with a ‘yes’ to the angel's invitation; yet she, a woman still in the flower of youth, answers with courage, despite not knowing anything about the fate that awaited her.” “Mary at that moment looks like one of the many mothers of our world, brave to the extreme when it comes to welcoming in her womb the story of a new human being who is growing,” he said May 10. Her ‘yes’ to the angel at the Annunciation was just the first step “in a long list of obedience” leading to the moment she stands at the foot of her Son’s cross, the Pope said. During his general audience, Pope Francis centered his catechesis on the few lines from the Gospel of John that describe Mary “standing by the cross of Jesus.” Though Mary is largely a silent figure in the Gospels, she listens and “ponders every word and every event in her heart.” “The Gospels are laconic, and extremely subtle. They record with a simple verb the presence of the Mother: She ‘was standing,’ she was standing,” he said, noting that “nothing is said of her reaction: if she weeps, if she does not weep ... nothing; not even a brushstroke to describe her grief.” Throughout history poets and painters have imagined this moment in art and literature, “but the Gospels just say, she was ‘standing.’ She was there, in the worst moment, in the cruelest time, and suffered with her son,” but “she was standing,” Francis said. Though there had been a “slow eclipse” of her presence in the Gospels, she returns at this crucial moment when many others had fled. “Mothers do not betray, and at that moment, at the foot of the cross, none of us can say whose was the cruelest passion; whether that of an innocent man who dies on the scaffold of the cross, or the agony of a mother who accompanies the last moments of her son's life,” he said. And she doesn’t get angry or protest: she simply stands and listens, Pope Francis said, pointing to the relationship between listening and the virtue of hope. Despite everything, even the “deepest darkness,” Mary does not leave, but stands faithfully, he said. “That's why we all love her as a Mother...We are not orphans: we have a Mother in heaven, who is the Holy Mother of God.” Mary, he said, teaches to us “the virtue of waiting, even when everything seems meaningless: she is always confident in the mystery of God.” Even though she didn’t know what the outcome of her Son’s Passion would be, she is loyal to the plan of God, just as she promised to the angel “on the first day of her vocation,” Francis said, explaining that it is also part of her motherly instinct to suffer for her child. “The suffering of mothers: We have all known strong women that braved the many sufferings of their children!” he said. Even in the first days of the Church, before Christ’s resurrection is known and the disciples are all afraid, the “Mother of Hope” stays, Francis said. “She was simply there, in the most normal of ways, as if it were a natural thing.” Thus, he concluded, “in moments of difficulty, Mary, the Mother Jesus has given to us all, can always support our steps, can always say to our heart: ‘Get up! Look ahead, look at the horizon,’ because she is a Mother of Hope.” Read more

Vatican City, May 10, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, who has worked as an astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican for more than 20 years, told journalists Monday that faith and reason are hardly at odds. “If you have no faith in your faith, that is when you will fear science,” Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J., said May 8. He spoke to journalists at a press conference ahead of a May 9-12 summit on “Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Space-Time Singularities” being held in Castel Gandolfo at the Vatican Observatory, just outside Rome. Presser w/ Br. Guy Consolmagno (@specolations) & col. on Vatican conference on Black Holes, Gravitational Waves & Space-Time Singularities pic.twitter.com/Q8FYJMD2y5— Hannah Brockhaus (@HannahBrockhaus) May 8, 2017 “The Vatican Observatory was founded in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII to show that the Church supports good science, and to do that we have to have good science,” Br. Consolmagno said, explaining the reasoning behind the conference. The hope is that the encounter will foster good science, good discussion, and even friendship. Among the speakers will be a Nobel Prize winner in physics and a Wolf Prize winner. Among the topics of papers being presented at the conference are Strong evidence for an accelerating universe; Black hole perturbations: a review of recent analytical results; and Observing the Signature of Dynamical Space-Time through Gravitational Waves. “Those of us that are religious, will recognize the presence of God, but you don't have to make a theological leap to search for the truth,” Br. Consolmagno said. “There are many things we know we do not understand. We cannot be good religious people or scientists if we think that our work is done.” The summit is also taking place in recognition of Fr. Georges Lemaître, the Belgian physicist and mathematician who is widely credited with developing the “Big Bang” theory to explain the origin of the physical universe. Addressing common misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang, such as the idea that it did away with the need for a creator, Br. Consolmagno said the solution isn’t just to put God at the beginning of things and call that good, either. “The creative act of God is not something that happened 13.8 billion years ago,” he said. “God is already there before space and time exist. You can't even say ‘before’ because he is outside of time and space.” The creative act is happening continuously: “If you look at God as merely the thing that started the Big Bang, then you get a nature god, like Jupiter throwing around lightning bolts.” “That's not the God that we as Christians believe in,” he went on. “We must believe in a God that is supernatural. We then recognize God as the one responsible for the existence of the universe, and our science tells us how he did it.” The organizer of the conference, Fr. Gabriele Gionti, S.J., said Fr. Lemaître always distinguished between the beginnings of the universe and its origins. “The beginning of the universe is a scientific question, to be able to date with precision when things started. The origins of the universe, however, is a theologically charged question.” Answring that question “has nothing at all to do with a scientific epistemology,” he added. Br. Consolmagno commented that “God is not something we arrive at the end of our science, it’s what we assume at the beginning. I am afraid of a God who can be proved by science, because I know my science well enough to not trust it!” “An atheist could assume something very different, and have a very different view of the universe, but we can talk and learn from each other. The search for truth unites us.” He suggested that to demonstrate that the Church and science are not at odds, those who are both church-goers and scientists should make that fact more known to their fellow parishioners. He threw out some practical ideas, such as setting up a telescope in the church parking lot or leading the parish’s youth group on a nature hike. The Church, in a sense, developed science through the medieval universities she founded, he explained. For example, Bishop Robert Grosseteste, a 13th century Bishop of Lincoln and chancellor of Oxford University, helped develop the scientific method and was often cited by Roger Bacon. “If there is a rivalry” between the Church and science, Br. Consolmagno said, “it's a sibling rivalry.” “And it's a crime against science to say that only atheists can do it, because if that were true, it would eliminate so many wonderful scientists.” Read more