Vatican City, Jun 13, 2016 / 05:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a world where information is brought instantly to our fingertips, society is becoming increasingly anesthetized to the suffering brought about by poverty, Pope Francis told the United Nations's World Food Programme on Monday. “We are bombarded by so many images that we see pain, but do not touch it; we hear weeping, but do not comfort it; we see thirst but do not satisfy it,” the Pope said during the visit to the WFP Rome headquarters. “All those human lives turn into one more news story.” In prepared remarks delivered in his native Spanish, the pontiff said the global interconnectedness created by modern communications technologies has led to an “information overload” which is increasingly making us “immune to other people's tragedies.”   “It is not enough to offer broad reflections or engage in endless discussion, constantly repeating things everyone knows.”   Francis' June 13 visit to the Rome headquarters of the WFP marked his first ever as pontiff. The Pope delivered two addresses during his time at the headquarters, the first during the Annual Session of WFP’s Executive Board. The visit comes in the first year of the UN agency's 17 Sustainable Development Goals to eradicate the root causes of poverty and hunger, and its aim of achieving Zero Hunger by 2030. In his address, Francis called for concrete action on the part of institutions like the WFP to “de-naturalize” extreme poverty in the public consciousness. “Why? Because poverty has a face! It has the face of a child; it has the face of a family; it has the face of people, young and old.” This “face,” he said, is also seen in those who are unemployed, migrants, etc. When poverty “no longer has a face,” it becomes easy to look at hunger, food, and violence as concepts  which are separated from the real people asking for help, the Pope said. “Without faces and stories, human lives become statistics and we run the risk of bureaucratizing the sufferings of others,” he said. “Bureaucracies shuffle papers; compassion deals with people.” Francis emphasized the need to “denaturalize” poverty, and criticized the consumerism which leads to food waste in a world where people are starving. “We have made the fruits of the earth – a gift to humanity – commodities for a few, thus engendering exclusion,” he said. “The consumerism in which our societies are immersed has made us grow accustomed to excess and to the daily waste of food.” “We need to be reminded that food discarded is, in a certain sense stolen, from the table of poor and the starving.” The Pope went on to stress the urgent need to “Debureaucratize” hunger in the face of armed conflicts which have sidelined “other ways of resolving the issues at hand.” “This approach is so deeply engrained and taken for granted that it prevents food supplies from being distributed in war zones, in violation of the most fundamental and age-old principles and rules of international law,” he said. Francis criticized the sale of arms worldwide, and its contribution to poverty. “As a result, wars are fed, not persons. In some cases, hunger itself is used as a weapon of war.” The death toll of people dying from hunger is added to the other casualties of war, he said. “We are fully aware of this, yet we allow our conscience to be anesthetized. We become desensitized. Force then becomes our one way of acting, and power becomes our only goal.” The pontiff acknowledged the WFP's role in mobilizing initiatives which are concerned with the “faces” of people who suffer. “The WFP is an excellent example of how one can work throughout the world to eradicate hunger through a better allotment of human and material resources, strengthening the local community,” he said. Francis explained that it is in fidelity to the mission of the Catholic Church to wish “to cooperate with every initiative that defends and protects the dignity of persons, especially of those whose rights are violated.” He cited the words of Jesus, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.” “A people plays out its future by its ability to respond to the hunger and thirst of its brothers and sisters. In that ability to come to the aid of the hungry and thirsty, we can measure the pulse of our humanity.” After addressing the WFP assembly, Pope Francis delivered a second address to the agency's employees and their families, this time entirely off-the-cuff and in Italian. Although a speech had been prepared, the Pope joked that “speeches are boring,” and said he would rather speak “spontaneously from the heart” in the language of the country. The pontiff thanked those present for their “hidden” work and sacrifices behind the scenes which make the fight against hunger possible. “You are the feet, hands, supporting the the courage of all those who go forward, who also supported the courage of the 'martyrs', so to speak, of your witnesses.” Read more

Vatican City, Jun 12, 2016 / 12:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has offered his prayers and compassion for those affected by Saturday night's shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. In a June 12 statement Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See press officer, said the “terrible massacre,” which has left a “dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred.” “Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion,” the statement reads. “Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort.” “We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity.” At least 50 people were killed and 53 were injured in the early hours of June 12 when a gunman identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen exchanged fire with a police officer working at Pulse nightclub, which caters to gay clientele. Mateen, who was from Florida and was of Afghan descent, took hostages for as much as three hours, and was shot to death by Swat officers. Though the mass violence is thought to be ideologically motivated, he was not known to have links to any terrorist groups. The death toll makes the Orlando shooting the worst in United States history. Bishop John Noonan of Orlando tweeted on Sunday saying, “We pray for victims of the mass shooting in Orlando this morning, their families & our first responders. May the Lord's Mercy be upon us.”   Read more

Vatican City, Jun 12, 2016 / 06:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday, Pope Francis denounced the increasingly prevalent mentality which claims that sick and disabled persons cannot be happy, and should be kept out of sight from society. In reality, he said, true happiness is achieved by our capacity to love. “In an age when care for one’s body has become an obsession and a big business, anything imperfect has to be hidden away, since it threatens the happiness and serenity of the privileged few and endangers the dominant model,” the Pope said during his June 12 homily for Mass in St. Peter's Square. Speaking at the the Mass, which was the last major event of this weekend's Jubilee for sick and disabled persons, the pontiff decried the belief that such persons “cannot be happy, since they cannot live the lifestyle held up by the culture of pleasure and entertainment.” “In some cases, we are even told that it is better to eliminate them as soon as possible, because they become an unacceptable economic burden in time of crisis,” he said. This mentality suggests that the sick and disabled should be kept apart from society in “enclosures” or on “'islands' of pietism or social welfare, so that they do not hold back the pace of a false well-being.” People who “shut their eyes in the face of sickness and disability,” he said, “fail to understand the real meaning of life, which also has to do with accepting suffering and limitations,” he said. In reality, happiness can only be achieved “if we are capable of loving,” the pontiff said. “How many disabled and suffering persons open their hearts to life again as soon as they realize they are loved! How much love can well up in a heart simply with a smile! The therapy of the smile. Then our frailness itself can become a source of consolation and support in our solitude.” Sunday's Mass in the Vatican was the final major event of the June 10-12 Jubilee for the sick and persons with disabilities. It was the latest initiative in the Holy Year of Mercy, which began Dec. 8, 2015, and will conclude Nov. 20, 2016. In his homily, Pope Francis reflected on the day's reading from St. Paul to the Galatians on the “mystery of the Christian life, which can be summed up in the paschal dynamic of death and resurrection received at baptism.” Through Baptism, each of us “dies and is buried with Christ,” the Pope said, and then, “remerging, shows forth new life in the Holy Spirit.” “This rebirth embraces every aspect of our lives: even sickness, suffering and death are taken up in Christ and in him find their ultimate meaning.” Speaking especially for the those taking part in the Jubilee, the pontiff reflected how everyone will one day face – often painfully – “frailty and illness,  both our own and those of others.” While these “dramatically human experiences” take different forms, they nonetheless “raise the pressing question of the meaning of life,” he said. When faced of these experiences, some may become cynical, “as if the only solution were simply to put up with these experiences, trusting only in our own strength,” the Pope said. Others, meanwhile, may put their trust in science with the belief that medicine has a cure, despite the fact that this is not always the case, he said. Francis drew from the day's Gospel account of the woman caught in adultery who, like persons who are sick and disabled, is cast aside by society.   “Jesus accepts and defends her,” and “is attentive to her suffering and her plea,” the Pope explained. His tenderness toward the woman “is a sign of the love that God shows to those who suffer and are cast aside.” In addition to physical suffering, the pontiff spoke also of spiritual suffering, which he described as “one of today’s most frequent pathologies.” “It is a suffering of the heart; it causes sadness for lack of love,” he said. “When we experience disappointment or betrayal in important relationships, we come to realize how vulnerable and defenseless we are.” “The temptation to become self-absorbed grows stronger, and we risk losing life’s greatest opportunity: to love in spite of everything.” The pontiff stressed that Jesus, through his passion, loved us to the end, and understands our suffering because he experienced it himself. “Can we reproach God for our infirmities and sufferings when we realize how much suffering shows on the face of his crucified Son?” he said. “Jesus is the physician who heals with the medicine of love, for he takes upon himself our suffering and redeems it. We know that God can understand our infirmities, because he himself has personally experienced them.” “The way we face suffering and limitation is the measure of our freedom to give meaning to life’s experiences, even when they strike us as meaningless and unmerited.” In our weakness we are strengthened and receive what we need in Christ's suffering for “his body, the Church,” Francis said, concluding his homily. “For that body, in the image of the risen Lord’s own, keeps its wounds, the mark of a hard struggle, but they are wounds transfigured for ever by love.” At the conclusion of the Mass, before leading those present in the weekly Angelus prayer, Pope Francis issued a special thanks to all those who traveled from throughout Italy and other countries to take part in the Jubilee for the sick and persons with disabilities. “Thank you especially, you have wanted to be present in your conditions of illness or disability,” he told those present. The Pope also extended his “heartfelt thanks” to doctors and healthcare professionals, who set up “Health Points” at the four papal basilicas in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, and who offered specialized tours for hundreds of people. Francis also acknowledged the participants in this weekend's international conference on caring for people with Hansen's disease. He expressed his gratitude to the organizers and participants, and his “hope for a fruitful commitment to the fight against this disease.” Read more

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The pontificate of Pope Francis has a diplomatic style of its own, and many of his diplomats share a common source: a college and a home for disadvantaged but talented young people on scholarship ... Read more