Vatican City, Feb 5, 2015 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ address to a joint session of Congress during his U.S. visit in September will be a “wonderful opportunity,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has said. “It’s an opportunity for him to call our Congressmen to work for the common good and to work for the support of the dignity of every individual,” Archbishop Chaput told CNA in Rome Feb. 5. He said the invitation to Pope Francis is “a sign of how much Pope Francis is appreciated as a world leader.” Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced the visit on Thursday. “We’re humbled that the Holy Father has accepted our invitation and certainly look forward to receiving his message on behalf of the American people,” Boehner told reporters, according to the Associated Press. "In a time of global upheaval, the Holy Father's message of compassion and human dignity has moved people of all faiths and backgrounds,” he added in a statement. “His teachings, prayers, and very example bring us back to the blessings of simple things and our obligations to one another.” President Barack Obama mentioned the papal visit in his Feb. 5 remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast, saying, “like millions of Americans, I am very much looking forward to welcoming Pope Francis to the United States later this year.” The Pope will address Congress on Sept. 24. In November, Pope Francis announced his intention to visit Philadelphia in conjunction with the World Meeting of Families, held in Philadelphia Sept. 22-27. The gathering is a global Catholic event that seeks to support and strengthen families. Archbishop Chaput, who will host the meeting, spoke with Pope Francis on Thursday morning. “He seemed to be very much into coming and very happy about the opportunity, his first visit to the United States,” the archbishop said. “Of course, it’s going to be wonderful for us.” Pope Francis “was curious about the life of the local Church as well as the World Meeting of Families.” “He talked more about Philadelphia than he did about the world meeting,” Archbishop Chaput said. The archbishop and Pope Francis had “a very relaxed and fraternal conversation” during the formal visit at the library of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. “It was a wonderful blessing for me personally,” Archbishop Chaput said. The conversation was “more questions about what I thought about things” than the Pope “offering his own opinion,” the archbishop reported, saying this was similar to his meetings with St. John Paul II. Archbishop Chaput said more work is to be done to prepare for the Eighth World Meeting of Families. “We don’t have any definitive plans, but I’m sure there’ll be more meetings in Rome. There always are.” “We still have eight months to go, so there’s quite a bit of time,” he added. The Pope could visit the White House and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. A potential New York City visit would include a visit to the United Nations and perhaps St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See's observer to the UN in New York and a member of the organizing committee for Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the U.S., told CNA in January. New York City’s Madison Square Garden is a potential venue for a papal Mass. The Pope could visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as well as take part in an interethnic meeting with representatives of various communities. However, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia archdiocese stressed that the official schedule has not been finalized. Archbishop Auza said that an organizational visit from a Vatican delegation will take place at the end of February. Read more

Vatican City, Feb 5, 2015 / 02:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator of Archbishop Oscar Romero's cause for beatification, said the martyr's life was a chastisement of modern societies in which individuals focus on themselves. “He was a bishop who dedicated his episcopal ministry, rather, his own life, to helping, relieving and defending those who are poorest and who are weakest, and (it's) like a slap in the face to a contemporary society folded in on itself, each individual interested in their own well-being,” Archbishop Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, told CNA Feb. 4. Archbishop Paglia had just participated in a press briefing which was held the day after Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of decrees recognizing the martyrdom of the Salvadoran archbishop, who was assassinated in 1980 while saying Mass. Oscar Romero y Galdamez was Archbishop of San Salvador from 1977 until March 24, 1980, when he was shot and killed. He was a vocal critic of the human rights abuses of the repressive Salvadoran government, and he spoke out on behalf of the poor and the victims of the government. No one has been prosecuted for his assassination, but right-wing death squads are suspected. “Romero's witness of martyrdom starting from Latin America, through Pope Francis, can help the whole of America, the whole of Europe,” Archbishop Paglia said. Archbishop Romero showed that “if you don't go to the outskirts of the cities, our peripheries become places of violence and inevitable terrorism, because it's only integration and agreement that can save us from a violence that would otherwise remain without medicine,” he said. “Romero, welcoming martyrdom upon himself, emptied the violence of its venom. They wanted to shut him up, (but) he responded with love. Others have disappeared, (while) Romero continues to speak to all of us.” Archbishop Paglia referred to his pectoral cross – a sign of his episcopal dignity – saying that “for me it means everyday 'remember that also you have to give your life for others.'” During the press briefing, Archbishop Paglia said it is “an extraordinary gift for all of the Church at the beginning of this millennium to see rise to the altar a pastor who gave his life for his people.” “Gratitude is also due to Benedict XVI, who followed the cause from the very beginning and on 20 December 2012 – just over a month before his resignation – decided to unblock the process to enable it to follow the regular itinerary,” he reflected. He said the work of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints had been “careful and attentive” and that the congregation’s commissions of cardinals and theologians had both unanimously confirmed his killing was done in hatred of the faith. Archbishop Romero's death, he said, “was not only politically motivated, but due also to hatred for a faith that, combined with charity, would not stay silent when faced with the injustices that implacably and cruelly afflicted the poor and their defenders.” “The martyrdom of Romero has given meaning and strength to many Salvadoran families who lost relatives and friends during the civil war. His memory immediately became the memory of other victims, perhaps less illustrious, of the violence.” In the 20th century, El Salvador was marked by extreme economic inequality, with an increase in protests and rebellions in the 1970s, which were met with government repression through death squads and forced disappearances. A civil war between military-led governments and left-wing guerilla groups began in 1979, and was not concluded until 1992. Before Archbishop Romero's martyrdom, in the Archdiocese of San Salvador 30 priests were lost to murder or expulsion, Archbishop Paglia said, adding that “the death squads killed scores of catechists from the base communities, and many faithful disappeared from these communities.” “The Church was the main target of accusation and therefore the hardest hit. Romero resisted and accepted giving his life to defend his people.” The postulator of the cause said Archbishop Romero “believed in his role as a bishop” and “became the defender of the poor in the face of cruel repression.” He “considered himself responsible for the population, especially the poorest.” “Therefore, he took upon himself the bloodshed, pain and violence, denouncing their causes in his charismatic Sunday preaching that was listened to on the radio by the entire nation … he transformed himself into a 'defensor civitatis' following the tradition of the ancient Fathers of the Church, defending the persecuted clergy, protecting the poor, and affirming human rights.” According to Archbishop Paglia, Archbishop Romero “was not partisan, although to some he appeared that way; rather, he was a pastor who sought the common good of all, starting however with the poor. He never ceased to seek out the way for the pacification of the country.” He concluded saying that Archbishop Romero was “a man of God, a man of prayer, of obedience and love for the people.” “There is something providential in the fact that Romero will be declared blessed by the first Pope from South America, a Pope who asks for a poor Church for the poor, which is what Romero lived for to the point of shedding his blood.”   Read more

Vatican City, Feb 5, 2015 / 12:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis virtually joined seven young people with disabilities and special needs in his second Google Hangout as pontiff, sharing jokes, advice and encouragement. “Each one of us has a treasure inside,” the Pope told the young people during his Feb. 5 Google Hangout. He said that when “we share our own treasure with others, it multiples along with the treasures that come from the others we meet.” “What I want to say is don't hide the treasure that each one of you has. Sometimes we find it right away. Sometimes you have to do a little game of treasure hunt. But once you find it, share it, because when you share it you receive from others and it multiplies.” He encouraged the youth to continue moving forward, saying that what they are doing “helps all of us to understand that life is a beautiful treasure, but it only makes sense if we give it.” The seven young people who participated in the hangout session with Pope Francis hail from all corners of the world, including Spain, India, Brazil and the United States. Among the four participants from Spain were Isabel, 13, who is blind; Bautista, 12, who has autism; and 17-year-old Alicia and Elvira, who both have Down syndrome. Other participants included 13-year-old Manosh from India, who is deaf; Pedro from Brazil, who has a congenital malformation; and Isaiah from the United States, who has a type of growth disorder which affects his motor skills. Each participant had the opportunity to speak spontaneously to the Pope without a text, telling him about themselves and how they use technology to help them with their disabilities. Pope Francis, in turn, responded to each one personally, and spoke briefly after they had all finished about treasure each one of them possesses. The conversation included serious advice, but also moments of lighthearted banter. When asked by Alicia if he liked to take pictures and download them onto the computer, Pope Francis responded with a jest, saying “to tell you the truth, I'm like a dummy with the machine. I don't know how to work the computer. How embarrassing, eh?” Isaiah, who joined in from Nebraska, asked the Pope what he does when he faces something difficult. The Pope responded by saying that “first of all I try not to get angry. (I try) to be calm.” “Afterward I try to look for a way to overcome it. And if I can't overcome, I endure it until I see a way of overcoming it,” he said. “We must never be afraid. We are all capable of overcoming (difficult situations). We only need time to understand, intelligence to look for the way and courage to go forward. But never be afraid.” The hangout session was organized by the educational foundation Scholas Occurentes during their Feb. 2-5 global congress in Rome. Scholas was founded by Pope Francis while he was still archbishop of Buenos Aires as an initiative to encourage social integration and the culture of encounter through technology, arts and sports. With just a few youth involved at its beginning, the foundation now consists of a worldwide network of 400,000 state and religious schools, which are organized by Argentinian school headmasters Enrique Palmeyro and José María del Corral. Marking the pontiff’s second hangout session since becoming pope, today’s encounter was organized in partnership with Google, Microsoft, IBM and technology development company Globant. Pope Francis held his first Google Hangout with high school students last September in order to promote the “Scholas Social” website, which is dedicated to raising funds for educational projects that promote interaction between schools with various social challenges.   Read more

Vatican City, Feb 5, 2015 / 09:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After several days of rain and dreary weather that has not yet cleared, the Vatican’s papal almoner has distributed 300 umbrellas to homeless persons around Rome on behalf of Pope Francis. ... Read more

Vatican City, Feb 5, 2015 / 05:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has sent a letter to religious superiors and presidents of episcopal conferences, asking for their full cooperation in ending the sexual abuse of minors, and making the Church a safe h... Read more