Vatican City, Feb 2, 2015 / 03:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis warned consecrated men and women against reducing their religious live to a “caricature,” calling them to instead embrace a life of obedience, which in turn leads to wisdom. This was the central theme of the Pope's homily for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on Feb. 2, which coincides with the World Day for Consecrated Life. Addressing the congregation gathered in Saint Peter's Basilica on Monday evening, the Holy Father reflected on the Gospel account of Mary and Joseph presenting the Child Jesus in the temple. Pope Francis described Mary’s arms as the “ladder of God’s condescension” upon which the Son of God “descended” becoming like us, “in order to ascend with us to the Father, making us like himself”, according to Vatican Radio’s translation. Recalling the image of Mary entering the Temple with the Child Jesus, the Holy Father observed that “the Mother walks, yet it is the Child who goes before her.  She carries him, yet he is leading her along the path of the God who comes to us so that we might go to him.” “For us too, as consecrated men and women,” the Pope continued, Jesus “opened a path.” Throughout his homily, Pope Francis emphasized the theme of obedience which reoccurs in the Gospel, and its significance for consecrated men and women. “Jesus came not to do his own will, but the will of the Father”, he said. “In the same way, all those who follow Jesus must set out on the path of obedience, imitating as it were the Lord’s ‘condescension’ by humbling themselves and making their own the will of the Father, even to self-emptying and abasement” (cf. Phil 2:7-8). Progress for a religious person means following the path of Jesus who “did not count equality with God something to be grasped”, the Holy Father continued: “to lower oneself, making oneself a servant, in order to serve.” This path, which “takes the form of the rule” is “marked by the charism of the founder”, he said. “This path, then, takes the form of the rule, marked by the charism of the founder.” “For all of us, the essential rule remains the Gospel, this abasement of Christ, yet the Holy Spirit, in his infinite creativity, also gives it expression in the various rules of the consecrated life, though all of these are born of that sequela Christi, from this path of self-abasement in service.” The wisdom which consecrated persons attain through the law is “not an abstract attitude, but a work and a gift of the Holy Spirit, the sign and proof of which is joy.” Turning to the Gospel account of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Pope Francis said that this “wisdom is represented by two elderly persons, Simeon and Anna: persons docile to the Holy Spirit.” Their wisdom, the Pope continued, was “the fruit of a long journey along the path of obedience to his law, an obedience which likewise humbles and abases – even as it also guards and guarantees hope – and now they are creative, for they are filled with the Holy Spirit.” “The Lord turns obedience into wisdom by the working of his Holy Spirit,” he continued.  Obedience and docility are not theoretical, but “subject to the economy of the incarnation of the Word,” he said. Whether it be to the founder, to a “specific rule,” to “one’s superior,” or to the Church, docility and obedience are always concrete. “The strengthening and renewal of consecrated life are the result of great love for the rule, and also the ability to look to and heed the elders of one’s congregation,” he said, adding that the “deposit” of the charism “is preserved by obedience and by wisdom, working together.” In this way, the Pope said, consecrated men and women “are preserved from living our consecration lightly and in a disincarnate manner.” It would thereby become reduced to a “caricature” of the religious life: “without sacrifice, a prayer that is without encounter, a fraternal life that is without communion, an obedience without trust, a charity without transcendence.” Pope Francis concluded his homily calling on consecrated men and women to “bring others to Jesus”, while allowing themselves to be led by him.   “This is what we should be: guides who themselves are guided.” Read more

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2015 / 02:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis praised Lithuania's bishops for their courage in a nation marked by both a history of persecution against the Church as well as modern threats of secularism and relativism. “You are the heirs of this history, this patrimony of pastoral charity, and you demonstrate the energy of your action, the communion which you enliven, and the perseverance in pursuing the objectives which the Spirit shows you,” he said. The bishops of Lithuania have been in Rome for their ad limina visit, during which they were received by the Holy Father on Feb. 2. “You have come to Rome with your youth, but also with your courage,” Pope Francis said, noting the presence of those who had lived during the “sad period of persecution” of the former Soviet state. The majority Catholic country was under Soviet rule until the early 1990s, during which the Church faced intense persecution. A second Soviet occupation in the 1940s saw some of the most severe oppression, with seizures of Church property, the deportation of over 150 priests, and the arrest, torture and execution of Telsiai bishop Vincentas Borisevicius. Pope Francis acknowledged the “apostolic efforts” of the bishops in Lithuania amid this oppression against the Church by “regimes founded on ideologies contrary to human dignity and freedom,” and which today is marked by “other hidden dangers,” such as secularism and relativism. In addition to proclaiming the Gospel and Christian values, the bishops were urged toward “constructive dialogue with all, even those who do not belong to the Church or are far from the religious experience.” The Pope then encouraged them to care for the Christian communities, that “they may always be places of welcome, of open and constructive discussion, a stimulus for the whole society in pursuit of the common good.” Pope Francis turned his address to the theme of the family, encouraging bishops to offer their “contribution in the great work of discernment, and above all in the pastoral care of the family.” Within the European Union, of which Lithuania became a full member in 2004, the Pope noted the “influx if ideologies” which seek to destabilize families, the “fruit of a misunderstood sense of personal freedom.” He reminded the bishops of their “age-old Lithuanian tradition” to aid them in responding to these challenges “according to reason and faith.”   The pontiff then turned to the topic of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life, calling on the Lithuanian Church to “never tire” of “praying for vocations.” He urged them to provide “adequate formation” for priests, religious and seminarians, especially in the areas of spiritual in moral life, and educating them in “evangelical poverty and the management of material goods according to the principles of the Church’s social doctrine.” Despite the economic advancements in Lithuania, the Pope reminded the bishops to care for their neighbors who are “in need, unemployed, sick, abandoned.” He concluded by calling on the Lithuanian bishops' conference to give special attention to the youth, that “they may preserve the faith and religious traditions” of their country. Read more

Vatican City, Feb 2, 2015 / 12:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican enhanced international cooperation following the reform of the state's penal code and its anti-money laundering laws, according to a Jan. 31 report presented by Gian Piero Milano,  Promoter of Justice at the Vatican tribunal. The report was presented at the opening of the Vatican Tribunal's new judicial year. The Vatican's public prosecutor underscored in his presentation that Vatican investigators made two arrests for child pornography; that two accounts of the Institute for Religious Works have been seized, while 200 financial operations have been verified; and that the Vatican has received 10 international requests from foreign judicial authorities, and accepted seven of them. As eight out of the 10 requests came from Italy, Milano underscored in his report that the Vatican addressed an international request to Italy in 2013 in order to “receive international information on the accounts of an cleric tried in Italy for a series of crimes (fraud, money laundering, corruption) and investigated by the office of the Public Prosecutor.” Milano refers to the case of Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, a former employee at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, who is being investigated for allegedly planning to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland to Italy aboard an Italian government airplane, and for supposedly laundering 560,000 euros ($744,000) that he took from his account at the Institute for Religious Works, the 'Vatican bank', to pay off the mortgage of a house in Salerno. According to Milano, his Italian counterpart responded with “documents lacking essential elements” such as the transcripts of the interrogations of the defendant, his alleged accomplices, and people informed of the facts. The Vatican public prosecutor also stressed that the documents “highlight a modus operandi” in getting  evidence that “may be described as improper and which is not aligned with current international protocols.” On the other hand, the Vatican has undergone a long path to conform its internal law to international standards, as the report shows. The judicial overhaul of Vatican City State was started by Benedict XVI. The Vatican legal code dates back to 1929. In 1969, Bl. Paul VI made some modifications to update its penal legislation. However, they did not made the Vatican penal legislation applicable beyond Vatican territory. But still there was the need to further adjustments. So, through three laws issued July 11, 2013, Vatican City State made its legal system more complete. It eliminated the possibility of life imprisonment as a sentence; it inserted in its legislation punishment for crimes against minors; and it strengthened the penalties for money-laundering and corruption. All of these activities were considered crimes even before the reform, but the reform makes their definition as crimes more specific. “Vatican City State, from a little enclave within Italy, has become part of an international community always more characterized by a globalization that involves not only customs, but also criminal activities,” Milano stressed. Milano underscored that the Vatican's anti-money laundering law is “very much more detailed than the law Italy has recently adopted.” One of the first turning points was the 2010 anti money-laundering law, which was later improved and replaced by a modern and comprehensive law for financial issues in October 2013. The law was in conformity with the monetary convention the Holy See signed with the European Union in 2009. Through that convention, the Holy See became part of the euro zone, albeit without being part of the European Union. The anti money-laundering law represented a concrete sign that the Vatican’s borders are now with Europe, and the Authority for Financial Information has signed several Memoranda of Understanding with its counterparts to enhance international cooperation. It is also noteworthy that last week the Authority has updated the List of Subjects that threaten International Peace and Security. The Authority has received in the course of the last year five suspect transactions reports. More in general, Milano noted that “crimes are increasing” in Vatican City State, and reported that in the last judicial year the public prosecutor ordered six arrests. Though the prosecutor did not mention any names, three of the arrests are already known: that of Marcello Di Finizio, an Italian entrepreneur who spent ten days under arrest in the Vatican during Christmas time following his most recent attempt to climb St. Peter’s Dome; the ‘femen’ activist who had bared her breasts Dec. 26, 2014 in St. Peter’s Square and grabbed the baby Jesus of the Nativity; and the former nuncio to Dominican Republic, Jozef Wesolowski. Though the Vatican public prosecutor did not make any specific mention of Wesolowski, the case of the former nuncio to Dominican Republic was the object of several parts of the report. Wesolowski, the former apostolic nuncio who spent his career in Eastern Europe and then ended up as papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic, was put under house arrest in the Vatican Set. 23, 2014 for alleged serious acts of abuse of minors and will be criminally charged by a Vatican penal court, after the tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith deemed him guilty in the first stage of the process. He had been laicized June 27, 2014. As it had been suggested in some quarters that Wesolowski had been somehow shielded from civil jurisdiction, the Vatican public prosecutor has made it clear that “the investigators are working in full autonomy, and far from any interference,” while the investigation “aims at the most exact assessment of facts.” Milano also mentioned that there had been “isolated attempts” to involve the Vatican in “international drug trafficking.” The attempts consisted in “three mailings” of packages of drugs to the Vatican, which have been monitored by the Vatican Gendarmes Corps. Milano also lamented that “in one case, a media leak made vain the joint international police intervention,” since “no one has come to get” the envelope with the drugs. The report also mentioned the case of Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican citizen who disappeared in 1983. Orlandi was the daughter of a Vatican bank employee, and was 15 when she disappeared on her way to school on June 22. Milano described the Orlandi case as “delicate case, with many unsolved issues, that aroused in the course of the years the attention of the media and public opinion.” Milano announced that “the Vatican tribunal has appointed a curator” of Emanuela Orlandi’s goods. Milano also stressed the need to introduce in the Vatican penal code the crime of usury, which was not included in Italy's 1889 code, the basis for much of the Vatican's statutory law. Read more

Vatican City, Feb 1, 2015 / 09:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his Sunday Angelus address Pope Francis pointed to the authority with which Jesus preached, saying that his words in the Gospel aren’t aimed to limit, but rather liberate us from evil and worldly spirits. “The Gospel is the word of life: it does not oppress people, (but) on the contrary it frees those who are enslaved by so many evil spirits in this world: vanity, the attachment to money, pride, sensuality,” the Pope told pilgrims present in St. Peter’s Square Feb. 1. What the Gospel does, he said, is it “changes the heart, the Gospel changes the heart! It changes life; it transforms the inclination to evil to resolutions of good.” Pope Francis centered his reflection on the day’s Gospel reading from Mark, in which those present in the synagogue were “amazed” at the authority with which Jesus preached, as well as his act of freeing a man possessed by an evil spirit. One of the first things Jesus does after entering Capernaum with his disciples is go to the synagogue, the Pope observed, noting how Jesus was more concerned with communicating the word of God than with taking care of the logistical organization of his community. “And the people in the synagogue are struck, because Jesus ‘taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes,’” the Pope noted, and asked what it means for someone to speak with authority. To speak with authority the way that Jesus did “means that in the human word of Jesus the strength of the Word of God was felt, the same authoritativeness of God was felt, inspirer of the Holy Scripture,” he said. One of the key characteristics of God’s word is that it accomplishes what it says, because the word of God corresponds to his will, the Roman Pontiff explained. While we often pronounce “empty words, without roots or superfluous words, words that do not correspond with the truth,” the word of God always corresponds to the truth, and is united to whatever he says and does, the Pope noted. Jesus proves his authority when immediately after preaching he frees a man possessed by an evil spirit, he said, observing that it was precisely Jesus’ divine authority that brought on Satan’s reaction. For his part, Jesus “immediately recognizes the voice of evil and rebuked him and said, 'Quiet! Come out of him!’” the pontiff said, explaining that Jesus frees the man “with only the strength of His word.” “The word of God astonishes us with that strength. It astonishes us well,” the Bishop of Rome said, noting that the Gospel doesn’t limit us, but rather frees us and has the capacity to change hearts. It is therefore the “duty” of Christians to spread this redeeming power everywhere and to become true missionaries and preachers of God’s word, he said. The day’s Gospel passage also closes with this missionary openness when it recounts how Jesus’ fame “spread everywhere” throughout Galilee, he noted, saying that this “new doctrine” taught by Jesus is what the Church brings to the world, along with the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium. “Always remember that the Gospel has the power to change life! Do not forget this! That is the good news that transforms us only when we allow ourselves to be transformed by it,” the Pope said, and urged those present to read a passage of the Bible every day. He then asked for the intercession of Mary in assisting all to be “assiduous listeners” of God’s Word, and led the faithful in the recitation of the traditional Marian prayer. After praying the Angelus with the pilgrims gathered Pope Francis acknowledged how the same day Italy was celebrating the “Day for Life,” which had as its theme “Solidarity for life.” “When we open ourselves to life and life is served, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness,” he said, noting that this openness to life “beginning a new humanism: the humanism of solidarity.” Read more

Vatican City, Feb 1, 2015 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Lenten spiritual exercises for the Roman curia will this year be preached by Fr. Bruno Secondin, a Carmelite, focused on the prophet Elijah and the prophetic role of the Church today. The news of the Feb. 22-27 retreat, themed “Servants and prophets of the living God”, was announced in L'Osservatore Romano Jan. 30. It will be held in the Casa Divin Maestro of Ariccia, a city bordering Albano Laziale and 16 miles outside Rome. For the second consecutive year, Pope Francis wanted the curia's spiritual exercises to be held outside of Rome, in order to foster the spiritual retreat and to avoid the temptation continue working. So all the head of Vatican dicasteries will move to Ariccia for five days. The preacher, Fr. Secondin, is an Italian Carmelite born in 1940. He studied in Rome, Germany, and Jerusalem. He earned a doctorate in theology and has served as a professor of spiritual theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Fr. Secondin has written more than twenty books on spiritual issues, also dealing with the crisis of modern culture. He is also an expert on St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, and has written on Pope Francis' favorite saint, Therese of Lisieux. A long time commentator on the Sunday Gospel for Vatican Radio, Fr. Secondin was recently appointed consultor to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life. Currently, he serves in the Carmelite monastery of Santa Maria Traspontina, a few steps from St. Peter’s Square. The Carmelites also administer the parish of Santa Maria in Traspontina, which covers a vast block around the Vatican area. Fr. Secondin is there entrusted with holding lectio divina every second and fourth Friday of the month. Fr. Secondin's meditation will present a pastoral lecture on the prophet Elijah, giving two meditations per day, plus an opening reflection on the topic: “Exiting from our own ‘village’.” Every day, Fr. Secondin will develop a specific topic: “Paths of authenticitiy” (on roots of faith and the courage to say no to any ambiguity); “Paths of freedom” (from vain idols to true mercy); “Let God surprise us” (the meeting with a God that is elsewhere and the acknowledgement of the poor, who evangelize us); Justice and intercession” (witness of justice and solidarity); and “Collecting from Elijah’s robe” (to be prophets of fraternity). Read more

Vatican City, Feb 1, 2015 / 04:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his Sunday Angelus address Pope Francis announced he will visit the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in June, where WWI broke out in 1914 with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. “Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to announce that Saturday, June 6, God willing, I will go to Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the Pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square Feb. 1. “I ask you right now to pray that my visit to those dear people is one of encouragement for the Catholic faithful, fosters seeds of good and contributes to the consolidation of fraternity and peace.” As part of his trip Pope Francis will be visiting the local Catholic community, but will also be entering a nation marked with vast ethnic and religious diversity, which served as a key factor in the country's recent war. Pope Francis’ visit to Sarajevo falls less than a year after the July 28 centenary of the start of WWI last year, as well as 20 years after the conclusion of the Bosnian War, which lasted from April 1992 until December 1995. In a June 16-17 Oasis conference in Sarajevo discussing the temptation of violence among religions, the country's archbishop, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, spoke with CNA about the ethnic and religious tensions that still linger in the country. Cardinal Puljic told CNA June 17 that Catholics in Bosnia are “in a grave position.” “There is no equality and this is a problem. There is no equality in the Serbian Republic, there is no equality in the federation, (and) where there is no equality, it isn’t possible to live in peace.” Cardinal Puljic is the sixth and current Archbishop of the Vrhbosna diocese in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is a country, the cardinal said, in which Christians, including those from Orthodox and Catholic traditions, Muslims and Jews live together alongside one another. With such diversity, Cardinal Puljic explained that “We want to create a paradigm for Europe where it is possible to live together with respect and human rights,” and noted that this “doesn’t depend only on communities of different religions.” It is also the responsibility of “the international community and the local politics who need to create equality.” Historically divided into three key ethnic groups, Bosnia-Herzegovina is composed of a majority of Muslim Bosniaks followed by a large percentage of mostly Orthodox Serbs and a great population of Croats, a majority of which are Catholic. The current religious and ethnic situation is complex, Cardinal Puljic observed. The region has seen a series of wars, the most recent of which is the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 in which the country’s Serb population began a policy of ethnic “cleansing” in large areas of Bosnia inhabited by non-Serbs and Muslim, Croat and Serb populations who opposed their army. With a diverse population of local Christians, Catholics in Bosnia form a minority whereas the Serbian Republic is mostly Orthodox and the Federation is a majority Muslim. Cardinal Puljic said that there are currently “great tensions between Orthodox Christians and Muslims,” and observed that Catholics “are like catalysts between them. We want to create tranquility (and) a climate of dialogue.” Read more