Tag: Pope Francis

Pope Francis has sharply criticised the Vatican bureaucracy in a pre-Christmas address to cardinals, complaining of “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and “the terrorism of gossip”.

He said the Curia – the administrative pinnacle of the Roman Catholic Church – was suffering from 15 “ailments”, which he wanted cured in the New Year.

Pope Francis – the first Latin American pontiff – also criticised “those who look obsessively at their own image”.

He has demanded reform of the Curia.

Pope Francis said some power-hungry clerics were guilty of “cold-bloodedly killing the reputation of their own colleagues and brothers”.

He compared the performance of the church’s civil servants to that of an orchestra playing out of tune because they fail to collaborate and have no team spirit, the BBC’s David Willey reports from Rome.

Before his election in March 2013, the pontiff had never worked in Rome, and he is clearly upset at the internal opposition he has encountered to some of the reforms he wants to carry out, our correspondent adds.

The Pope says the Church elite must reach out to poor and vulnerable worshippers

Since his election last year, Pope Francis has launched a clean-up of the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). The IOR has long had a poor reputation, after a succession of scandals.

He has appointed a team of advisers to tackle corruption and poor administration in the Vatican.

He has also suggested that the Curia’s power – concentrated in Rome for centuries – could be diluted to some extent by giving Catholic bishops around the world a bigger say in Church doctrine.

Pope Francis said Islamic militants were carrying out a “profoundly grave sin against God” in Syria and Iraq, calling on Sunday for inter-religious dialogue and action against poverty to help end conflicts there.
The pope spoke on the last day of his weekend trip to Turkey, which is sheltering nearly 2 million refugees from Syria, thousands of Christians among them.
At a joint service with Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual head of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians, Francis said people of all faiths could not remain indifferent to the cries of the victims of the “inhumane and brutal” war next door.
“Taking away the peace of a people, committing every act of violence – or consenting to such acts – especially when directed against the weakest and defenseless, is a profoundly grave sin against God,” he said during the service.
The pope also condemned Friday’s attack on Muslim worshippers at the main mosque in northern Nigeria’s biggest city, Kano, in which at least 81 people were killed.
It was the third time in as many days that the pope referred to Islamic State insurgents, who have killed or driven Shi’ite Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam out of swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The pope said stopping poverty was key partly because it gives rise to “the recruitment of terrorists”. He has said that while it is lawful for the international community to use force to stop an “unjust aggressor,” a lasting solution must be found.
In a separate joint statement issued during the service at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the official seat of the Orthodox Christian patriarch, Francis and Bartholomew said:
“Muslims and Christians are called to work together for the sake of justice, peace and respect for the dignity and rights of every person, especially in those regions where they once lived for centuries in peaceful coexistence and now tragically suffer together the horrors of war.”
The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics prayed in Istanbul’s most famous mosque on Saturday and has used the trip to reach out to Muslims to oppose the conflict in neighboring countries.
“Pope Francis wants to align the Catholic Church with moderate Muslims, in order to encourage them to resist what he has called fanaticism and fundamentalism,” said John Allen, author of numerous books about the Vatican and associate editor of the U.S. Catholic website Crux.
“In part that’s a broad concern for dialogue and world peace, in part a specific defense of embattled Christians.”
Father Claudio Monge, an Italian Catholic priest in Turkey for 12 years who is involved in Christian-Muslim dialogue said: “The message is that those who use God as a pretext for violence cannot be a true believers. Those who have ears to hear will understand. He is appealing to true believers.”

Pope Francis has warned that the world sees Europe as “somewhat elderly and haggard” during a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

The Pope said the continent felt “less and less a protagonist”, in a world that regarded it with mistrust.

He also called for a “united response” to help the boatloads of migrants arriving in Europe.

Pope Francis’s whistle-stop visit to Strasbourg disgruntled some, who accused him of neglecting Europe.

Many of Strasbourg’s Catholics were upset that the Pope would not meet them or visit the city’s cathedral.

The four-hour visit – the shortest made by any Pope abroad – was his second European trip since his election last year. He travelled to Albania in September.

Addressing the Parliament on Tuesday, the Pope called for action following the deaths of thousands of migrants who have drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

“We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery,” he said.

“The absence of mutual support within the European Union runs the risk of encouraging… solutions which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants, and thus contribute to slave labour and continuing social tensions.”

The treatment of migrants was a subject he also touched on during a second speech at the Council of Europe, Europe’s main human rights body.

His remarks came as the Greek authorities said they were trying to rescue a cargo ship, believed to be carrying some 500 migrants, that was adrift off the eastern Mediterranean island of Crete.

The Pope also used his visit to Strasbourg to call for the creation of jobs and better conditions for workers.

At the European Parliament, he spoke of a need to reinvigorate Europe, describing the continent as a “grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant” and saying it risked “slowly losing its own soul”.

“The great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions,” he said.

Pope Francis left his Popemobile behind on Tuesday, instead opting for a French-made Peugeot 407 family car.

Residents in Strasbourg were told they could watch both the pontiff’s speeches on a giant screen installed inside the cathedral, which is celebrating its millennial anniversary.

One worshipper told Reuters: “I think there is disappointment but I think he also has reasons for making his decision.

“He knows what he is doing but we would have liked him to be here.”

It was the second time a Pope has visited Strasbourg.

In 1988 Pope John Paul II visited the city and addressed the European Parliament, where he was heckled by Northern Irish MEP the Rev Ian Paisley.

During his speech the late Pope called Europe “a beacon of civilisation

 

Pope Francis is to make his first trip to the United States as the head of the Catholic Church in September 2015, the Vatican said yesterday.

He will travel to the World Meeting of the Families, said Vatican spokesman Padre Lombardi. The Catholic public event, which celebrates the family as the basic building block of society, is to be held in Philadelphia next year.

His visit will make Francis the fourth reigning Pontiff to visit the United States in its history, the WMOF said.

Challenges families face in modern times have been a hallmark topic for Pope Francis.

He is to hold a mass on Philadelphia’s broad central city avenue, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, on September 27.

World of the Family Meetings were instituted by Saint John Paul II and have taken place every three years starting with the first one in Rome in 1994.