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Pope Francis

Pope Francis61 posts

Pope Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in December 1936. He became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. He became a Cardinal in 2001, and was elected Pope in 2013.

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2 Oct, 2022

Musk responds to Pope’s call for Ukraine peace

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Musk responds to the Pope’s call for peace over the Russian-Ukraine war.

War always gives ample reason for vengeance for all sides. Only by overcoming this instinct can there be peace.

19 Feb, 2016

Vatican: not personal attack

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A Vatican spokesperson tells Vatican Radio that Pope Francis’ suggestion that Trump was ‘not Christian’ because of his views on immigration was not a personal attack on the candidate, and that the comments were simply an affirmation of Francis’ longstanding belief that migrants should be helped and welcomed rather than shut off behind walls.

This wasn’t in any way a personal attack, nor an indication of who to vote for. The Pope has clearly said he didn’t want to get involved in the electoral campaign in the US, and also said that he said what he said on the basis of what he was told [about Trump], hence giving him the benefit of the doubt. The Pope said what we already know, if we followed his teaching and positions: We shouldn’t build walls, but bridges.’ He has always said that, continuously. He also said that in relation to migration in Europe many times. So this is not a specific issue, limited to this particular case. It’s his generic view, coherent with the nature of solidarity from the Gospel.

18 Feb, 2016

Pope says Trump ‘Not Christian’

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At the end of his six-day visit to Mexico, Pope Francis is asked about Trump’s plan to build a border wall with Mexico.

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel…I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Pope Francis Says Donald Trump is "Not Christian" [FULL REMARKS]

2 Oct, 2015

Met gay couple on US visit

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Francis met with Yayo Grassi, a gay U.S-based Argentine caterer, Grassi’s male partner of 19 years, Iwan Bagus and three other people for 15 minutes at the Vatican Embassy in Washington during his visit to the US on Sept. 23. Grassi has known the pope since Francis taught him literature and psychology at a high school in Argentina in the 1960s and has stayed in touch. Vatican spokesperson:

As noted in the past, the pope, as pastor, has maintained many personal relationships with people in a spirit of kindness, welcome and dialogue

Grassi:

What I can say is that he met with me knowing that I am gay, and we had an extraordinary, very moving conversation.

Davis meeting not an endorsement

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The Vatican says the pope’s meeting with Davis was not an endorsement of her decision to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses. The Vatican wanted to “clarify” what happened “in order to contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.”

The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects…Pope Francis met with several dozen persons who had been invited by the Nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City. Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability. The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.

29 Sep, 2015

Secret meeting with Pope

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Davis’ lawyers claims that she had a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican Embassy in Washington D.C on Sept 24. Davis says she was “humbled” and never thought she would be granted an audience. She and the pontiff hugged, and he presented her and her husband with two rosaries, which she is giving to her parents, who are Catholic.

Who am I to have this rare opportunity? I am just a county clerk who loves Jesus and desires with all my heart to serve him. Pope Francis was kind, genuinely caring, and very personable. He even asked me to pray for him. Pope Francis thanked me for my courage and told me to ‘stay strong’.

28 Sep, 2015

Comments on gay marriage licences, abuse victims, women priests

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While returning from his visit to the US, the pontiff tells reporters aboard the papal plane that anyone who prevents others from exercising their religious freedom is denying them a human right.

If a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right…It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right.

He also says he says he understands the anger of people abused by clergy.

I met a woman who told me ‘when my mother found out that I had been abused, she became blasphemous, she lost her faith and she died an atheist’. I understand that woman. I understand her. I pray for them. And I don’t judge them.

Francis also rules out the idea of the Catholic church following the Anglican example of women priests.

Not because women don’t have the capacity. Look, in the church women are more important than men, because the church is a woman. It is ‘la’ [female] church, not ‘il’ [masculine] church. The church is the bride of Jesus Christ. And the Madonna is more important than popes and bishops and priests.

27 Sep, 2015

Philadelphia open air mass

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Francis conducts an open-air mass in Philadelphia. Crowds fill Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the Pope’s last official event before he returns to Italy.

[Your presence is] a kind of miracle in today’s world. Would that all of us could be open to miracles of love for the sake of all the families of the world.

He talks about little gestures of kindness:

These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children. They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion.

And ends with:

I ask you to pray for me. Don’t forget!

Pope Francis in the USA- Holy Mass in Philadelphia

Meets church child abuse victims

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Francis meets with five victims of child sexual abuse and tells them he is “deeply sorry” for the times they came forward to tell their stories and weren’t believed. He assures them that he believes them and that bishops who covered up for abusers will be made to answer for what they did.

I pledge to you that we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead. Clergy and bishops will be held accountable when they abuse or fail to protect children.

Soon after he tells a meeting of bishops from the U.S. and around the world the same thing.

God weeps [over what was done to the youngsters].

The pope has agreed to create a new Vatican tribunal to prosecute bishops who failed to protect their flock, and he has accepted the resignations of three U.S. bishops accused of mishandling abuse cases.

25 Sep, 2015

Visits 9/11 memorial

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After a minute’s prayer, Francis leaves a white rose along the edge of the 9/11 memorial in New York, where names of the Sept. 11 dead are etched in bronze. He also meets with the relatives of some of the first responders killed in the attack, and takes part in an interfaith service with leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Hindu and other faiths.

Here grief is palpable. The water we see flowing toward that empty pit reminds us of all those lives which fell prey to those who think that destruction, tearing down, is the only way to settle conflicts…This place of death became a place of life, too. A place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruction and death, to goodness over evil, to reconciliation and unity over hatred and division.

LIVE: Pope Francis Visits Reflecting Pool at 9/11 Memorial

8 Sep, 2015

Simplifies annulment procedures

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In a document known as a Motu Proprio, Latin for “by his own initiative”, Francis reaffirms traditional teaching on the “indissolubility of marriage”, making clear that the Vatican was not in any form promoting or sanctioning divorce. However, he said he would make it easier for separated couples to obtain an annulment, by eliminating a mandatory review of an annulment decision by a second tribunal, and giving bishops sweeping powers to judge quickly the most clear-cut cases. He says Catholics who sought annulments should not be “long oppressed by darkness of doubt” over whether they could have their marriages declared void.

6 Sep, 2015

Says European parishes should host migrant families

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Francis says that every European parish and religious community should take in one migrant family each in a gesture of solidarity he said would start in the Vatican state. There are more han 25,000 parishes in Italy, and more than 12,000 in Germany. The Vatican’s two parishes will take in two families.

I appeal to the parishes, the religious communities, the monasteries and sanctuaries of all Europe to … take in one family of refugees…Every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe, take in one family.

1 Sep, 2015

Call for abortion pardon

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Francis calls on priests to pardon women who have abortions during the upcoming Jubilee year — overruling hardline traditionalists within the Catholic Church.

I have decided, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness.

Francis says he knew that while “abortion is experienced by some with a superficial awareness” many others “believe that they have no other option” and that he has “met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonising and painful decision”. He also calls for amnesty for prisoners in jails across the world who have repented.

The Jubilee Year has always constituted an opportunity for great amnesty, which is intended to include the many people who, despite deserving punishment, have become conscious of the injustice they worked.

18 Jun, 2015

Releases climate change letter

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Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his long-awaited encyclical calling for action on climate change. In the letter, he urges the rich to change their lifestyles to avert the destruction of the ecosystem. In excerpts from the 184-page document:

What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? The question not only concerns the environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal…Today, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a so­cial approach; it must integrate questions of jus­tice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

13 May, 2015

Israel: Treaty does not promote peace process

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Israel is releases a statement about the Vatican’s treaty recognizing Palestine as a State.

This move does not promote the peace process and distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct and bilateral negotiations. Israel will study the agreement and will consider its steps accordingly.

25 Feb, 2015

Vatican statement

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The Vatican issues a statement regarding Francis’ comments about ‘Mexicanization’. Rev. Federico Lombardi:

The pope intended only to emphasize the seriousness of the phenomenon of the drug trafficking that afflicts Mexico and other countries in Latin America. It is precisely this importance that has made the fight against drug trafficking a priority for the government.

13 Sep, 2014

‘Third world war’

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Pope Francis says that conflicts around the globe represent a third World War. During a Mass held at Italy’s largest war memorial, a Fascist-era monument where 100,000 soldiers who died in World War One are buried, the pontiff appears to be referring to the recent conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine and Africa. The homily:

Humanity needs to weep and this is the time to weep … War is madness. Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction … War is irrational; its only plan is to bring destruction: it seeks to grow by destroying. Greed, intolerance, the lust for power. These motives underlie the decision to go to war and they are too often justified by an ideology.

28 Aug, 2014

Vatican: Pope threat ‘nothing serious’

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The Vatican downplays the possibility of ISIS posing a threat to the Pope, following a report by Il Tempo newspaper that the pontiff is being targeted by the militant group as the world’s most prominent Christian leader. A spokesman:

There is nothing serious to this. There is no particular concern in the Vatican.

1 Jul, 2014

‘You will conquer Rome and own the world’

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Al-Baghdadi says in a recruiting video for ISIS that the self-declared caliphate, now known as Islamic State, will defeat the Vatican and conquer the globe.

Rush O Muslims to your state. It is your state. Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not for Iraqis. The land is for the Muslims, all Muslims. This is my advice to you. If you hold to it you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills.

20 Jun, 2014

Against legalizing recreational drugs

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Francis tells delegates at a drug-enforcement conference in Rome that attempts to legalize recreational drugs such as marijuana…

…Are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects. Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs!