The Pope boarded an Alitalia A330 at Fiumicino airport on Friday morning to begin his visit to the Middle Eastern nation of Iraq.

The papal plane took off at 7:45 AM, and is due to land at Baghdad’s International Airport around 2 PM local time. This will be the first time a Pope visits Iraq.

Pre-trip encounter 

Before leaving the Casa Santa Marta on Friday morning, Pope Francis met briefly with around a dozen Iraqi refugees living in Italy. 

The refugees are assisted by the Community of Saint Egidio and the Auxilium Cooperative… Read more »

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

In our journey of catechesis on prayer, today and next week we will see how, thanks to Jesus Christ, prayer opens us up to the Trinity –to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – to the immense sea of God who is Love. It is Jesus who opened up Heaven to us and projected us into a relationship with God… Read more »

Pope Francis’ first papal Apostolic Journey to Iraq is scheduled to begin on Friday, 5 March. During the four-day visit, the Pope will meet with Christian communities as well as civil and religious authorities.

This will be the Holy Father’s first trip abroad in about fifteen months as the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent restrictions on movement have posed a challenge to external travel… Read more »

The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) has questioned some points of a resolution passed by the European Parliament on the so-called “right” to abortion in Poland in November 2020.

A letter issued by the Bishops on Monday and addressed to President of the European Parliament, David Maria Sassoli, stressed that the Catholic Church, which seeks to support women in life situations arising from difficult or unwanted pregnancies, “calls for the protection and care of all unborn life.”

“Every human person is called into being by God and needs protection, particularly when he or she is most vulnerable,” the Bishops said, adding that “special safeguard and care for the child, before and after birth is also expressed in international legal standards” including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child… Read more »

The Bishops of the European Union, and Caritas Europa, are calling on the EU to ensure an equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, as the 27-nation bloc struggles to ramp up its rollout.

Caritas Europa and the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU (COMECE) have teamed up to call on European institutions to swiftly rollout Covid-19 vaccines and to ensure equity in accessing them… Read more »

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

Last Wednesday, with the penitential rite of the ashes, we began our Lenten journey. Today, the first Sunday of this liturgical season, the Word of God shows us the path to living fruitfully the forty days that lead to the annual celebration of Easter. It is the way Jesus trod, which the Gospel, with Mark’s essential style, summarises by saying that before He began His preaching, He withdrew into the desert for forty days, where He was tempted by Satan (see 1:12-15)… Read more »