Pope Francis

Pope at Audience: Elderly are irreplaceable in passing on the faith

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, good day!

In the Bible, the account of the death of the elderly Moses is preceded by his spiritual testament, called the “Song of Moses”. This Canticle is first and foremost a beautiful confession of faith, and it goes like this:
“For I will proclaim the name of the Lord
Ascribe greatness to our God! …
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The Pope in Angelus warns against numbness from wars and their victims

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, happy Sunday!

We are at the heart of our Lenten journey, and today the Gospel begins by presenting Jesus who comments on some news of the day. While people still remember the eighteen who died when a tower collapsed on them, they tell Him about some Galileans whom Pilot had killed (cf. Lk 13:1). And there is a question that seems to accompany these tragic affairs: who is to blame for these terrible events?  … Read more »

Pope at Audience: Elderly can guide and save future generations

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

The bible narrative – with the symbolic language of the time in which it was written – tells us something shocking. God was so embittered by the widespread wickedness of humans, which had become a normal style of life, that he thought he had made a mistake in creating them and decided to eliminate them. A radical solution… Read more »

Pope Francis on Ukraine at Angelus: In the name of God, I ask you: stop this massacre!

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

The Gospel of the Liturgy of this second Sunday of Lent narrates the Transfiguration of Jesus (cf. Lk 9: 28-36). While praying on a high mountain, he changes in appearance, his robe becomes bright and radiant, and in the light of his glory Moses and Elijah appear, who speak with him about the Passover that awaits him in Jerusalem, namely, his passion, death and resurrection… Read more »

Pope at Angelus calls for humanitarian corridors in the Ukraine

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

The Gospel of the Liturgy today, first Sunday of Lent, takes us into the desert, where Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit, for forty days, to be tempted by the devil (cf. Lk 4:1-13). Jesus too was tempted by the devil, and He accompanies us, every one of us, in our temptations. The desert symbolizes the fight against the seductions of evil, to learn to choose true freedom… Read more »

Pope at Audience: children and the elderly give us another ability to see life

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

In the Bible account of the genealogies, one is immediately struck by their tremendous longevity: we are talking about centuries! When does old age begin here, we wonder? And what is the significance of the fact that these ancient fathers live so long after fathering their children? Fathers and sons live together for centuries! This passage of time in terms of centuries, narrated in a ritual style, confers a strong, very strong symbolic meaning to the relationship between longevity and genealogy… Read more »

The Pope at Angelus on the wars in all the world: Put down your weapons!

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

In the Gospel of today’s Liturgy, Jesus invites us to reflect on the way we look and the way we speak. Our gaze and our speech.

First of all, our gaze. The risk we run, the Lord says, is that we concentrate on looking at the mote in our brother’s eye without noticing the beam in our own (cf. Lk 6: 41)… Read more »

Pope at General Audience: We need to get back the alliance between generations in this culture of waste

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning! 

We have finished the catechesis on St Joseph. Today we begin a catechetical journey that seeks inspiration in the Word of God on the meaning and value of old age. Let us reflect on old age. For some decades now, this stage of life has concerned a veritable “new people”, the elderly. There have never been so many of us in human history… Read more »

Pope in Angelus thanks health workers for their daily heroism

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

In the Gospel of today’s Liturgy, Jesus gives some basic life guidance to the disciples. The Lord refers to the most difficult situations, those that constitute the litmus test for us, those that confront us with those who are enemies and hostile to us, those who are always trying to do us harm. In such cases, the disciple of Jesus is called not to give in to instinct and hatred, but to go further, much further… Read more »

Pope at Audience: to be Christian means safeguarding all lives

  The Vatican

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Today we conclude the cycle of catecheses on the figure of St Joseph. These catecheses are complementary to the Apostolic Letter Patris corde, written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of St Joseph as Patron of the Catholic Church by Blessed Pius IX. But what does this title mean? … Read more »