06/20/2013VATICAN Pope: the Father is "Ours" and we cannot turn to Him if we are not at peace with others During Mass this morning, Francis notes we do not pray to a "cosmic God" and prayer "is not a magical thing." "We pray to the One who generated us, who gave us life. Not to someone: someone is too anonymous. To you. To me. We pray to the One who accompanies us on our journey: He knows all about our life. Everything: what is good and what is not so good. He knows everything about us. If we do not begin our prayer with this word, not with our lips, but with our heart, we cannot pray in a Christian way. " Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Prayer "is not a magical thing," and
when we recite the Our Father we are not talking to a "cosmic God,"
but a " Father" who is "close" and "ours". "Because
I am not an only child, none of us are, and if I cannot be a brother, I can
hardly...
06/20/2013VATICAN Pope: fighting hunger "through pursuit of dialogue and fraternity", overcoming "myopic economic interests" Greeting participants at FAO conference, Francis calls the fact that millions of people not having enough to eat while food production is sufficient "a scandal". “Human person and human dignity are not simply catchwords, but pillars for creating shared rules and structures capable of passing beyond purely pragmatic or technical approaches in order to eliminate divisions and to bridge existing differences".
06/20/2013ISLAM Oasis: a "shared grammar" for Islam and Christianity in the face of secularism by Bernardo Cervellera
Secularisation is underway in the Islamic world that is not driven by Western anti-religious ideologies. In Iran, civil society, especially young people and women, is putting pressure on the ayatollahs for greater space and rights. In Morocco, the separation of state and religion is gaining ground even among Islamist parties. In Saudi Arabia, the alliance of Wahhabism and consumerism is society's worst enemy. At the end, Card Scola sums up the meeting.
06/19/2013VATICAN Pope: "Think of the hypocrisy in the Church: how much it hurts us all" During Mass this morning, Francis again stigmatizes the behavior of those who do not follow the path shown by Jesus, like the scribes and Pharisees of the Gospel, they are "hypocrites of cases", "intellectuals without talent" who "do not have the intelligence to find God, to explain God with intelligence” who “lead God’s people down a dead end”.
06/19/2013VATICAN Pope: the Church is the "body of Christ", let's not harm it with divisions, personal interests and "gossip" At the general audience Francis appeals for migrants and their families and to "bear witness to the Gospel of life." "All together, all together with our differences, but united, united forever, that is the path of Jesus! Unity is beyond all conflict, unity is a grace that we must ask the Lord." Seek unity even among evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox.
06/18/2013VATICAN Pope: in loving our enemy we become "poorer", like Jesus, who made himself poor for us To be able to love our enemies we must pray. Pray for them, and say to God: "Change their heart. They have a heart of stone, but change it, give them a heart of flesh, that feels good and love." And for us too, "so that the Lord teaches us this wisdom which is so hard, but so beautiful, because it makes us look like the Father and like the Son."
06/17/2013ISLAM Oasis: with the death of secular humanism, it is time to build new bridges by Bernardo Cervellera On the first day of the Oasis Centre's annual conference, participants hear that secularism and the 'crisis of man'-that of an inward-looking man, stalked by radical environmentalism, man as an animal, a 'monkey'-appear to be at an end. Islamic parties brought to the fore by the Arab spring are failing. As new religious experiences emerge in the Arab world, states try to bring under their bureaucratic control. But, as Benedict XVI put it, faith and reason must engage in dialogue. In Najaf (Iraq), a Council for dialogue between religions has been set up for the purpose of promoting basic universal human rights and full citizenship for all of the country's religious communities.
06/17/2013VATICAN Pope: "Things mean everything to this world: wealth, vanity," but for Christians, this is nothing, Jesus is"everything" During the Mass celebrated this morning, Francis denounces that all Christians mistakes, all the mistakes of the Church, all of our mistakes are born here, when we say 'nothing' is 'everything' and that 'everything' does not count ... "." "A Christian is a person who widens his or her heart, with this magnanimity, because they have “everything”,, which is Jesus Christ. Everything else is 'nothing.' They are useful, needed, but when it counts we must know how to choose that ‘everything’, with that mildness, that Christian meekness which is the sign of the disciples of Jesus, meekness and patience. "
06/17/2013VATICAN Pope to G8: promote a ceasefire in Syria and economic measures "inspired by the ethics of truth" Pope Francis writes to the British Prime Minister Cameron. Peace "requires a farsighted renunciation of claims" Remember that man "is not simply an additional economic factor, or a disposable good, but is equipped with a nature and a dignity that cannot be reduced to simple economic calculus".
06/16/2013VATICAN Pope: the Gospel of life is not replacing God with idols of our time, children with selfishness An immense crowd participates in the Mass celebrated by Francis in the day dedicated to Evangelium Vitae in this Year of Faith is. "Often the man does not choose life, does not accept the 'Gospel of life'," which brings true freedom, but "is guided by ideologies and a logic that block life, which do not respect it, because they are dictated by selfishness, self-interest, by profit, power, pleasure and not by love, seeking the good of others. "
06/15/2013VATICAN Pope: Christians must live proclaiming Christ, not seeking peace until Heaven In his usual morning homily Francis emphasizes "the scandal of the cross: Christ became sin for me to bring my soul back to the Lord." Christian life "should not seek the peace of the philosophers but must be lived with zeal. We must live wandering the world preaching the Gospel. "
06/15/2013ISLAM Oasis: benefits and risks of secularization in Muslim-Christian sphere At the annual meeting of the Scientific Committee of the magazine founded by Card. Angelo Scola, testimony from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria. Many personalities from the international academic world present. Discussion focuses on secularization brought about by the "Arab Spring", the fundamentalist fallout and western secularism.
06/14/2013VATICAN - ANGLICAN Pope meets Anglican Primate: together to defend life, social justice and Christians in Syria Francis receives Archbishop Welby. In our history "painful moments", now on the road to unity. And if "have emerged greater difficulties than those that one could imagine," in the theological dialogue there are "cordial relations and everyday coexistence" that allow us to move forward.
06/14/2013VATICAN Pope: priests need "true humility" and recognize they are sinners to receive the gift of salvation At Mass this morning Francis recalls St Paul who said that in order to understand that the "extraordinary power" of faith is God's work; it was poured in sinful men, in "earthen vessels". "The humility of the priest, the humility of a Christian is concrete" and if a Christian fails "to profess this to himself or even to the Church, something is wrong."
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