Franco Pisano

In his speech to the diplomat corps accredited to the Vatican, Francis spoke of the consequences of the epidemic. The health crisis and the fair distribution of vaccines. The crisis of democracy and the coup in Myanmar. The economic crisis and the Next Generation EU plan. The increase in migrants and illegal rejections. Respect for religious freedom.

An online prayer marathon will take place next Monday on different time zones, starting in Asia and Oceania. Pope Francis is expected to release a message for the occasion. The prayer will be available on YouTube.

The United Nations should get involved so that the countries of the global South can have access to vaccines. Foreign debt should be eliminated to build health facilities. The issue of patents should be addressed.

Pope Francis joined the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, UN Secretary General António Guterres, and other prominent figures, including EU Council President Charles Michel, to take part in the celebrations marking the first International Day of Human Fraternity, established by the UN Assembly.

Francis points to the Day for Human Fraternity at the general audience. Illustrating prayer in the liturgy, he says: "in the liturgy there is an objective mediation required by the fact that Jesus Christ is not an idea or a feeling, but a living Person, and his Mystery is a historical event ". “A Christianity without liturgy I would dare to say is a Christianity without Christ”.

The UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed is behind the event, set to take place in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital on 4 February, a date chosen by the UN. On 4 February 2019, Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, considered the highest Sunni religious authority, signed the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.

At the inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Francis urges the judges to carefully evaluate the potentially “disastrous” effects of decisions affecting “abandoned spouses” and their children.

The health crisis and the celebration of the Great Jubilee of the Philippine Church were at the centre of the 121st plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines.

"Remembering is a condition of peace and fraternity. It implies being vigilant, because these things can happen again, starting with ideological proposals that want to save a people and end up destroying that people and humanity". "The Bible is not written for a generic humanity, but for us, men and women in flesh and blood, for me. For men and women who have names and surnames ".

The 54th Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ended today. Pope Francis was not present because of his sciatica, but his homely was read by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. For the pontiff, “We are branches of the same vine, we are ‘communicating vessels’, in the sense that the good or the evil that each of us does affects all others.”

On the second Sunday of the Word of God, Pope Francis urges believers to make room for God’s in their daily life. The pontiff, who was unable to lead the Mass due to sciatica pain, was replaced by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation. A television actor, a journalist, and a blind girl proclaimed the Mass readings.

In his message for the 55th World Communications Day, Pope Francis suggests that communications should be based on direct encounter with reality, people, and experiences. He criticises “standard, often tendentious narrative” found in today’s communications. Pandemic reporting should also speak about the “long wait for treatment in the poverty-stricken villages of Asia, Latin America and Africa,” the unequal distribution of vaccines, and families sliding into destitution. Francis warns against the “empty rhetoric [that] abounds, even in our time, in all areas of public life, in business as well as politics.” The mission is also about “come and see”.