Franco Pisano

Francis celebrated Mass for Rome’s Congolese Catholic Community on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the city’s Congolese Catholic Chaplaincy. He lamented that fighting is taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo, “fuelled also by the outside, amid the silence of many, fighting fuelled by those who enrich themselves by selling weapons.”

“The joy of the Gospel springs from the encounter with Jesus,” Francis said. “It is when we meet the Lord that we are inundated by that love of which he alone is capable. [. . .] Because, at that point, the need to proclaim it arises spontaneously and becomes irrepressible. This is how evangelisation began, on Easter morning, with a woman, Mary Magdalene who, after meeting the Risen Jesus, the Living One, evangelised the Apostles.”

During his meeting with members of the Centro Studio Rosario Livatino, Pope Francis said that in some courts one can hear the idea that “the main interest of a disabled or elderly person” is “that of dying and not of being cured”.

"The Lord tells us to be prepared for the meeting, death is an encounter: it is He who comes to visit us, it is He who comes to take us by the hand and take us with him. I wouldn't want this simple sermon to be a funeral notice! It is simply the Gospel ”.

Reviewing the stages of his recent trip to Thailand and Japan, Francis reiterated his condemnation of nuclear weapons. " today the serious threat, in more developed countries, is the loss of the meaning of living. The first victims of the void of the meaning of life are young people ”. A prayer for Albania hit by an earthquake. Next Sunday Francis will go to Greccio, the place where St. Francis made the first crib and who will write a letter dedicated to the crib.

Francis last meeting at Jesuits’ Sophia University before leaving Japan to return to Rome. Although in Japan "Christians are a minority, their presence is felt". "Despite the efficiency and order that characterize Japanese society, it is perceived that something more is desired and sought: a deep desire to create an increasingly human, compassionate and merciful society."

Dialogue, solidarity and a rethinking of a society conditioned by careerism were the central themes of the afternoon of the penultimate day of Pope Francis' visit to Japan, marked by the celebration of Mass at the Tokyo Dome, in front of over 50 thousand people, by the visit to the Prime Minister and the meeting with the country's political, civil and religious authorities.

Francis met the victims of the "triple disaster", as it is known in Japan referring to the earthquake, the tsunami and the 2011 nuclear accident. To young people, "things are important, but people are indispensable". "We must all unite against this culture of bullying and learn to say: enough! It is an epidemic you must find the medicine for it yourself ".

Francis in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From Nagasaki a message on nuclear weapons, in Hiroshima, next to the arch that marks the point where the bomb fell, "Never again war, never again the clash of arms, never again so much suffering!" .

Francis recalled that as a young man he wanted to come as a missionary to the Land of the Rising Sun. "In Japan the Church is small and Catholics are a minority" (536 thousand, 0.4 percent of the population), and evangelization requires commitment to "a humble, daily witness and dialogue with other religious traditions ". No mention of the crisis that Hong Kong is experiencing in telegrams to the heads of state of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Throngs of young people celebrated the last public engagement of Pope Francis in Thailand. The pontiff urged them “to set off and look to the future to meet with the most beautiful thing he wants to give us: Christ’s definitive coming into our lives and our world.”

A young woman bears witness before Francis during the meeting with priests and religious. “I was on my way when, in Chiang Mai, I met Fr. Raffaele Manenti, a PIME missionary. So I decided to go with him to work at Angels’ Home, a house for handicapped children”.