Franco Pisano

The Statistical Yearbook of the Church shows that there are more bishops and permanent deacons. The number of priests stable but religious and seminarians in decline. In Asia Catholics are 11% of the population, but vocations are growing

"Here is the challenge: find authentic life, not a carbon copy. Jesus offers no surrogates, but real life, true love, true wealth!". The World Cup in Russia can be an occasion for meeting, dialogue and fraternity between different cultures and religions, fostering solidarity and peace among nations ".

If the greatest witness of the Christian is to give life as Jesus did, that is martyrdom, there is also every day witness, which begins in the morning, when one wakes up, and ends in the evening, when one goes to sleep.

The Holy Spirit is the "protagonist" of proclamation, which is not just a simple "preaching" or the "transmission" of some ideas, but is a dynamic movement capable of "changing hearts" thanks to the work of the Spirit. "It's bad when you find evangelizers who are served and live to be served".

Presentation of the preparatory document of the Synod of Bishops for the Special Assembly for the Panamazon Region. The reflections of the Special Synod exceed the strictly Amazonian ecclesial sphere, reaching out to the universal Church and also to the future of the whole planet.

We do not need great discourses on love, but men and women "who know how to do these little things for Jesus, for the Father". The works of mercy "are the continuity of this love, which becomes small, comes to us, and we carry it forward".

Francis points to three situations, "in which we can encounter Jesus Christ: in the first moments, in our ancestors and in the law". Each of us "can today take a few minutes to ask" how is my memory of the moments in which I met the Lord, my memory of my ancestors, my memory of the law. And then "how is my hope, in what I hope. May the Lord help us in this work of memory and hope ".

Francis' new warning against gossip that "are war". "Gossip destroys what comes from God. Please stop gossiping." "Someone thinks that in the Church there are the Masters: the bishops, the Pope and then there are the workers". "No, we are the Church".

Francis sends a telegram for the death of the former Archbishop of Managua, defined by a law "National Priest for Peace and Reconciliation".

Ecumenism is “increasingly becoming a necessity and a desire, as shown by the various joint prayers and the many ecumenical meetings that took place last year around the world. Let us not forget to start from prayer, so that it is not human plans that indicate the way, but the Holy Spirit”. Also, “The sufferings of many brothers oppressed because of their faith in Jesus are also a pressing invitation to reach an ever more concrete and visible unity among us. The ecumenism of blood.”

Through the Eucharist "we experience the New Covenant, which fully realises the communion between God and us. And as participants in this Covenant, we, however small and poor, work together on building history as God wants it.”

"The devil tries to destroy the profession of Christ in Christians and the image of God in man and woman". Francis indicates hunger, an "injustice" that "destroys man and woman because they have nothing to eat", even if there is "so much" food in the world. Then human exploitation, the different forms of slavery.