VATICAN CITY – “Today we ask for this grace: to know how to love Jesus forsaken and to know how to love Jesus in every one who is abandoned”. Strong words, with a clear reference to migrants, those pronounced today by Pope Francis in the homily of the Palm Sunday Mass in Vatican. A function that saw the Pope once again the protagonist, after the hospitalization that had worried the faithful from all over the world. →
VATICAN CITY – “On International Women’s Day, I think of all women: I thank them for their commitment to building a more humane society, through their ability to grasp reality with a creative gaze and a tender heart. This is only a privilege of women. A special blessing for all the women present in the square”. →
TORONTO – Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Francis (Frank) Leo (in the pic above, from www.archtoronto.org), currently Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Montreal, as the 14th Archbishop of Toronto. The archbishop-designate succeeds Cardinal Thomas Collins, who has served the archdiocese since 2007.
VATICAN CITY – They lined up from 5.30am, in the surreal atmosphere of St. Peter’s Square shrouded in thick fog and armored by the police, to attend the funeral of the Pope Emeritus. At 9.30am, the (Italian) time when Ratzinger’s funeral began, over 50,000 faithful were present to bid farewell to Joseph Ratzinger, together with delegations from various countries. →
VATICAN CITY – Tomorrow is the day of last farewell to Benedetto XVI, Pope Emeritus Joseph Ratzinger, who passed away on December 31st: at 9.30am Italian time (3.30am in Ontario), the funeral will take place in St. Peter’s Square, presided over by Pope Francis who today, during the general audience, recalled Ratzinger as a “great teacher of catechesis” with “sharp and polite” thinking, then invoking his help to “rediscover in Christ the joy of believing and the hope of living”. Applause and choirs: ‘Benedetto santo subito’ (saint immediately), chanted some of the faithful present. →