Those who know Pope Francis very well note that we are yet to see him at his best. They maintain that Pope Francis is a skilled «politician,» a man of great culture, even if up until now he has only shown the pastoral and – some would concede – populist aspects of his personality. [...]
«Love your enemies». This seems to be Pope Francis’ most practiced gospel commandment recently. During this first month of Pontificate, Pope Francis received twice his compatriot Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, in order to see – sources say – how much time is needed to organize the trip [...]
It seems certain that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone will remain Secretary of State until April 27. That is the day when new papal nuncio Ettore Balestrero – previously Undersecretary for Relations with States, heading to the important nunciature of Colombia– will be ordained bishops. In the past, the Pope himself would conduct these ordinations [...]
In his first meeting with ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis’ message focused on the poor. This is typical of him. «The heart of his message – explains Virginia Bonard, a journalist who works for the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina – is to shed light on the poor and on marginalized [...]
He won over the crowd from the very first moment he showed up from the balcony in the Blessings Lodge by simply saying «Buonasera». Then, he won over the sister Churches underlining no less than three times that he was (just) the «bishop of Rome» and never referring to himself as Pope. Finally, [...]
What will the next Pope be like? Cardinals were already talking about it, long before the Swiss Guards closed the gates of the Pontifical Residence in Castel Gandolfo – at 20:00 on Thursday, February 28. From that moment, the Sede Vacante period officially began. In fact, by the time the General Congregations of [...]
In front of the Roman clergy, he spoke for one hour off-the-cuff, with no hesitation and with a certain serenity. And he denounced one of the “issues” with the Church, probably for him the pivotal one. Which is that there had been two Second Vatican Councils: one of the Fathers [...]
What has resulted from Vatileaks? First of all, isolating the Pope from its collaborators. Who, after the leaking of documents –even if inconsequential– will dare to write freely to the Pontiff? Secondly, Vatileaks gave rise to a climate of suspicion that is seemingly favoring the return of the Vatican Old Guard. This [...]
At the end of the synod for the new evangelization, Benedict XVI personally announced that soon seminaries will be under the administration of the Congregation for the Clergy. Currently, seminaries are under the administration of the Congregation for Catholic Education. Soon, a Papal motu proprio will explain the motives leading to this decision. [...]
Reset and recommence from prayer. Prayer does not subtract us from the world. To the contrary, it gives people the sense of living. Benedict XVI, in his catechesis at the general audience of Wednesday, June 13, did not respond directly to the attacks levied against the Church. He is not interested in gossip, [...]