«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 [...]
The image of the two white-dressed pontiffs praying together at the Pontifical Villa of Castel Gandolfo marked in some ways the handover from Pope Benedict to Pope Francis. This Easter was witness to this handover. We can see in it an element of continuity and another one of strong discontinuity.
The element of continuity [...]
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, [...]