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Bari, Italy, Feb 23, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Ask God for the grace to love your enemies, Pope Francis said Sunday in a homily in the Italian city of Bari. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is the Christian innovation. It is the Christian difference,” Pope Francis said Feb. 23. “Ask God for the strength to love. Say to Him: ‘Lord, help me to love, teach me to forgive. I cannot do it alone, I need you.’ … We need to pray more frequently for the grace to live the essence of the Gospel, to be truly Christian,” the pope said. Pope Francis offered Mass in Bari for the conclusion of the “Mediterranean, Frontier of Peace” meeting of bishops from 19 Mediterranean countries, which took place Feb. 19-23. An estimated 40,000 people attended the pope’s Sunday Mass in B...

Jean Vanier, 2012. (Wikimedia (CC BY 3.0).) During the investigation, the inquiry received “credible and consistent testimonies” from six adult women without disabilities that Jean Vanier initiated sexual behaviors with them often “in the context of spiritual accompaniment” over the period of more than 30 years from 1970 to 2005. Courtney Mares/CNA. PARIS, France — L’Arche International published the results Saturday of an independent investigation detailing sexual misconduct by its founder Jean Vanier with six women without disabilities in the context of spiritual direction. “We are shocked by these discoveries and unreservedly condemn these actions, which are in total contradiction with the values Jean Vanier claimed and are incompatible with the basic rules of respect and inte...

Vatican City, Feb 21, 2020 / 11:36 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said on Friday that canon law can be like medicine, because justice is healing for the entire Church. The pope also said that a long-running process of revising canon law’s penal norms has come to an end, suggesting that major revisions to the Code of Canon Law could soon be issued. “Making known and applying the laws of the Church is not a hindrance to the presumed pastoral ‘efficacy’ of those who want to solve problems without the law, but a guarantee of the search for solutions that are not arbitrary, but truly just and, therefore, truly pastoral,” Pope Francis said Feb. 21. “By avoiding arbitrary solutions, the law becomes a valid bulwark in defense of the least and the poor, the protective shield of those who risk falling vict...

Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. (Shutterstock) US Bishops: Pope Francis Talks Fr. James Martin, Euthanasia, At Private Meeting Fr. Martin met with Pope Francis shortly after a Sept. 19 column by Archbishop Charles Chaput criticized “a pattern of ambiguity” in Fr. Martin’s work, which Chaput said “tends to undermine his stated aims, alienating people from the very support they need for authentic human flourishing.” JD Flynn/CNA. VATICAN CITY — During a private meeting with bishops from the southwestern United States, Pope Francis talked about his 2019 meeting with Jesuit Fr. James Martin, and about pastoral care and assisted suicide. The pope met Feb. 10 for more than two hours with bishops from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Several bishops present at the meeting tol...

Harrisburg, Pa., Feb 19, 2020 / 05:30 pm (CNA).- The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania announced Wednesday that it is filing for bankruptcy. A landslide of clergy abuse lawsuits have been filed against the diocese after a watershed Pennsylvania grand jury report on clerical sexual abuse was released in August 2018 and a change to state law allowed new litigation on old cases. “This decision was made after countless hours of prayer and careful deliberation with our financial experts, attorneys, and our Diocesan Consultative Bodies,” Bishop Ronald W. Gainer said in an announcement on the diocese’s website. “Despite the success of the Survivor Compensation Program, which helped 111 survivors of clergy child sexual abuse, or 96% of those who participated in the program, we already a...

Vatican City, Feb 19, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Wednesday that a meek Christian is not weak, but defends his faith and controls his temper. “The meek person is not accommodating, but is a disciple of Christ who has learned to defend another land well. He defends his peace, defends his relationship with God, and defends his gifts, preserving mercy, fraternity, trust, and hope,” Pope Francis said Feb. 19 in Paul VI Hall. The pope reflected on the third beatitude from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” “Meekness manifests itself in moments of conflict, you can see how you react to a hostile situation. Anyone might seem meek when everything is calm, but how does he react ‘under pressure’ if he is attacked, offended, assaulted?...

Vatican City, Feb 18, 2020 / 09:06 am (CNA).- Vatican authorities have seized documents and computers belonging to a senior curial official as part of an investigation into financial misconduct, the Holy See announced on Tuesday. In a statement issued Feb. 18, the Vatican press office confirmed that investigators had raided the office and home of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, the former head of the administrative office at the First Section of the Secretariat of State. The raid is part of an ongoing investigation into financial misconduct by officials at the secretariat. “This morning, as part of a search ordered by the Promoter of Justice, Gian Piero Milano, and the deputy, Alessandro Diddi, documents and computer equipment were seized at the office and home of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca,” the Vati...

Vatican City, Feb 17, 2020 / 05:09 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has requested that priests in formation for the Holy See’s diplomatic service be required to spend one year in missionary work, the Vatican announced Monday. The pope has asked the change to go into effect for the 2020/2021 academic year. He called for the curriculum update in a letter to the president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, Bishop Joseph Marino. In order to face “growing challenges for the Church and for the world, future diplomats of the Holy See must acquire, in addition to solid priestly and pastoral formation, and the specific one offered by this Academy, also a personal mission experience outside their own Diocese of origin,” Francis wrote. It is an opportunity for the priests to share “with the missionary ...

Vatican City, Feb 16, 2020 / 06:26 am (CNA).- God gives the grace both to follow his law exteriorly and to accept it in one’s heart, which is what gives true freedom from passion and sin, Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Sunday. “Let’s not forget this: living the Law as an instrument of freedom, which helps me to be freer, which helps me not to be a slave to passions and sin,” the pope said Feb. 16. In his catechesis before the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis spoke about the difference between “formal compliance” and “substantive compliance” with the law, which is to accept the law also in one’s “the center of the intentions, decisions, words, and gestures of each of us.” “Good and bad deeds,” he said, “start from the heart.” The pope explained that “by accepting the Law of God in you...

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2020 / 05:24 am (CNA).- As the Holy See awaits the results of a scheduled financial inspection, Pope Francis spoke about ongoing financial reform and investigations at the opening of the judicial year of the Vatican City State’s court, which he attended for the first time. He said Feb. 15 the Holy See is trying to conform to international law and has put in place processes to combat “illegality in the international finance sector.” To do this, the Vatican has put in place internal surveillance and intervention systems, which “have recently brought to light suspicious financial situations,” he stated. Situations, which, he continued, “beyond any possible illegality, are difficult to reconcile with the nature and purposes of the Church, and which have generated disorien...

A date has been set for the final appeal of disgraced cardinal George Pell, who remains behind bars for historical child sex abuse offences committed in the 1990s. The High Court has listed a two-day hearing before the full bench on March 11 and 12. In the video above, George Pell’s request for special leave to the High Court explained Lawyers for Pell, 78, sought special leave to the High Court late last year, after Australia’s most senior Catholic was convicted on five charges relating to the sexual assault of two choirboys in St Patrick’s Cathedral while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. He is serving a six-year jail term with a non-parole period of three years and eight months. Cardinal George Pell leaves the Supreme Court of Victoria in June 2019, during the hearing of his appea...

Vatican City, Feb 13, 2020 / 10:33 am (CNA).- In a newly published book, Pope Francis answers questions about himself and St. John Paul II, saying he learned the importance of joy and mercy from his predecessor, and they are in “total harmony” on the subject of priestly ministry. “I think that joy is the most important characteristic of the encounter with the risen Jesus,” Pope Francis said, noting the joy and mercy of John Paul II’s pontificate, “I learned from him.” Pope Francis’ thoughts on his predecessor and other topics are recorded in the Italian-language book “St. John Paul the Great,” published Feb. 11 and co-authored with Fr. Luigi Maria Epicoco. The book is divided into five chapters, each with information on an aspect or period of the life of John Paul II, written by Epicoco. T...