Pope address to Pontifical Academy for Life
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said on Thursday that some organisations at the service of human life “are more interested in the economic side than working for the common good. He also warned that human nature nowadays is increasingly reduced to a malleable material that can be molded to any design and said the first thing to safeguard is our own humanity. His comments came in an address to participants at the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
"Missionary of Mercy" Fr. Panneer Selvam, part 2
This year’s Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Season have taken on a special connotation and colour, occurring during the current Jubilee Year of Mercy. Pope Francis marked the beginning of the Church's Lenten journey by sending out several hundred religious and diocesan priests from around the world as "Missionaries of Mercy" to their local churches and communities. At the Feb. 10 Ash Wednesday Mass in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pope officially commissioned 762 priests with the task, empowering them to forgive even the sins that are reserved for the Holy See to pardon. The original plan of the Holy Father was to have just 800 Missionaries of Mercy. But with overwhelming requests from around the world, he ended up choosing over 1,000. Of these, 762 were specially invited to the Vatican for the official ceremony.
Pope Francis meets Prime Minister of East Timor
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday received Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor), His Excellency Rui Maria de Araújo, who subsequently met with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who was accompanied by the under-secretary for Relations with States, Msgr. Antoine Camilleri.
