#5 Father Csaba Böjte A Hungarian Franciscan who helps abandoned children "To free my fellows from the chains of fear and little faith..." “Every child is a message for humanity: God loves us. Raising a child is an encounter with God. Jesus said: if someone adopts one of the smallest, receive myself,” says Father Csaba Böjte, [...]
#8 Katie Ascough, Niamh Uí Bhriain, Cora Sherlock Three female Irish activists chose to make a stand for life in their once deeply-Catholic country, despite much resistance, even backlash, from their peers. “We may have lost a battle, but our cause will never be defeated." On January 1, 2019, abortion services became available in Ireland for [...]
On the Feast of the Holy Family we offer all the members of our own families on the altar for God’s blessing. Homily starter anecdote: Grandparents are a treasure: Pope Francis said that as a child, he heard a story of a family with a mother, father, many children and a grandfather. The grandfather, suffering from Parkinson’s [...]
The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has published a report entitled “The State of the World’s Children, 2017. Children in a Digital World.” The report examines the availability and impact of the Internet on children across the world. According to the report 79% of children have access to the internet, compared to 48% of the [...]
“Father” is the word that can never be lacking in prayer, because it is “the cornerstone” which gives us our Christian identity”. If we also add the word “Our”, this allows us to feel that we are all part of “a family”. In this way we also avoid “wasting words” or seeking “magic words”, and we [...]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning! As the weather forecasts were rather uncertain and rain was expected, today this Audience is made contemporaneously in two places: we, here, in the Square and 700 sick in Paul VI Hall, who are following the Audience on a giant screen. We are all united and we greet them with [...]
August 12, 2015, Wednesday — Rubicon Introductory note We are just coming out with a special, splendid 132-page Commemorative Edition of Inside the Vatican magazine, welcoming Pope Francis to America. The Pope will visit Washington, New York and Philadelphia from September 22 to 27, after a visit to Cuba from September 19 to 22. At the [...]
June 24, 2015, Wednesday — Pope Francis on the Wounds in Families “But do we still know what a wound to the soul is? Do we feel the weight of the mountain that crushes the soul of a child, in families in which the members treat each other badly?” —Pope Francis, today in St. Peter's Square [...]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning! In the last catecheses we spoke about the family that lives the frailties of the human condition: poverty, sickness, death. Today, instead, we reflect on the wounds that are opened in fact within the family’s coexistence. When, that is, harm is done in the family itself -- a most awful [...]
Today, dear Brothers and Sisters, I wish to welcome you because I have seen so many families among you. Good morning to all the families! We continue to reflect on the family. Today we pause to reflect on an essential characteristic of the family, namely, its natural vocation to educate the children so that they grow [...]
