Pope Francis
Peter Saunders. Image via REUTERS/Tony Gentile/RNS
One of the two victims of clerical sexual abuse serving on a Vatican commission set up by Pope Francis has apparently been sidelined. The Holy See on Feb. 6 said Peter Saunders, a British Catholic who was abused by Jesuit priests as a teenager, is taking a “leave of absence” from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
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Pope Francis’ impassioned praise of China this week is the strongest sign of the pontiff’s ambitious agenda to use his personal and political clout to transform the historically fraught relations between Beijing and the Holy See. “For me, China has always been a reference point of greatness. A great country. But more than a country, a great culture, with an inexhaustible wisdom,” the pope said at the start of his interview with Asia Times, which was published Feb. 2.
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Coming to a theater near you: the Vicar of Christ. The charismatic Bishop of Rome is set to play himself in the movie Beyond the Sun, reports Variety. This will be Pope Francis’ first time acting — not to mention the first time a pope has ever appeared in a feature film.
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Possibly hoping for divine intervention ahead of next month’s Academy Awards, Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio met with fellow environmentalist Pope Francis. Speaking Italian, DiCaprio kissed the pontiff’s hand on Jan. 28 and offered a “grazie” [thank you] “for granting me this private audience with you.” Then, switching to English, he gave the pontiff a book of paintings by Early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, whose works meld fantastic imagery with reality.
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Pope Francis is taking direct aim at the wealthy and powerful of the world, saying in his message for Lent that they are often “slaves to sin” who, if they ignore the poor, “will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is hell.”
“The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and deception can grow,” the pontiff wrote in his annual Lenten exhortation, which was released on Jan. 26.
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Pope Francis and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met for talks on Jan. 26 — the first such encounter since 1999 — in a private meeting in which the pontiff pressed Rouhani on fostering Middle East peace and countering terrorism and arms trafficking.
The 39-minute meeting in the apostolic palace also touched on the landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear capacity that has been praised by the pontiff, and the two leaders discussed the situation of the church in Iran and interreligious dialogue.
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Pope Francis’ outreach to the homeless with showers, shelters, and other services may have its youngest beneficiary — an infant born on a street near St. Peter’s Square. A homeless woman gave birth on a cardboard box mere yards from the Vatican on Jan. 20 in near-freezing temperatures, according to Reuters.
Sister Helen Prejean. Image via Rosie Scammell/RNS
Two decades after her anti-death penalty work was transformed into an Oscar-winning movie, Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean’s campaign continues with the backing of Pope Francis. Prejean met with the pope on Jan. 21 to deliver a thank-you letter from Richard Glossip, whose execution in the U.S. was halted in September after intervention from the pontiff.
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Pope Francis has changed the rules so that a priest may wash the feet of women and others in the community and not just men, as church law had previously decreed. The change, announced Jan. 20, reflects Francis’ own groundbreaking gesture when, just a month after his election in 2013, he washed the feet of young people — including women and Muslims — at a youth detention center outside Rome.
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Pope Francis is studying an invitation to visit the Grand Mosque of Rome — extended to him several days after his first visit to the city’s Great Synagogue. If he accepts, Francis would be the first pope to visit the mosque. He received the invitation on Jan. 20 during a short audience he gave to Muslim community leaders at the Vatican.
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Pope Francis has fascinated the public in large part because of how willingly he upends long-standing traditions and promotes a “revolution of tenderness” to set the Catholic Church on a new, more pastoral course for a new, more merciful era. To help fulfill this vision, Francis is also relying on an old-fashioned ritual — indulgences. They are a way of winning remission from penance — in this life or in Purgatory.
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Catholics and Lutherans have made another step toward joint commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 by issuing common liturgical guidelines for ecumenical services to mark the occasion. The guidelines, in a booklet called “Common Prayer,” provide a template for an ecumenical service, complete with suggested prayers, appropriate hymns, and themes for sermons.
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Pope Francis has called on European leaders not to turn their back on refugees and migrants despite the cultural and security challenges associated with the arrival of 1 million people this past year. Francis has made concern for migrants a centerpiece of his papacy, and on Jan. 11 in his annual address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See he again urged governments to “overcome the inevitable fears associated with this massive and formidable phenomenon.”
Roberto Benigni. Image via REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi/RNS
Italian comedian Roberto Benigni is best known for his goofy humor and slapstick sketches, but he may turn out to be the perfect pitchman for Pope Francis’ new book-length interview on mercy.
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A new book-length interview with Pope Francis gives fresh insight into his view of gay parishioners, marriage annulments, and other hot topics being debated by Catholics globally.
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Pope Francis’ visit to Mexico next month is supposed to be more of a pilgrimage than a spring break, but a viral video of the pontiff joking about tequila with a Mexican man in St. Peter’s Square captures the voluble enthusiasm that is likely to greet the first Latin American pontiff.
In the video, Francis can be seen walking around St. Peter’s Square, flanked by his security detail as he greets the faithful, when a man shouts from the crowd, catching the pontiff’s attention.
“Pope! We’ll be waiting for you in Mexico! Mexico, Pope!” the man yells above the din.
“Welcome to Mexico in February!”
“With tequila?” responds the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
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“Oftentimes we’re in a hurry when we call others. But they felt the pope was truly interested in them,” Gabrieli told the Catholic news site Aleteia, which also reported that the boy is seven. “At that moment, they were at the center of his attention. This is what really struck them. He was asking about them; they felt he really wanted to know how they were doing.”
(left) Donald Trump at the CNN Republican debate Dec. 15 in Las Vegas. Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com. (right) Pope Francis celebrates Mass on June 21 in Turin, Italy. miqu77 / Shutterstock.com
Americans’ most admired man and woman in the world are — once again — President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But the shocker in the Gallup Poll’s Most Admired List released Monday may be the No. 2 spot in the survey, where Donald Trump tied Pope Francis in the year the pontiff visited this country for the first time.
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Religion inspired countless other acts of forgiveness, mercy, and hope this year. But religion — or perversions of it, some would say — also inspired horrific violence: the “faith-based” cleansing of ancient lands, and bombings and shootings motivated by scriptural justifications. It was a year also of religious-inspired activism, seen perhaps most prominently in a pope who advocated for the poor and for a solution to climate change. Here is an overview of some of the most consequential religion stories of the past year, with thoughts on what to look forward to 2016.
Cardinal Wuerl with Pope Francis. Image via Paul Fetters / Archdiocese of Washington / RNS
Cardinal Donald Wuerl is an eminently approachable churchman, and unfailingly polite, yet the archbishop of Washington is hardly the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve.