Vatican Roundup

Vatican Roundup
Modern ‘throwaway Culture’ leads to neglect of society’s vulnerable, says Pope

Pope Francis condemned abortion and euthanasia in a speech in which he said that today’s “throwaway culture” leads to the killing of children and discarding of the elderly.

“There is the discarding of children that we do not want to welcome with the law of abortion that sends them to the dispatcher and kills them directly,” the Pope said. “And today this has become a ‘normal’ method, a practice that is very ugly. It is really murder.”

In an address to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Pope said that to understand what abortion is, it helps to formulate two questions: “is it right to eliminate, to take a human life to solve a problem?”, he queried”. “Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? That’s what abortion is”.

The Pope re-affirmed his belief that both abortion and euthanasia “deny hope” by negating “the hope of children who bring us the life that keeps us going and the hope that is in the roots that the elderly give us”.

World Youth Day 2021: Pope Francis asks young people to ‘testify joyfully that Christ is alive’

In a message for World Youth Day 2021 on September 27, Pope Francis summoned young Catholics to “testify joyfully that Christ is alive”. The Pope also invited youth to join a “spiritual pilgrimage leading to the celebration of the 2023 World Youth Day” in Lisbon, Portugal.

Reflecting on the dramatic conversion of St Paul the Apostle, the Pope made a gamut of appeals to young people ahead of the annual celebration on November 21, “in Jesus’ name, I ask you: Arise! Testify that you too were blind and encountered the light. You too have seen God’s goodness and beauty in yourself, in others, and in the communion of the Church, where all loneliness is overcome”, he said.

As well as international World Youth Day (WYD) gatherings ordinarily held every three years, the Catholic Church also sponsors local youth day events for which the Pope offers an annual message.

This year, WYD will be celebrated at the diocesan level on the Solemnity of Christ the King with the theme “Arise! I make you a witness of what you have seen,” inspired by Jesus’ words to St Paul recorded in Acts 26:16.

 

President Biden expected to meet Pope Francis at end of October, sources say

Pope Francis is expected to receive Joe Biden on October 29, in the US president’s first official visit to the Vatican since his inauguration, according to sources at the Apostolic Palace.

According to a Vatican source, it would seem that preparations are already underway at the US Embassy to the Holy See and the first loads of trucks and equipment for the visit are already on their way to Rome.

According to sources, Biden’s trip would constitute an official visit, with the Vatican’s diplomats heavily featuring in President Biden’s itinerary. First, the president would have a meeting with Pope Francis. Then there would be bilateral talks in the Secretariat of State with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Secretary for Relations with States and the Vatican’s equivalent of a foreign minister.

Biden met Pope Francis for the first time in September 2015, when the Pope attended the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. At the time, Biden was vice-president of the Obama administration.