It is my prayerful hope that this Lent will prove spiritually fruitful for
each believer and every ecclesial community. I ask all of you to pray for me.
May the Lord bless you and Our Lady keep you".

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 Indifference, key theme of the Pope's Message for Lent 2015
 Vatican City, 27 January 2015 (VIS) - A press conference was held in the Holy
See Press Office his morning, during which Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso,
secretary of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", presented the Pope's Message
for Lent 2015, explaining that its central theme is indifference, an issue
that the Holy Father has touched upon on a number of occasions. In addition,
in his speech to the UN last September Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin
emphasised "widespread indifference", which he equated with an "apathy" that
is at times even "synonymous with irresponsibility".
 Indifference is, therefore, "an important concept to explain the different
phenomena of the modern world. In this way, we can understand this same
concept, including it in what is surely a partial interpretation of a certain
culture. Indifference comes from a lack of difference, from a lack of
attention to the difference. This can be applied at least on three levels".
 "At the interpersonal level, the play on words between difference and
indifference is perhaps more easily understood. On the one hand, the
difference is stressed in order to provoke a separation. On the other hand, a
lack of attention to the difference between the other and myself conforms the
other to one's own parameters and thus annihilates him".
 "At the cultural level, that is, in the everyday environment that helps shape
our thoughts and judgement, I seem to notice an indifference to values. This
is not only related to a lack of awareness of values or an incomplete
observance of values; it is above all a lack of judgement on values. In this
way, every choice becomes interchangeable, every option becomes viable, any
assessment on good and evil, truth and falsity becomes useless. If there is no
difference, everything is the same and is therefore not permissible for anyone
to propose something that is more or less appropriate to a person's nature. In
my opinion, global uniformity, the lowering of the standards of values that
comes from the lack of difference is linked to the experience of many of our
contemporaries of a lack of meaning. If everything is the same, if nothing is
different and everything is therefore more or less valid, in what can one
invest one's life? If everything is the same, it means that nothing really has
value and therefore it means nothing fully deserves our gift".
 "We then come to a third level, that more specifically regards metaphysical
principles. Here lies the greatest indifference, the largest and most
consequential form of the lack of attention to difference, that is:
indifference towards God and as a result, a lack of attention to the
difference between the Creator and creature, which causes so much harm to
modern man as it leads him to believe that he is God, while he must
continually push against his own limitations".
 Msgr. Dal Toso went on to consider the globalisation of indifference not
merely as a geographical phenomenon, but also a cultural one. As it spreads, a
Western concept of the world, or Weltanschauung, prevails, linked not only to
relationships but also as an existential attitude. The Church does not
denounce certain situations simply in order to censure them but instead to
offer paths towards healing. For this reason, the Lenten season is always a
time of conversion, change and renewal. It is a time for overcoming this
globalisation of indifference and entering into a new phase in which we
recognise the difference between the self and the other, between one lifestyle
and another, between oneself and God. This year's Lenten Message presents
three areas in which indifference must be overcome: the Church, the community
and the individual".
 He continued, "Pope Francis speaks about the necessary conversion and the new
heart that can beat within us. The key step in all social reconstruction and
cultural renewal is change in the individual. The Gospel provides the keys for
achieving this change in the person, which then affects the whole social
fabric". However, he warns, "conversion does not have its purpose in a better
society, but in the knowledge of Christ and in becoming like Him. Therefore,
as we can see in Pope Francis' Magisterium, he calls us to go beyond a faith
that serves only to care for oneself and one's own well being. Indifference
stems from an attitude to life in which otherness does not make a difference
and so each person withdraws into himself. Faith also can become instrumental
in this search for self". Our path, he explained, is must therefore take us
further, "beyond ourselves", so that we "live our faith by looking at Christ
and in Him we find the Father and brothers and sisters who await us".
 Indifference must also be overcome in Christian communities, which are
required to be "islands of mercy in a world dominated by the globalisation of
indifference. There is a distinction between the Church and the world, between
the heavenly city and the earthly city, a distinction which become
increasingly evident. Our Christian places - parishes, communities and groups
- must be transformed into places that manifest God's mercy. Faced with this
globalisation of indifference, some might be discouraged as it seems as if
nothing can be changed, since we are part of a great social and economic
process that is is beyond us. Instead, this is not the case. The Christian
community can already overcome this indifference, it can show the world that
one can live differently and that it can become the city on the mount
mentioned in the Gospel. Beginning with this Lent season, Christian community
life, where one lives for the other, can be not merely a chimera but instead a
living reality; rather than a distant dream, a living sign of the presence of
God's mercy in Christ".
 Finally, the third level is the Church in her global reality. "
nfortunately", remarked Msgr. Del Toso, "we tend to see the Church only as an
institution and a structure. Instead, she is the living body of those who
believe in Christ. It is the Church in her entirety that needs to be renewed.
As a body, she shows that she is really alive because she changes, grows and
develops. In this body, the members take care of each other".
 Finally, the prelate recalled that "Cor Unum" has always acted as an
"instrument of the Pope's proximity to the least of our brothers and sisters",
offering three examples. First, he mentioned the recent joint meeting with the
Pontifical Commission for Latin America and the various other entities
involved in the reconstruction of Haiti, during which the balance of the
financial aid raised by the Catholic Church's for the island during the five
years since the earthquake, estimated at 21.5 million dollars, was presented.
He also referred to the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, especially in
Syria and Iraq, "where the great victims of these wars are the people,
especially the most vulnerable minorities such as Christians who again have
become the 'cards' with which those in power play". Finally, he remarked on
the Pope's recent trip to the Philippines, where it could be seen what it
means to "'make hearts firm' where there is nothing left to hope for". In
Tacloban, the area visited by the Pope, "Cor Unum" has built large community
centre named after Pope Francis, to care for the young and the elderly. He
concluded, "Our Dicastery wishes to be a great global expression of what it
means for the Church to be a body in which each member can experience the love
of the other".

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 Holy Father's calendar for February to April 2015
 Vatican City, 27 January 2015 (VIS) - The Office of Liturgical Celebrations
of the Supreme Pontiff has published the following calendar of liturgical
celebrations at which the Holy Father will preside from February to April:
 FEBRUARY
 Monday 2: Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, 19th World Day of
Consecrated Life. At 5.30 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, Mass with the members
of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life.
 Sunday 8: Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time. At 4 p.m., pastoral visit to the
Roman parish of "St. Michael the Archangel in Pietralata".
 Saturday 14: At 11 a.m. in the Vatican Basilica, Ordinary Public Consistory
for the creation of new cardinals and for several causes of canonisation.
 Sunday 15: Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time. At 10 a.m. in the Vatican Basilica,
Mass with newly-created cardinals.
 Wednesday 18: Ash Wednesday. At 4.30 p.m., Basilica of St. Anselm, "Statio"
and penitential procession. At 5 p.m. at the Basilica of St. Sabina, blessing
and imposition of the ashes.
 Sunday 22, First Sunday of Lent. Ariccia, beginning of spiritual exercises
for the Roman Curia.
 Friday 27: Conclusion of spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia.
 MARCH
 Sunday 8: Third Sunday of Lent. At 4 p.m., pastoral visit to the Roman parish
of "Holy Mary Mother of the Redeemer".
 Friday 13: At 5 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, penitential liturgy.
 Saturday 21: pastoral visit to Naples-Pompeii.
 Sunday 29: Palm Sunday and the Passion of the Lord. At 9.30 a.m. in St.
Peter's Square, blessing of the palms, procession and Mass.
 APRIL
 Thursday 2: Holy Thursday. At 9.30 a.m. in the Vatican Basilica, Chrism Mass.
 Friday 3: Good Friday. At 5 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, celebration of the
Passion of the Lord.
 Friday 3: Good Friday. At 9.15 p.m., at the Colosseum, Via Crucis.
 Saturday 4: Holy Saturday. At 8.30 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, Easter Vigil.
 Sunday 5: Easter Sunday. At 12 p.m., central balcony of the Vatican Basilica,
"Urbi et Orbi" blessing.
 Sunday 12: Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. At 10 a.m. at the
Vatican Basilica, Mass for the faithful of Armenian rite.

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