VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 048
DATE 09-03-2015

Summary:
- Audience with King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians
- Centenary of the Argentine Catholic University
- The Pope meets the parishioners of Tor Bella Monaca; discrimination and
injustice test the goodness of the people
- Angelus: let us build a temple to God with our lives
- Francis' greetings on International Women's Day: "women give us to the
ability to see the world with different eyes"
- Behaviour contrary to justice, honesty and charity cannot be covered up with
worship
- The Pope on the sixtieth anniversary of Communion and Liberation: "Keep
alive the call of the first encounter with Christ, and be free"
- The Holy Father to preside at Confession in St. Peter's Basilica on 13 March
- Oath-taking Ceremony of the Cardinal Camerlengo
- Cardinal Orlando B. Quevedo, Pope's special envoy to Nagasaki
- Audiences
- Other Pontifical Acts

___________________________________________________________

 Audience with King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians
 Vatican City, 7 March 2015 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican Apostolic
Palace the Holy Father Francis received in audience His Majesty Philippe King
of the Belgians, and Queen Mathilde, who subsequently met with Cardinal
Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Paul Richard
Gallagher, secretary for Relations with States.
 During the cordial discussions, the good bilateral relations between Belgium
and the Holy See were confirmed. Attention was then paid to matters of mutual
interest, such as social cohesion, the education of the young, the phenomenon
of migration and the importance of intercultural and interreligious dialogue.
 Mention was then made of various problems of an international nature, with
special reference to the future prospects of the European continent.

___________________________________________________________

 Centenary of the Argentine Catholic University
 Vatican City, 9 March 2015 (VIS) - On occasion of the one hundredth
university of Faculty of Theology of the Universidad Catolica Argentina
(U.C.A.), Pope Francis has sent a letter to Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli,
archbishop of Buenos Aires, Grand Chancellor of the faculty. "Teaching and
studying theology means living on a frontier", writes the Pope. "We must We
must guard against a theology that spends itself in academic dispute or
watches humanity from a glass castle. You learn to live: theology and holiness
are inseparable". Francis adds that the theology that is developed is
therefore rooted and based on Revelation, on tradition, but also accompanies
the cultural and social processes" and "must also take on board conflicts: not
only those that we experience within the Church, but those that concern the
whole world".
 The Pope urges all the members of the Faculty not to satisfy themselves with
a theoretical "desktop theology" and not to give in to the temptation to
"gloss over it, to perfume it, to adjust it a little and domesticate it".
Instead, he writes, good theologians "must, like good pastors, have the odour
of the people and the street, and through their reflection, pour oil and wine
on the wounds of men". Similarly, he encourages them to study how the various
disciplines ... may reflect the centrality of mercy", since "without mercy our
theology, our law, our pastoral ministry run the risk of collapsing in petty
bureaucracy or ideology". He concludes by remarking that the U.C.A. does not
form "museum theologians who accumulate data" or "spectators of history", but
rather people capable of building up humanity around them, "of transmitting
the divine Christian truth in a truly human dimension".

___________________________________________________________

 The Pope meets the parishioners of Tor Bella Monaca; discrimination and
injustice test the goodness of the people
 Vatican City, 9 March 2015 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon Pope Francis visited
the Roman parish of Santa Maria Madre del Redentore in the peripheral suburb
of Tor Bella Monaca, where he was welcomed by more than a thousand young
people. Before entering the Church, the Holy Father visited the Caritas Centre
to greet sick and disabled assisted by the Missionaries of Charity. "Jesus
never abandons us", he said, "because on the Cross he experienced pain,
sadness, solitude and many other things. ... Never lose your trust in Him".
 Later, in the church, he met with a group of children and young people, and
answered their questions. The first was: if God forgives everything, why does
Hell exist? The Pope replied that Hell is the desire to distance oneself from
God and to reject God's love. But", he added, "if you were a terrible sinner,
who had committed all the sins in the world, all of them, condemned to death,
and even when you are there, you were to blaspheme, insults... and at the
moment of death, when you were about to die, you were to look to Heaven and
say, 'Lord ...!', where do you go, to Heaven or to Hell? To Heaven! Only those
who say, I have no need of You, I can get along by myself, as the devil did,
are in Hell - and he is the only one we are certain is there".
 The second question regarded how to live Christian morality. Francis
answered, "Christian morality is a grace, a response to the love that He gives
you first. ... It is Jesus Who helps you to go ahead, and if you fall it is He
Who lifts you up again and Who lets you carry on. But if you think and we
think that moral life is just about 'doing this' and 'not doing that', this is
not Christian. It is a moral philosophy, but no, it is not Christian.
Christian is the love of Jesus, Who is the first to love us. ... Christian
morality is this: you fall? Get up again and keep going. And life is this. But
always with Jesus".
 Finally, before celebrating Mass, Francis spoke with the parish pastoral
council and their collaborators who described to him the situation in the
area, in which many marginalised families live, and where there are many
problems linked to drug abuse and crime. "The people of Tor Bella Monaca are
good people", emphasised Francis. "They had the same flaw that Jesus, Mary and
Joseph had: they are poor. With the difference that Joseph had a job, Jesus
had a job, and many people here do not, but they still need to feed their
children. And how does one get by? You know how. Goodness is sorely tested by
injustice; the injustice of unemployment and discrimination. And this is a
sin, it is a grave sin. Many people are compelled to do things they do not
want to do, because they cannot find another way. ... And very often people,
when they feel they are accompanied, wanted, do not fall into that web of the
wicked, who exploit the poor. Mafiosi exploit the poor too, to make them do
their dirty work, and then when the police discover them, they find those poor
people and not the mafiosi who are safe, and also pay for their safety.
Therefore, it is necessary to help the people. ... The first pastoral
commandment is closeness: to be close to them. ... We cannot go to a house
where there are sick or hungry children and say 'you must do this, you must do
that'. No. It is necessary to go to them with closeness, with that caress that
Jesus has taught us. ... This is my main pastoral advice to you".
 In the homily he pronounced at the church of Santa Maria del Redentore, the
Bishop of Rome commented on the passage from the Gospel according to St. John
that narrates the expulsion of the money changers from the temple, remarking
that two aspects of the text are particularly notable: an image, and a word.
"The image is that of Jesus with the whip who chases away all those who use
the temple to trade. The temple was sacred, and this, which was unclean, was
sent out. ... Jesus took the whip and cleansed the temple".
 "And the phrase, the word", he continued, "is where it says that many people
believed in Him, a terrible phrase: 'But Jesus on his part did not entrust
himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness
about man, for he himself knew what was in man'. We cannot deceive Jesus. He
knows us in depth. Before Him we cannot pretend to be saints and close our
eyes, and then lead a life that is not what He wants. ... And we all know that
name that Jesus gave to those with two faces: hypocrites".
 "It will do us good, today, to enter into our hearts and look at Jesus. To
say to him, 'Lord, look, there are good things, but there are also things that
are not good. Jesus, do You trust in me? I am a sinner'. ... Jesus is not
afraid of this. ... However, he who drifts away, who has a dual face; who lets
himself be seen to be good to cover the hidden sin... When we enter into our
heart, we find many things that are not good, just as Jesus found in the
temple the dirty affairs of trade. ... We can continue our dialogue with
Jesus: 'Jesus, do you trust in me? ... So, I will open the door to You, and
You can cleanse my soul".

--- MPost/386 v1.21
 * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)