VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 199
DATE 11-11-2015

Summary:
- Conviviality, a thermometer for measuring the health of family relationships
- The Pope meets with President Dragan Covic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Pope's message to the 21st public session of the Pontifical Academies: life
is
a pilgrimage
- Humanism with the face of charity: Mass in Florence
- The Holy See at UNESCO: the importance of education on climate change
- Other Pontifical Acts

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 Conviviality, a thermometer for measuring the health of family relationships
 Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) - This morning's Wednesday general
audience was held in St. Peter's Square, attended by thousands of faithful.
Before beginning, the Holy Father invited those present to recite a Hail Mary
for the cardinals, bishops, consecrated persons and laypeople who are currently
meeting in Florence for the National Congress of the Italian Church.
 He dedicated today's catechesis to conviviality, a typical characteristic of
family life. This attitude of sharing the goods of life and of being happy to
do
so is, he said, "a precious virtue". He continued, "Its symbol, its icon, is
the
family gathered around the table, partaking of a meal together - and therefore
not merely food, but also sentiments, stories, and events. It is a fundamental
experience. When there is a celebration - a birthday, an anniversary - the
family gathers around the table. In some cultures it is customary to do so also
following bereavement, to stay close to those who suffer for the loss of a
family member".
 "Conviviality is a sure thermometer for measuring the health of relations: if
in the family there is a problem or a hidden trouble, you understand
immediately
at the table. A family that almost never eats together, or in does not talk at
the table but instead watches the television, or smartphones, is not a close
family. Christianity has a special vocation to conviviality, as we all know.
The
Lord Jesus taught at the table, and represented the Kingdom of God as a festive
banquet. Jesus also chose to consign to the disciples His spiritual testament
at
the table, condensed in the memorial gesture of His Sacrifice".
 Francis explained that the family brings to the Eucharist its own experience
of
conviviality, and opens it to the grace of a universal conviviality, of God's
love for the world. "Participating in the Eucharist, the family is purified of
the temptation to close up in itself, fortified in love and in faith, and
broadens the boundaries of its own fraternity according to Christ's heart. In
our time, marked by closed minds and too many walls, the conviviality generated
by the family and extended in the Eucharist becomes a crucial opportunity. The
Eucharist and families it nourishes are able to overcome such limitations and
to
build bridges of acceptance and charity".
 "Nowadays many social contexts impede family conviviality. We must find a way
to recover it, if adapting it to the times. Conviviality seems to have become
something to buy and sell, but in that way it becomes something else.
Nourishment is not always the symbol of a just sharing of goods, able to reach
those who have neither bread nor affection. In rich countries we are induced to
spend first on excessive consumption, and then again to remedy the excess. This
senseless behaviour diverts our attention from the true hunger of the body and
the mind".
 "The living and vital alliance of Christian families, which support and
embracesin the dynamism of their hospitality the burdens and joys of everyday
life, cooperates with the grace of the Eucharist, which is able to create ever
new communities with its strength that includes and saves". The Pope concluded,
"the Christian family thus shows the true extent of its horizon, which is the
horizon of the Mother Church and all humanity, the abandoned and excluded among
all peoples".

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 The Pope meets with President Dragan Covic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) - Before today's general audience, in the
study of the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father received Dragan Covic, the incumbent
chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, accompanied by the
representatives of the Organising Committee of the State and the Church for his
pastoral visit on 6 June this year.
 "I would like to thank you for your visit", he said. "I still hold in my heart
that many great and beautiful things I have learned from you: your capacity for
suffering, your capacity for forgiveness or at least to seek to forgive, your
capacity to join and work together, your capacity for dialogue. Many thanks for
the examples you give to humanity. I ask you to greet, on my behalf, your
people, all the people, the two other presidents, and the communities that have
a different religion but which meet, speak, and dialogue for the good of the
country. May they speak between themselves and help your homeland to go ahead.
And greet your good young people! I remember the questions they asked me. They
are the promise of your homeland".
 The Holy Father thanked those present, asking them for their prayers. He gave
his blessing to Bosnia-Herzegovina and its families, children and future,
encouraging them to continue on their path.

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 Pope's message to the 21st public session of the Pontifical Academies: life is
a pilgrimage
 Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) - Yesterday the Pontifical Academies held
their 21 st public session, organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture,
which coordinates these institutions. The theme of the session this year was:
"Ad limina Petri: monumental traces of pilgrimage in the first centuries of
Christianity". During the event Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, on
behalf of the Holy Father, awarded the Pontifical Academies Award to young
experts, artists and institutions distinguished in the course of the year in
the
promotion of Christian humanism.
 Pope Francis sent the participants a message in which he recalls how in the
Bull to convoke the Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, he underlined the
importance of pilgrimage as a distinctive sign of the Holy Year as "it is the
icon of the path that every person must walk in his or her existence. Life is a
pilgrimage and the human being a viator, a pilgrim who follows a road up to the
intended goal. Even to reach the Holy Door in Rome too, or in any other place,
each person must carry out, according to his or her strengths, a pilgrimage. It
will be a sign of the fact that mercy too is an objective to be reached and
which requires commitment and sacrifice. Pilgrimage, therefore, may be a
stimulus to conversion: by passing through the Holy Door we will let ourselves
be embraced by God's mercy and we will endeavour to be merciful with others as
the Father is with us".
 He goes on to refer to the theme of the Session, noting that since the first
centuries of the Christian age the itineraries of pilgrims, both ecclesiastics
and laypeople, have been well documented by various sources, "including the
graffiti left in the places they visited, by the side of the tombs of martyrs.
From this evidence there emerges the genuine and generous faith of those who
journey with great courage and also with many sacrifices, to encounter, and
indeed to touch with their hands, the witnesses of faith and their memories, so
as to draw new enthusiasm and inner strength to live their own faith
increasingly deeply and coherently".
 He remarks that pilgrimage, as is shown by those who have walked part of the
ancient itineraries, rediscovered and retraced in our times, "is also an
experience of mercy, sharing and solidarity with those who take the same road,
as well as welcome and generosity on the part of those who host and assist
pilgrims. Among the works of corporal mercy, that I have wished to re-propose
as
one of the signs characterising the Holy Year, welcome to strangers stands out.
A glance at Christian antiquity and the traces left by pilgrims reminds us of
the commitment to welcome and sharing, that in the experience of pilgrimage
becomes a conscious itinerary of conversion and joyful daily practice".
 Finally, the Pope announces the names of this year's winners of the prize that
"awards a valuable contribution to archaeological study and relates to the
worship of martyrs". The winners are, ex aequo, the Portuguese association
"Campo Arqueologico di Mertola", whose referent is Professor Virgilio Lopes,
for
the archaeological campaigns carried out in recent years and for the
extraordinary results obtained; and to Matteo Braconi for his excellent
doctoral
thesis on "The mosaic of the apse of the Basilica of St. Pudenziana in Rome.
History, restoration, interpretations", defended at the Rome Tre University.
 As a sign of encouragement for research in the fields of history and religion,

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