2023-08-04 19:19:58
“In the church there is room for everyone”this sentence of Pope Franciscowhich heads this new issue of L’Osservatore Romano in Spanish, has become a kind of motto for his participation in World Youth Day in Portugal.
The phrase was pronounced in his homily on Wednesday, August 2, to the clergy present at the “Jerónimos Monastery”, which as usual is fully transcribed with this edition. Pope Bergoglio expressed around this definition of ecclesial and missionary openness: “Go to the confines and bring everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone: healthy, sick, young and old, good and sinners. Everyone”. That the Church is not a custom to select those who enter and not. Everyone, each one with his life on his back, with his sins, but as he is, before God, as he is, before life… Everyone. Everyone. Let’s not put customs in the Church. Everyone.” In the same homily, quoting the great Portuguese poet Pessoa, he expressed “One of your poets wrote: «To reach infinity, and I believe that we can reach there, we must have a port, only one, firm, and start from it towards the Indefinite» (F. Pessoa, Livro do Desassossego, Lisbon 1998, 247). We dream of the Portuguese Church as a “safe harbor” for those who face the journeys, shipwrecks and storms of life!”
This new Spanish-language issue of the Vatican newspaper occupies eight of its ten pages to cover World Youth Day in Lisbon. On the morning of Wednesday, August 2, Pope Francis delivered his first speech before the Portuguese head of state and the national authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps.
The historic visit of Pope Francis to Lisbon: with calls for peace and an end to war
In it, which is officially published, Francisco expressed, among other considerations with a European geopolitical tone, “We know that the great problems of today are global, but we often experience our insufficiency when it comes to responding to them, precisely because when we face common problems the world is divided, or at least not cohesive enough, unable to create a single front against what hurts us all. It seems that planetary injustices, wars, climate and immigration crises run faster than the ability, and often the will, to face these challenges together.
Then, he continued with his pacifying vision of the old continent and expressed: “Because the world needs Europe, the true Europe; it needs its role as a builder of bridges and peace in its eastern part, in the Mediterranean, in Africa and in the Middle East. In this way, Europe will be able to contribute, within the international arena, its specific originality, outlined in the last century when, from the crucible of world conflicts, it ignited the spark of reconciliation, making possible the dream of building tomorrow with the enemy. of yesterday, of opening paths of dialogue, itineraries of inclusion, developing a peace diplomacy that extinguishes conflicts and alleviates tensions, capable of capturing the most tenuous signs of détente and reading between the most crooked lines. In the ocean of history, we are sailing in critical and stormy circumstances, and we perceive the lack of courageous paths towards peace. Looking at Europe with sincere affection, in the spirit of dialogue that characterizes it, it would be natural for us to ask it: where are you headed, if you don’t offer peace processes, creative paths to end the war in Ukraine and so many conflicts that are bloodying the world? ? I dream of a Europe, the heart of the West, that uses its ingenuity to put out sources of war and light lights of hope; a Europe that knows how to rediscover its young soul, dreaming of the greatness of the whole and going beyond its immediate needs; a Europe that includes peoples and individuals with their own culture, without pursuing theories or ideological colonization”.
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On the morning of Thursday, August 3, according to the Holy See press office, before leaving the apostolic nunciature in Lisbon, his residence on Portuguese soil, the Pontiff welcomed a group of 15 young pilgrims from Ukraine, accompanied by Denys Kolada, Consultant for Dialogue with Religious Organizations in the Ukrainian Government. After listening to their moving stories, the Pope addressed a few words to the young people, expressing his closeness, “painful and prayerful.” To conclude the meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes, the Pontiff and the young people – who presented some gifts – together recited the Our Father, with their thoughts directed to the martyred Ukraine.
Those same thoughts about Ukraine and also about the drama of human trafficking were present in the words of Pope Francis after the usual Sunday Angelus that is published in full with this edition. The Holy Father expressed from the window of the private Study of the Vatican Apostolic Palace that “Today we celebrate two World Days called by the UN: Friendship Day and the Day against Human Trafficking. The first promotes friendship between peoples and cultures; the second combats the crime that turns people into merchandise. Trafficking is a terrible reality that affects too many people: children, women, grandchildren, workers… so many exploited people. All of them live in inhumane conditions and suffer the indifference and rejection of society. There is so much trafficking in the world today. God bless those who commit to fight against trafficking. Let us not stop praying for the tormented Ukraine, where the war destroys everything, including wheat. This is a grave offense against God, since wheat is his gift to feed humanity; and the cry of millions of hungry brothers and sisters rises to Heaven. I appeal to my brothers, the authorities of the Russian Federation, so that the Black Sea initiative is restored and wheat is transported safely.
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