Fr.
Lombardi: Pope Francis’ year in review
(Vatican Radio) Father Federico Lombardi SJ highlights some of the
events that have made 2014 an extremely busy and significant year for Pope
Francis.
In a long interview with Vatican Radio, the Director of the
Vatican Press Office lists an impressive number of events, speeches, journeys
and appeals pronounced by Pope Francis in the year gone by, and says that
perhaps the most powerful images to linger in our minds are those of the Pope
amongst the people: his reaching out to the faithful in every circumstance, the
warmth of his embrace in particular towards children, people with
disabilities or ill health.
Listing the five international apostolic journeys undertaken by
Pope Francis this year, Lombardi says that each of them carried within a
particular message that places the Church at the center of all the current
issues of our times. During 2014 the Pope travelled to the Holy Land, to Korea,
to Albania, to Strasbourg and to Turkey, and Lombardi has words for each of
these visits.
He is happy, he says, that the Pope travelled to the Holy Land
because it is like a journey to the roots of our faith, to the roots of
Christianity, to the very places of the history of Salvation, and this he says
“has a strong symbolic and spiritual power”. And pointing out the ecumenical
aspect of his Holy Land visit, Lombardi speaks in particular of the strong
personal relationship Pope Francis has interwoven with the Ecumenical Patriarch
of Constantinople and of how this is so important for the achievement of
full Christian Unity.
And speaking of the Pope’s journey to Korea, Lombardi points out
that in a couple of weeks Pope Francis will again return to the Asian continent
when he journeys to Sri Lanka and to the Philippines. These visits – Lombardi
points out – signal a renewed attention of the Church towards a “predominant
portion of today’s and tomorrow’s humanity, both from a demographic point of
view” and because of its incredible diversity: “a borderless land for
evangelization in social, cultural and political situations of all kinds”.
Regarding Europe, Lombardi says that the Pope’s short journey to
Albania was meaningful also for his desire to start from the periphery before
going to the heart of the Continent – represented by his trip to Strasbourg
when he addressed the European Parliament and the Council of Europe; a
particularly powerful and wide-ranging speech with the added weight of his own
non-European provenance and viewpoint.
And finally Turkey, where the significance of ecumenism was
again highlighted together with interfaith dialogue and his forceful “reaching
out” to the Christians (and other minorities) in the Middle East who are
pouring across borders to flee persecution and death.
Another important feature of 2014 mentioned by Father Lombardi
pertained to the canonizations of Saint John XXIII, Saint John Paul II and the
beatification of the Blessed Paul VI. He points out that the common denominator
of these great events is the message of the Second Vatican Council which was at
the heart of the ministry of these three Popes, a message of an “open Church”
that deeply marks the ministry of Francis himself.
The Synod for the Family, Lombardi says, provides another
important theme for the year as does the Pope’s unwavering attention for
justice and peace, for the poor, for those who are exploited, for human
trafficking, for those persecuted for their faith.
Father Lombardi recalls the innumerable appeals Pope Francis
made this year to not turn away from the dramatic situation in Syria and in
Iraq, for the need to protect and support migrants and refugees, for attention
towards the terrible reality of new forms of slavery including human
trafficking. The Pope – Lombardi says – has mobilized the Church and all men
and women of goodwill on each of these pressing issues.
Not to be forgotten is Pope Francis’s clear wish to bring reform
to the Church itself and to the Curia, which Lombardi says, is part of a wide
ranging project that he formulated in his Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii
Gaudium”.
Concluding, Father Lombardi says there is a concept we could use
to sum up and characterize Pope Francis’ 2014 and that is: his “culture of
encounter”. The Pope’s attitude, the way he relates to people, the way he
always offers his personality, his personal experience, his friendship as well
as this thoughts and ideas really does bring about “the encounter between
people,” just as both the American and Cuban Presidents pointed out when they thanked
him for providing them with a new dimension in which to start building a bridge
between their peoples.
(Linda Bordoni)
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