For these working stiffs, ambivalence rather than amore from the Pope
- Apr 18, 2021
Three major themes, all among the top priorities of Pope Francis’s pontificate, were front and center during his foreign trips in 2019.
As he does every year, Pope Francis issued a special blessing on Christmas, offering prayers of peace for migrants and all countries facing violent conflict and asking Christians to do their part in showing God’s love in their daily actions.
On the last day of school before Christmas vacation, the students of Rome’s Pilo Albertelli High School were summoned to the school’s courtyard.
With much of Latin America in the throes of social and political unrest, which in most cases has endured for months, the continent’s bishops have turned to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the so-called “Empress of the Americas” and Latin America’s most famous woman, to lend a hand in the effort for peace.
Saying Mass for the Congolese community of Rome Sunday, Pope Francis urged peace in the violence-plagued country while denouncing those who enrich themselves through the arms trade. He also described consumerism as “a virus that attacks the faith at the roots.”
Every pope over the last seven decades has supported nuclear disarmament, so there’s nothing novel in Francis doing the same.
Members of one of South Sudan’s main opposition coalitions which is firmly against the current proposed peace deal met in Rome earlier this week, thanking Pope Francis for his continued support for the country and appealing to one of the most politically influential Catholic groups to lend a hand in negotiations.
After today’s deadline for political leaders in South Sudan to implement a peace agreement allowing them to form a government was again postponed, Christian leaders in the country have urged their people not to lose hope.