The Gospel is made for television and Jesus Christ would have been a perfect on-air evangelist, said the papal preacher.
For the five Sundays of Easter this year, members of the Neocatechumenal Way from all across the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the San Bernardino and Orange dioceses took the good news of the Gospel to the public squares of Southern California.
Popes pray for peace; it is part of their ministry. And when war is raging or peace negotiations seem hopelessly bogged down, recent popes have invited leaders of other Christian traditions and other faiths to join them in prayer.
Members of Gypsy communities around the world are among the poorest, most marginalized people in society, which makes them particularly vulnerable to discrimination, oppression and exploitation, Pope Francis said.
Those who insist others pray and believe exactly like they do, those who have alternatives to every church teaching and benefactors who use the church as a cover for business connections may call themselves Catholics, but they have one foot out the door, Pope Francis said.
Every time Nathalie Piraino returns home to Rwanda, she sees a country advancing economically and politically and where the development of people, especially women, is foremost.
People can choose either to tackle life’s challenges with the loving and wise heart of God or be driven by their own passions and interests, Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis said the assassination of “my confrere,” a 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit in Syria, “filled me with deep sadness and made me think again of all the people who suffer and are dying in that martyred country.”
Pope Francis will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at a Rome rehabilitation facility for the elderly and people with disabilities.
A Catholic convent near Jerusalem and a largely Maronite village in Galilee were damaged in recent weeks as a two-year wave of vandalism directed at Christians and Muslims in Israel and the West Bank continued.