The majority of a new letter from Pope Francis focuses on helping Catholics learn to recognise and be astounded by the great gift of the Mass and the Eucharist and how it is not simply a weekly “staging” or “representation” of the Last Supper but truly allows people of all times and all places to encounter the crucified and risen Lord and to eat his body and drink his blood.

One cannot share the Gospel without living it first, Pope Francis said in separate meetings with members of the general chapters of the Pauline Fathers and Comboni Missionaries.

Many people today say that people of faith should disqualify themselves from public discourse, writes Professor Matthew Ogilvie. However, as Pope Francis says, people of faith have a role to play in secular politics.

Meeting in May with the editors of 10 Jesuit magazines, Pope Francis responded to six questions about his concerns for the Catholic Church and the world.

Pope Francis expressed his solidarity and closeness with Catholics in Nigeria after gunmen stormed a church and reportedly killed at least 50 people during a Pentecost Mass.

Pope Francis wrote that he hoped for greater commitment in working to find effective ways of protecting children’s dignity and rights through social protection systems and access to education.

Pope Francis said the elderly should become “artisans of the revolution of tenderness”
through their gifts, wisdom, relationships and power of prayer, to set the world free from loneliness and the demon of war.

“Let us never forget that God does not act in the daily lives of people through shocking acts, but in a silent, discreet, simple way, so as to manifest himself through people who become a sacrament of his presence. And you are a sacrament of God’s presence,” – Pope Francis

Christ’s victory over death “is not an illusion” and the world needs “the crucified and risen Lord so that we can believe in the victory of love and hope for reconciliation, Pope Francis has said before delivering his Easter Blessing.

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service Pope Francis greets the crowd after celebrating Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter's Square at the Vatican 10 April 2022. Photo: CNS/Paul Haring. Jesus obeyed the most challenging of commandments: to love one's enemies; and he invites humanity to do the same by breaking a vicious cycle of evil, sorrow and hatred with love and forgiveness, Pope Francis said ...