Pope Francis

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — The trip, Pope Francis said, was a “test” — first a 10-hour flight across the Atlantic and an eight-hour time change, ...

Francis said he will continue to travel. “It warms my heart to see so many grandparents and great-grandparents here,” Francis said at one point during his time in Canada. “I thank you and would like to say to all those families with elderly people at home: You possess a treasure! Many of his prepared remarks touch on the value of the elderly, and it is left for interpretation how much of his sentiment reflects personal experience. He said it was a “normal option” to think about retirement. The lost mobility has forced him to reconsider his hands-on style as pope. He said his style would have to change a bit.

The book “Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, and Practical Challenges” was a 528-page synthesis of a theological seminar sponsored by the ...

You cannot do theology with a ‘no’ in front of it … the magisterium will be the one to say no,” the pope added. In the encyclical, Paul VI warned of serious social consequences if the widespread use of contraceptives became accepted. We have to be clear: those who made this congress did their duty because they tried to move forward in doctrine, but in an ecclesial sense, not out, as I said with that rule of St. Vincent of Lerins.” Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Can the Church’s teaching on birth control change? “This is very timely.

Rome, Italy, Jul 30, 2022 / 01:47 am. Pope Francis said Saturday that he is “open” to the possibility of retiring if he discerns that it is God's will.

The experts say yes, but there is the whole problem of anesthesia. It is the Lord who commands.” “The door is open.

Pope says pilgrimage was 'a bit of a test' and that at 85 he has 'to think about possibility of stepping aside'

And I asked for forgiveness for this process which was genocide,” he told reporters. But more than this, I can’t say,” he said on Saturday. “It’s not strange.

Pope Francis returned to Rome on Saturday after a week-long trip to Canada. During the July 24 to 30 trip, the pope visited Edmonton, Québec, and Iqaluit on ...

It is important in this sense to emphasize the importance of this maternal dialect. On the topic of my resignation, I would like to thank a nice article that one of you wrote on all the signs that could lead to a resignation and all the signs that are appearing. And that is very important: The role of the grandmother, in faith transmission and faith development. It is the mother or grandmother who explains the first things that the child does not understand about the faith. The Holy Spirit can do this better than me and better than all of us because He inspires the decisions of the pope, always inspires because He is alive in the Church. You cannot conceive of the Church without the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes the differences, who makes the noise — think about the morning of Pentecost — and then leads to harmony. The role of the grandmother, in faith transmission and faith development. On the issue of contraception, I know there is a publication out on this issue and other marriage issues. Think, for example, about atomic weapons: today it is officially declared that the use and possession of atomic weapons is immoral. But know that dogma, morality, is always in a path of development, but development in the same direction. Because I need to go to South Sudan before Congo, because it is a trip with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of the Church of Scotland, all three together as all three of us did the retreat two years ago. I think that at my age and with this limitation, I have to cut back a little bit to be able to serve the Church or, on the contrary, think about the possibility of stepping aside. On the [German] “Synodal Way”, I wrote a letter, and I did so by myself … a month of prayer, reflection, consultations ... and I said everything I had to say about the “Synodal Way”. More than that I will not say.

Can the Church's teaching on birth control change? During Pope Francis' return flight from Canada, a journalist asked him about the possibility of a ...

In the encyclical, Paul VI warned of serious social consequences if the widespread use of contraceptives became accepted. We have to be clear: Those who made this congress did their duty because they tried to move forward in doctrine, but in an ecclesial sense, not out, as I said with that rule of St. Vincent of Lérins.” You cannot do theology with a ‘No’ in front of it. Can the Church’s teaching on birth control change? “This is very timely. But know that dogma, morality, is always in a path of development, but development in the same direction,” Pope Francis responded on July 30.

Pope Francis considers the development of Church doctrine on his return flight from Canada. In certain Catholic circles, there's talk of Pope Francis changing ...

Before traveling to Iqaluit on Friday, the 85-year-old Pontiff gifted a statue of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus to the archbishop's residence in Québec ...

Pope Francis has a deep devotion to the saint, the press office emphasized. With his right hand, he is shown holding the staff that, according to tradition, miraculously bloomed with lilies when the Jerusalem Temple priests were choosing a husband for Mary. “I like St. Joseph very much. During his time there, he has asked forgiveness for the Catholic Church’s role in running many of the country’s government-sponsored residential schools for Indigenous children. Even when he is asleep, he looks after the Church. Yes! We know that he can do that,” Pope Francis said in 2015 while speaking in the Philippines. “So when I have a problem, a difficulty, I write a little note, and I put it underneath St. Joseph so that he can dream about it! At the same time, it respects the saint’s depiction as Jesus' “silent guardian.”

Pope Francis' apology in Canada for the Church's sins stands out for the poignant language he used to describe the Church's errors.

He also famously apologized to the world’s bishops in 2009 for mishandling the lifting of the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops, one of whom turned out to be a Holocaust denier. Pope Francis shines when he is with and among people who have been victimized, marginalized, brutalized, and abandoned, and the trip to Canada was no exception. Pope Francis has become a champion of the underdog and has gone out of his way to shed light on those relegated to life’s peripheries. After survivors shared their experiences, Pope Francis apologized for the Church’s “deplorable conduct” in the residential schools. It fulfills one of the “Calls to Action” issued by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which requested that the pope make an apology on Canadian soil. St. Pope John Paul II took papal apologies to another level, as they became an almost routine feature of his papacy.

Pope Francis' nearness, especially in his meetings with indigenous peoples, was the hallmark of his Apostolic Journey to Canada, which was filled with ...

Pope Francis sat among them in a row of chairs in the shape of a circle, thus placing himself "as an equal." On Thursday, at the end of the Mass in the Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré, a mother brought her baby, suffering from a severe birth defect, to the Pope for him to bless. This offered a snapshot with an evangelical flavor to take us back to the sources of the faith and which, as he later emphasized in his homily, makes us imagine another lake, thousands of kilometers away, that of Galilee inextricably linked to the life and preaching of Jesus. There was also the gesture of returning the red moccasins, a symbol of the pain of so many indigenous children, which had been given to him at the Vatican four months ago. The Pope, in his wheelchair, silently praying in the cemetery of the Ermineskin community. The visit to Canadian soil, which the Pope carried out joyfully despite having difficulty walking, was marked precisely by those "concrete actions" that are gestures.