Tag: Christianity

Blind, unbridled consumerism and selfishness — not the number of people on the planet and having children — are the root causes of the world’s problems, Pope Francis said.

The reasons for pollution and world hunger, for example, are not based on the number of children being born, but on “the choices of those who think only of themselves, the delusion of unbridled, blind and rampant materialism, of a consumerism that, like an evil virus, erodes at the root the existence of people and society,” he said.

“Human life is not a problem, it is a gift,” he said. “The problem is not how many of us there are in the world, but what kind of world we are building.”

Pope Francis made his remarks at a meeting in Rome May 10 on Italy’s longtime decline in births and population growth.

The annual conference focuses on the general state of Italy’s birthrate and demographics and seeks to bring all sectors of society together to pursue concrete ways to reverse the country’s steeply declining birthrate. Sponsored by the Foundation for Natality and with the support of the Italian Forum of Family Associations and the city of Rome, the conference was held May 9-10 at a Rome auditorium not far from St. Peter’s Square.

Italy has had one of the lowest birthrates in the European Union for years. According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, Italy continued to register less than 7 births per 1,000 people last year and saw 14,000 fewer births than in 2022. Italy’s fertility rate dropped to 1.2 in 2023 from 1.24 in 2022.

However, its population registered a decline of only 0.3% from last year due to increased migration and to fewer people leaving the country, the institute said.

Gianluigi De Palo, president of the Foundation for Natality, said in his talk before introducing the pope, that the group’s mission is to encourage Italy’s demographic winter to turn into springtime.

“Not because we are worried about who will pay for our pensions or who will support the national health care system, but because we want our children to be free” to choose what they want to do with their future, he said.

“It is not about convincing young people to have more children; it is not about convincing couples, families, women to have children,” he said.

The problem is that having children is one of the primary causes of poverty in Italy, “and this is unacceptable,” he said. People may feel free to not have children if they do not want them, but that freedom is denied to those who want to have children “but are not in a position to have them.”

Nothing concrete has been done, he continued, to actually enact or strengthen measures and policies that people agree with, such as more public child care centers and better parental leave.

In his talk, Pope Francis said the root cause of problems in the world “is not babies being born: it is selfishness, consumerism and individualism, which make people satiated, lonely and unhappy.”

“Selfishness makes one deaf to the voice of God, who loves first and teaches how to love, and to the voice of the brothers and sisters around us; it anesthetizes the heart,” making people live for things and possessions, losing the capacity to know “how to do good.”

Homes become “very sad places,” he said, emptied of children and “filled with objects,” dogs or cats.

The pope said what is needed are long-term approaches, effective policies and bold, concrete decisions so that what seeds are sown today, children “can reap tomorrow.”

“Serious and effective family-friendly choices” need to be made, he said. For example, women should never be put in a position where they have to choose between work and childcare, and young people should not carry the paralyzing burden of job insecurity and the inability to buy a home.

There should also be more intergenerational solidarity and generosity, the pope said.

Older generations should reassess their habits and lifestyles, “giving up what is superfluous in order to give the youngest hope for tomorrow” and, he said, younger generations should recognize and show gratitude for the sacrifices and hard work of those who helped them grow, he added.

In every discussion about birthrates and demographics, he said, do not forget to emphasize the importance of grandparents playing an active role in families.

It is “cultural suicide” to “discard” grandparents or let them live solitary lives, he said.

“The future is made by young and old together. Courage and memory together,” he said.

“These are the values to uphold, this is the culture to spread, if we are to have a tomorrow,” he said.

For us solitary types whose lives — like Mary’s — consist largely in “pondering these things in our hearts,” there is seldom room at the inn.

The rest of the world, with its ceaseless activity, gear, heedless noise — all just as it should be — crowd us out, relegating us to some dingy corner where we huddle, fingers pressed to ears, desperately yearning for a moment of quiet where our discoveries and insights and love can give birth.

My own mother, I would guess, in a household of eight kids, was always looking in vain for an inn. I came across her once, sitting on the edge of her and my father’s bed, gazing out the window around twilight and crying. I must have been about 12. “Mummy! Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer, just gazed at me with silent thanks.

Like most families, ours had secrets. I’ll probably never know them all, and I’m not sure I’d want to.

An incident, related many years after the fact by a sibling, is telling. My mother was an accomplished seamstress. She made her own wedding dress, clothes for us kids, slipcovers, and drapes: even a trousseau for my childhood doll: a peignoir, a traveling costume, an evening gown.

As we kids came of age and started moving out of the house, a bedroom opened up and she was finally able to have her own sewing room. Passing by when I came home from college, I’d see her in there, her mouth full of pins, her cut-out pieces neatly stacked, everything ship-shape, trim, and tidy.

One day apparently my father walked by, saw her working, poked his head in and asked, “What’s this project, Janet?”

“I’m making drapes for Aunt Madeleine,” she replied.

Dad did a double-take, then snapped, “Aunt Madeleine died three months ago.”

“I know,” my mother replied. “But I promised her I’d do up a set of drapes.”

My father worked as a bricklayer and that my mother didn’t bring in any money over the few dollars she charged here and there for her sewing was always a bit of a sore spot: one of those secrets that didn’t get openly talked about in front of us kids (thank heaven) but behind closed doors possibly festered.

When upset, my father often took one of us aside and vented. I can just hear him: “Am I crazy? I’m busting my rear end out there in the cold laying brick and she’s up there making curtains for her dead aunt!”

My father was devoted to my mother and he wasn’t malicious. Also he was super funny. So if I was the one he was venting to, we’d usually agree that Mom was a little cracked and have a good laugh.

But all these years later, hearing the story of Aunt Madeleine’s curtains, I sympathize with my now late mother down to the ground.

She was no pie-in-the-sky dreamer, after all, neglecting her duties as wife and mother. The house was always clean, the floors swept, the dishes washed, the laundry hung.

My mother wasn’t Catholic: she was a faithful parishioner at the Congregational church (now the United Church of Christ), across the street. But in a way, she had a Catholic heart. You take certain vows; you hold yourself to a standard that in the eyes of the world seems ludicrous, even frightening, in its “impracticability.” And the vow costs.

The vow cost her in other ways. My mother taught me to love books, maybe her finest, most enduring gift. She wrote better letters than anyone I know: newsy, descriptive, forthright, to the point. She was highly intelligent. I think she would have liked to be a writer herself.

She once — just once — submitted a piece for publication, the way I remember it, to a religious magazine of some kind. The piece was accepted: I can only imagine her joy. She wouldn’t have allowed herself pride: but quiet joy, yes.

And then, I’m not sure they even gave a reason, the magazine decided they didn’t want the essay after all.

To my knowledge, she never submitted another piece. She continued to be faithful to her marriage vows, to her private vows to God, to her children, to her church, and to her conscience. 

I picture her as long-suffering but dry-eyed, keeping her own counsel, along with God alone knows what other secret sorrows and silent suffering.

It’s a truism that daughters tend to live out the unfulfilled dreams of their mothers. I have no way of knowing if that’s true in my case. What I do know is that, though I take after my father in a hundred ways, my mother’s example has been the backbone of my life: Her fidelity to her watch. Her refusal to be moved. Her insistence on doing what she felt was right.

So on Mother’s Day, let me say that in case you did want to be a writer, Mom — I submitted another essay for you. And though I can’t sew a stitch, in my way I took up your thimble and scissors and measuring tape as well.

Fifty years later, searching for just the right word at my desk, I’m still working on Aunt Madeleine’s curtains.

St. Damien of Moloka’i was born Joseph de Veuser, in Tremlo, Belgium, in 1840. When he was young, he felt a calling to become a Catholic missionary, and joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, taking the name Damien.

As part of his final vows, Damien’s superiors draped him a cloth that would be used to cover his coffin after his death in a dramatic ceremony. This practice was used to symbolize the solemn commitment made to the religious life and the man’s identification with Christ’s death, but for Damien, it was all the more significant because he gave his life for the lepers of Moloka’i.

Damien’s brother, who was also in his congregation, was supposed to go to Hawaii as a missionary. But after his brother fell illness, Damien took his place, arriving in Honolulu in 1864. He was ordained a priest the same year.

In the ninth year of his priesthood, Father Damien responded to a call from his bishop to serve the leper colony of Moloka’i. Because many Hawaiian natives had no previous exposure to leprosy, and there was no treatment available, Molokai was a quarantine center for the victims, who became disfigured and debilitated as the disease worsened.

Although Father Damien was terrified to contract the disease, he set aside his fears, immersing himself in the common life of the lepers and leaving the outcome up to God.

The Moloka’i lepers saw the love and devotion Fr. Damien had for them, as he performed the traditional works of mercy, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and burying the dead. He made the lepers aware of their worth as children of God, inspiring hope and helping them use their disease as a redemptive path to Heaven.

Fr. Damien’s mission was lonely, as it alienated him from Hawaiian officials and his religious superiors. In December 1884, he discovered that he had no feeling in his feet — an early sign of leprosy. He quickly finished whatever he could before the disease robbed him of his eyesight, speech, and mobility. Fr. Damien’s last days were marked with strife. An American Protestant minister accused him of scandal, stemming from the inaccurate belief that leprosy was a sexually transmitted disease. He also disagreed with his superiors, and felt tormented by the thought that his work had been a failure.

At the end of his life, priests from his congregation came to administer last sacraments, and Fr. Damien died during Holy Week, on April 15, 1889.

St. Damien was beatified in 1995, and canonized in 2009.

All the days of the Pascha and Bright Week: How to Meet and Spend the Feast so as Not to Negate the Labors of Great LentOn Pascha, a man removes the bridle from the horse of his body, and no longer holding back, rushes off somewhere. As a rule, the master of the horse, that is, the man himself, has no idea where the long-suppressed desire will take him. Fr. Andrei Chizhenko talks about what is important to remember during these days.

“>Bright Week come across as one bright day of Pascha. As for the Friday of the Bright Week, it is distinguished by the fact that on this day the Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of the icon of the Mother of God called the “Life-Giving Spring.”

    

Every church on this day holds the water blessing service according to the Paschal rite, while the service celebrated on this day, besides the Paschal stichera and troparia, has the chants of the service to the “Life-Giving Spring” Icon of the Mother of God.

The Mother of God is the Source of Life, as Christ sprang forth from Her, and He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. At the core of every prayer lies the idea of the universal intercession of the Mother of God, Her tireless pleading before Her Divine Son, and Her all-powerful and abundant help to all those in need. The Most Holy Mother of God and the Divine Child are depicted on the icon above the large stone bowl standing over a spring. The water source filled with living water is surrounded by people who suffer from bodily ailments, passions and mental infirmities. All of them drink from this life-giving water and receive healing of all sorts. The meaning of this icon can be interpreted in two ways: It highlights the fact that the Mother of God gave birth to the Eternal Life, the Son of God in the flesh, and also Her relationship with the world—as the cure of all ills.

The appearance of the Bright Friday: The Life-Giving Spring of the TheotokosAfter Leo became Emperor as the Most-Holy Theotokos had prophesied he raised up a church over the spring, whose waters worked many healings and cured maladies by the grace of the Theotokos; from this, it came to be called the ”Life-giving Spring.” The Church of Christ celebrates the consecration of this church on this day.

“>icon of the “Life-Giving Spring” has to do with a miraculous event that took place in the fifth century on April 4 (according the Old calendar), 450 AD. In Constantinople, not far from the so-called “Golden Gates,” there was once a grove dedicated to the Mother of God. Leo Marcellus, a warrior and a future emperor, once met there a blind, helpless traveler who had lost his way. Leo helped him to find the right path and to settle down in the shade to rest while he went to find water to keep the blind man going. Suddenly he heard a voice: “Leo! Don’t look for water too far away, it is here, near you.” Astonished by the mysterious voice, he went to search for water, but didn’t find it. When he stopped musing about it in regret, he heard the voice for the second time, saying “Emperor Leo! Step inside in the shade of this grove, draw from the water you will find here, and give it to the one who thirsts to drink, and apply the silk that you will find in the spring on his eyes. Then you will learn of Me Who sanctifies this place. I will help you soon to build a temple here in My name, and everyone who comes here in faith and calls on My name will see the fulfillment of their prayers and be fully healed of their ailments.” Leo fulfilled everything that She commanded him to do, and the blind man immediately gained his sight and went without a guide to Constantinople, glorifying the Mother of God.

When in 457AD Leo I, nicknamed the Great, was crowned emperor, he remembered the words he had heard from the Mother of God, and built a church there. He called it the Life-Giving Spring and ordered an icon painted. This spring became famous for many miracles, as did the “Life-Giving Spring” Icon of the Mother of God. This name was also given to a monastery founded there later.

In the centuries since, the Church of the Life-Giving Spring was repeatedly rebuilt and beautified. In the fifteenth century, Nicephoros Kallistos, the Byzantine church historian, wrote the order of the divine service for the feast of the renewal of the church. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the church was destroyed and lay in ruins for more than three hundred years. Much later, in 1834-1835, another church to the Mother of God was built over the sacred Life-Giving spring.

The icon of the Life-Giving Spring was also widely known in Russia from ancient times. The celebration honoring the icon during the Bright Paschal Week is yet more proof that it was deeply revered among Russian people. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a copy of the icon of “Life-Giving Spring” was brought to Sarov Monastery. The great elder St. Seraphim of Sarov

“>Seraphim held it in great reverence and directed many people to pray before it. Besides Sarov Monastery, similar icons were known in the churches of many dioceses of the Russian Church, because the need to quench spiritual thirst has existed before and still lives in our people.

Photo: sobory.ru The city of Saratov has its own chapel of the “Life-Giving Spring.” It is located on Teatralnaya Square. It is a small structure with snow-white walls, stucco-decorated columns, and a gilded dome. Prayer services are held in the chapel and the believers come there to pray or place a candle. A bowl holding holy water is located in the center of the chapel.

The Mother of God, depicted as if floating above the bowl, embraces Her Child and looks into eyes of those who come to pray there. She knows our doubts, weariness, and fear. But She is also well aware of our doubts: life without faith is akin to a dried-up spring, a ditch covered with slime. Such a life holds no future. Only restlessness of soul, anxiety, and unfounded vexation of spirit. We seek to find a source to quench our thirst everywhere else—only not at the holy and life-giving spring. We look for it, some here, some there. But we fail to find it. And we feel resentful towards life. But what if we should end up before the icon of the “Life-Giving Spring” and come to our senses? May our minds find clarity, and our souls find wondrous powers, and may a simple thought come to us: “I have been seeking all this in the wrong places; I have been trying to quench my thirst elsewhere.”

The thrill couldn’t get any better — or so Forrest Tucker thought.

As a longtime welder for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and as a talented sculptor, Tucker was honored to be asked to create a lasting tribute to the four race car drivers who have won the Indianapolis 500 four times.

Beginning in 2019, Tucker has sculpted four bronze bricks in honor of A. J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr., Rick Mears and Hélio Castroneves, with their names and the years they won the race on the bricks, which have been placed among the Speedway’s original red bricks at the start-finish line.

“To do something in the racing world that is part of the history of the Speedway — and my part will be there long after I’m gone — it’s the honor of a lifetime,” said the now-retired, 65-year-old Tucker, a member of Mary, Queen of Peace Parish in Danville. “I got a chance to meet the drivers and had some good conversations with them. I got a really close look at who they are as people. They’re all unique, as Christ made us.”

While Tucker will always admire these four legends in the racing world, he has a deeper spiritual connection to someone he also regards as an American hero — someone who is on the path to potential sainthood, someone whose remarkable life has challenged Tucker to create a sculpture that captures the essence of that person.

This is the unlikely story of the connection between Tucker, a humble sculptor from the countryside of Hendricks County, and Father Augustus Tolton, who was born into slavery and overcame the racism of his country and his church to become a boundless source of hope, humanity and Christ’s love in the slums of Chicago in the late 19th century.

Father Tolton’s sainthood cause began in 2010. In 2019, Pope Francis declared him “venerable,” recognizing that he lived a life of heroic virtue. But Tucker didn’t know anything about the first recognized priest of African descent in the United States until he experienced a small, personal moment of doubt and fear in 2021.

At the time, Tucker’s friend, Cheryl Shockley, had organized a blood drive in honor of her youngest child, Jack Shockley, who was murdered in 2020, at age 24, during an attempted robbery outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Indianapolis.

But Tucker was reluctant to go to the blood drive. His wife of now 47 years, Dawn, has struggled with multiple sclerosis for most of their married life, and Tucker doesn’t like to leave her on weekends when he doesn’t have caregiver help. And the blood drive was in the gym at Christ the King Parish on the northside of Indianapolis, a long drive from Danville. Then there were the facts that he had never donated blood and he wasn’t fond of needles.

Still, the pull of friendship with Cheryl and her husband, Steve, finally made him go.

“Cheryl was greeting people as they came in,” Tucker recalled in an interview with The Criterion, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. “She had a table full of prayer cards and pictures of saints. And one of the prayer cards was Father Tolton. She asked me if I’d ever heard of Father Tolton. I said no. She said, ‘Forrest, I think we need to pray to Father Tolton. We need prayers for this country, for the healing — because there’s so much violence being done.’”

“Cheryl is one of those persons when they say to do something, you say yes,” Tucker said. “So, I took a prayer card. When my number came up to give blood, I sat in the chair, and I was kind of nervous when I saw the tubes and needles. The technician told me to just relax. I decided to pray to Father Tolton. It just came to me. I closed my eyes and prayed to Father Tolton, who I knew nothing about.”

As he prayed, Tucker said, “I had the strongest image that came to my mind of Father Tolton with this grieving woman. It was so different and vivid and strong. It was just these two people in a moment. It was a strange thing that happened to me. There were 100 people in that gym. People were talking, and kids were throwing balls, but I didn’t hear any noise during that time. When I got up, I gave Cheryl a hug. I didn’t tell her about it.”

As he drove home, Tucker couldn’t get the image of Father Tolton and the grieving woman out of his mind. The father of three grown children also found himself wanting to learn all he could about Father Tolton.

Born to enslaved parents in Missouri, Augustus Tolton, two siblings and his mother, Martha Tolton, escaped slavery by crossing the Mississippi River to Illinois and freedom in 1862.

When the Civil War broke out, Augustus’ father, Peter, had escaped to serve with the Union Army but soon died of illness. His mother thereafter fled with young Augustus and his two siblings, rowing them across the Mississippi River to Illinois, eventually reaching Quincy, where they settled.

After working in a factory and attending Catholic schools (often facing harassment in the process), Augustus discerned a religious vocation. He moved to Rome in 1880 to study for the priesthood, since no seminary in the United States would accept him due to his race.

Upon his 1886 ordination, Father Tolton was sent back to the United States, first to Quincy and then later Chicago. Despite repeated rejection, he persisted in his pastoral work, founding St. Monica Parish on Chicago’s South Side. His reverence, humility, zeal and exceptional singing voice drew both Black and white Catholics from all economic classes. In 1897, Father Tolton collapsed from heat stroke July 8, 1897, and died the next day. He was 43.

“Perseverance comes to mind about him,” Tucker said. “Despite what he went through, the obstacles that were in his way, he never wavered in his faith. He let nothing separate him from God. That was one of the big takeaways for me.”

While Father Tolton’s life was marked by an undeniable perseverance, the image of him extending his hand in compassion to a grieving woman persisted in the mind of Tucker.

“At first, it didn’t even come to my mind that this was a sculpture,” Tucker said. “But I kept thinking about it. The image lingered, but I didn’t tell anybody about it, not even Dawn.”

Tucker’s most personal pieces have always been related to the sacred.

One of his most impressive sculptures is of Christ’s crown of thorns, one of the special times that he believes the Holy Spirit was guiding his hands. So, he turned to the Holy Spirit for guidance about what he should do with his mental image of Father Tolton and the grieving woman.

“I was praying, ‘Holy Spirit, what am I supposed to do with this?’ The image was too complicated, too detailed. I don’t have the ability to do this as a sculpture. It’s way out of my league.

“The Spirit kept pulling me, and finally I said OK. I said I’ll sculpt this in clay, but it’s not going to look good. It won’t work out. But I said I’ll have faith.’

He started sculpting it in May 2022, working on it all summer and fall. In October, “I finally had a sculpture in clay of the image I saw,” he said, but he didn’t know what to do with it.

Conversations with two priests in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis led him to a meeting with the diocesan postulator for Father Tolton’s cause for sainthood — retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago.

Bishop Perry invited Tucker to come to Chicago, and they met in April 2023.

“Forrest’s sculpture of Father Tolton is among the only few sculpted figures of Tolton over the years,” Bishop Perry told The Criterion. “When he showed me his clay model of the sculpture of Father Tolton extending his hand to a downtrodden woman, I immediately became aware that Forrest had captured the temperament of Father Tolton, who ministered all his priesthood to the abject poor in Quincy and in Chicago.”

Tucker “shares with Father Tolton those Christian attributes that have the power to change society and the world if people would struggle through their fears of one another,” said Bishop Perry, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism. “Forrest’s sculpture brings complement to this cause for sainthood of our beloved first priest of African descent to labor in the United States.”

After casting the sculpture in wax for six months, Tucker’s next step is bringing the sculpture to life in bronze. He plans to finish the process so he can share it with Bishop Perry when the shepherd comes to Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July.

One of the questions that he gets regarding the sculpture of Father Tolton and the grieving woman is, “Who is the woman depicted in that moment?”

Tucker said it’s a mystery to him.

“Life can be pretty tough, and you can encounter some pretty tough obstacles,” Tucker said. “Yet no matter what happens to you, there’s nothing that can separate you from God.”

A federal appeals court May 8 ruled in favor of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, protecting religious schools’ freedom to hire schoolteachers who will uphold their religious beliefs.

In Billard v. Diocese of Charlotte, a former substitute teacher sued Charlotte Catholic High School and the diocese for not calling him back to work as a substitute teacher after he entered a same-sex union and posted about it on Facebook. That contradicted Catholic teachings about marriage and violated the diocese’s employment policy, disqualifying him to assist the school in fulfilling its mission, the school and diocese argued.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, overturned a lower court ruling and reaffirmed the school’s freedom to employ teachers who will uphold the faith.

“This is a victory for people of all faiths who cherish the freedom to pass on their faith to the next generation,” said Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, a nonprofit law firm specializing in religious liberty, which represents the diocese pro-bono in the case. “The Supreme Court has been crystal clear on this issue: Catholic schools have the freedom to choose teachers who fully support Catholic teaching.”

The Diocese of Charlotte has operated Catholic schools across western North Carolina for more than 50 years. Its 20 schools provide a top-notch education that also helps students grow in the Catholic faith, making the opportunity widely available to students of all backgrounds. To ensure teachers are helping the diocese fulfill its mission, the diocese asks all of its teachers — Catholic and non-Catholic — to uphold the Catholic faith in word and deed.

Lonnie Billard taught English and drama at Charlotte Catholic High School for over a decade before retiring and then returning as a substitute teacher. Billard received training in the school’s religious mission and signed a contract agreeing to uphold church teaching. In 2015, he entered a same-sex union in knowing violation of church teaching and wrote about it on Facebook, where he was friends with many of the school’s faculty and families.

When the school stopped calling him to work as a substitute teacher, he partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union to sue the school and the diocese, seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation.
In its ruling, the 4th Circuit explained the First Amendment requires civil courts to “stay out” of employment disputes involving ministers. The court found that Billard was a minister because Charlotte Catholic requires its teachers to “model and promote Catholic faith and morals.” Billard therefore played a “vital role” in advancing the school’s religious mission — even if he taught secular subjects such as English and drama.

“Many of our parents work long hours and make significant sacrifices so their children can attend our schools and receive a faithful Catholic education,” Assistant Superintendent Allana Ramkissoon said in a statement. “That’s because we inspire our students not only to harness the lessons and tools they need to thrive, but to cherish their faith as a precious gift from God.”

Besides North Carolina, the 4th Circuit’s jurisdiction includes Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and South Carolina.

“The time has come for a new Jubilee when once more the Holy Door will be flung open to invite everyone to an intense experience of the love of God that awakens in hearts the sure hope of salvation in Christ,” Pope Francis said in a document formally proclaiming the Holy Year 2025.

Christians must “abound in hope” to be credible witnesses of God’s love, he wrote, and they can give signs of that hope by having children, welcoming migrants, visiting prisoners, working for peace, opposing the death penalty, helping young people find a job, pressuring rich countries to forgive the debt of poor countries, praying for the souls in purgatory and lobbying to divert money from military spending to food aid.

The document, called a “bull of indiction,” specifies that the holy year will open at the Vatican Dec. 24 this year and close Jan. 6, 2026, the feast of Epiphany. Pope Francis also asked bishops around the world to inaugurate the holy year in their dioceses Dec. 29 this year and celebrate the conclusion of the jubilee locally Dec. 28, 2025.

During a brief ceremony in front of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica May 9, Pope Francis handed the document to the archpriests of the papal basilicas of St. Peter, St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major, the vicar of the archpriest of the Basilica of St. John Lateran and to top officials of the dicasteries for Evangelization, the Eastern Churches and Bishops.

Msgr. Leonardo Sapienza, an apostolic protonotary and official of the papal household, read excerpts from the document, which is titled, “Spes Non Confundit,” (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”).

“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross,” Pope Francis wrote in the document.

In a world seemingly marked by war, divisions, environmental destruction and economic challenges, hope can seem hard to come by, he said. But “Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love.”

In addition, people need to look around and seek signs of hope, he said. “We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence.”

People’s yearning for peace, their desire for a relationship with Jesus and growing concern for the environment are all signs that hope still exists, the pope wrote.

“The desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters as a sign of the fruitfulness of their love,” he said, is another sign of hope and one that “ensures a future for every society.”

But the “alarming decline in the birthrate” in many countries shows how governments and communities must work together to support young couples who want to give that sign of hope to the world, he said.

The theme for the holy year is “Pilgrims of Hope,” and in the document Pope Francis called on Catholics not only to strengthen their own sense of hope, but also to “be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.”

Listing prisoners as the first category of people in need of hope, the pope said he wants to open a Holy Door in a prison although he provided no further details. But he asked governments around the world to consider jubilee amnesty and pardon programs and urged greater efforts to ensure those who have completed a sentence are assisted in their return to society.

He called on all Catholics, but especially bishops, to “be one in demanding dignified conditions for those in prison, respect for their human rights and above all the abolition of the death penalty, a provision at odds with Christian faith and one that eliminates all hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation.”

Pope Francis also called on the church to take special care of young people, who are supposed to be “the embodiment of hope,” but often seem overwhelmed by “an uncertain and unpromising future.”

And migrants, who leave their homelands in search of a better life for themselves and their families, also need support to keep their hope alive, he said, adding that “their expectations must not be frustrated by prejudice and rejection.”

Pilgrims of hope also should help the souls in purgatory, the pope wrote as he introduced a discussion on a key feature of jubilee celebrations: indulgences, which the church describes as a remission of the temporal punishment a person is due for their sins.

“Every sin ‘leaves its mark’” even after a person has received forgiveness and absolution through the sacrament of reconciliation, he said. “Sin has consequences, not only outwardly in the effects of the wrong we do, but also inwardly, inasmuch as ‘every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death, in the state called Purgatory,’” he wrote, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

“The evil we have done cannot remain hidden; it needs to be purified in order to enable this definitive encounter with God’s love,” the pope said. “Here we begin to see the need of our prayers for all those who have ended their earthly pilgrimage, our solidarity in an intercession that is effective by virtue of the communion of the saints, and the shared bond that makes us one in Christ, the firstborn of all creation.”

“The Jubilee indulgence, thanks to the power of prayer, is intended in a particular way for those who have gone before us, so that they may obtain full mercy,” Pope Francis wrote. He said a full set of norms for the jubilee indulgence would be published later.

ROME — In the abstract, one might have thought the stars were aligned in March 2013 for an era of good feelings between the new leader of Roman Catholicism, Pope Francis, and the church outside the Western sphere, perhaps especially in Africa.

After all, Francis is history’s first pope from the developing world, seeing himself as a tribune for the poor and excluded, including victims of both armed conflict and neocolonial exploitation. Africa probably is the continent on earth where those messages resonate the most deeply.

There certainly have been moments when that potential seemed realized, such as Francis’ dramatic January 2023 trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, when he famously thundered, “Hands off Congo, hands off Africa! It is not a mine to be stripped, or a terrain to be plundered.”

Yet it’s unmistakable that in many ways, Africa has been as much a headache as a backstop for the Francis papacy over the past 11 years.

During the contentious 2014-2015 Synods of Bishops on the Family, for example, African prelates such as Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier were among the leading voices of skepticism about the idea of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, often butting heads with progressive German bishops such as Cardinal Walter Kasper, who favored the proposal.

So strong was the contrast, in fact, that I suggested at the time a great book title on the two synods would be “The Rhine Flows into the Tiber … and Meets the Zambezi.”

Later on, Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea emerged as a leading conservative critic of several aspects of the Francis papacy, including mounting a spirited defense of clerical celibacy around the 2019 Synod on the Amazon where other bishops were proposing relaxing the requirement.

Most recently, of course, the bishops of Africa en masse have declared Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican document authorizing blessings of couples in same-sex relationships, a dead letter on their continent.

There’s an ironic sense in which, despite being widely described as “Eurocentric,” Pope Benedict XVI actually generated more natural sympathy among many African prelates.

When much of Western Europe vilified Benedict in 2009 after he suggested that encouraging condom use might make the problem of HIV/AIDS worse, including an unprecedented formal censure from the Belgian parliament, I vividly recall several African prelates declaring that if Europe no longer wanted the pope, he’d be welcome among them.

The plain fact of the matter is that Francis is presiding over a theologically moderate-to-progressive papacy, at a time when the center of gravity among African prelates on most doctrinal questions, especially those most contentious under Francis, leans to the right.

Despite those tensions, both Pope Francis and the African church have powerful motives for finding a modus vivendi, because the raw truth is that they need one another.

On the African side of the equation, a contretemps in Congo involving Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo illustrates the point. The government under Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has announced an investigation that could lead to Ambongo being charged with sedition for his sharp public criticism of the failures of the state to address chronic security challenges and injustices, especially in Congo’s contested eastern region.

Though the Vatican has yet to react publicly to the news, should charges against Ambongo actually be filed, Rome could use its diplomatic and political leverage to make a global cause célèbre of the situation, significantly increasing the pressure on Tshisekedi to back off.

Although Catholics are a majority in Congo, this global influence of the Vatican may be especially valuable to clergy in nations where Catholics are a small minority. In effect, being part of a vast global institution with a following of 1.3 billion and the status of a sovereign state means that you’re never alone, no matter how small your local following may be.

Wherever church leaders face hostile regimes or uncertain security environments, which is often the case in some parts of Africa, that knowledge that they have the institutional machinery of the Vatican at their backs is like a warm blanket at night.

On the Vatican’s side of the equation, they have equally compelling motives for keeping the relationship with Africa green, no matter what the occasional tensions may be in the Francis era.

To begin with, Africa today supplies an important share of the missionary personnel of the church in various parts of the world, with Europe and North America very much included. Indeed, in some parts of the West, if all the African priests and nuns currently serving there were to leave, whole dioceses would be effectively shuttered.

In our own small Roman parish, our pastor is an Italian but the associate pastor is from Cameroon, and other priests who help out on an occasional basis hail from Congo, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. Without them, it’s unclear who, exactly, would keep the place afloat.

More basically, the Vatican needs Africa because it’s the zone of Catholicism’s greatest growth today, the spot on the map more than any other which contradicts the narrative of secularization and decline that haunts the church in most of the West.

During the last quarter of the 20th century, the Catholic population of sub-Saharan Africa exploded from 1.9 million to more than 130 million – a staggering growth rate of 6,708 percent. In many ways, Africa today is the motor that makes global Catholicism run, and popes know that as well as anyone else – probably better, in fact, than most.

As a result, African Catholicism and the Francis pontificate may have their issues, and the upcoming finale of the Synod of Bishops on synodality may once again put those fault lines on display. Yet a fundamental rupture does not seem in the forecast, for the simple reason that both parties to the relationship simply need one another too much.

Initiation into the Catholic faith as an adult involves a yearslong process of discernment and formation leading up to one life-changing moment: baptism. 

It’s a moment that Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco believes should be expressed more “forcefully and convincingly.” So this year, at his cathedral’s Easter Vigil liturgy, he incorporated some rarely used elements of the rite of baptism that date back to the first centuries of Christianity. 

In a phone interview, Cordileone explained the symbolism of the changes and shared his thoughts on what’s behind the apparent rise in adult conversions to Catholicism. 

Archbishop, you did baptisms at your Easter Vigil this year a little differently. What did you change, and why? 

The Church has always drawn spiritual lessons from space and time. The symbolism of east and west, for example, was part of an ancient practice when Christians being baptized renounced sin and professed their faith.

First, the catechumens and I stood on the west side of the baptismal font, with them facing west (toward me) as they did the renunciation of sin. The west is the last place where the light of the sun arrives, so it’s a place of darkness. So, renouncing sin is renouncing the darkness.

Then I walked to the other side and they turned around and faced toward the east (toward me) to profess their faith, because east is the source of light, where the sun rises. The rising sun symbolizes Christ rising from the dead, dispelling the darkness of sin and death. The east is also symbolic of paradise, where God created man and woman. The garden, located in the east, symbolizes the Christian journey from this world to the light of God’s kingdom. 

Another detail: This year, with help from local communities of the Neocatechumenal Way, we had an immersion baptismal font built in front of the regular font at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral here in San Francisco. On the sides there are icons painted in the style of Kiko Argüello, a Spanish artist who started the Neocatechumenal Way.

So, after professing their faith, the catechumens climbed a stepladder to enter the baptismal font from the west side. They went three steps down into the water and were immersed three times, symbolizing the three days Christ spent in the tomb. Then they walked three steps back up, symbolizing their being united with Christ in his resurrection. 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386 AD) spoke about these signs, telling Christians that “when you were immersed in the water it was like night for you and you could not see; but when you rose again it was like coming into broad daylight. In the same instant you died and were born again; the saving water was both your tomb and your mother.”

You had 17 adult baptisms at this year’s vigil. For the sake of time, why not just pour a little water on their foreheads, if the sacrament is just as valid?

Validity is a pretty low bar to determine how we celebrate the sacraments. Think of a married couple celebrating their wedding anniversary: You can take your wife to McDonald’s, or you can have a special candlelight dinner. They’re both meals, ways to mark your anniversary. But which one is really proper to the occasion?

Baptism is the door to all of the other sacraments. Yes, it’s a lot of heavy lifting to do a baptism by immersion — especially with the number of adults this year — but it’s very profound. The meaning of the sacrament is conveyed so much more forcefully and convincingly.

A couple of my traditionally minded friends were kind of suspicious about this idea of baptism by immersion. But what they saw at the Easter Vigil changed their minds, because they saw what it conveys and that it’s authentically within our tradition. In fact, we know from his writings that this was how baptisms were done in St. Cyril’s time. 

Your diocese, like many others around the country, saw a rise in adult baptisms this year. What do you think is behind it? 

A lot of what I hear is anecdotal, but do I know that we’ve been emphasizing that faith has to be a personal encounter. 

I recently had dinner with FOCUS missionaries serving here at San Francisco State University. And they’ll do things like play frisbee on the lawn and the students will come over and talk to them, and are surprised that they are Catholic missionaries. 

I would imagine the whole COVID-19 experience was part of it, too: People realized that we need in-person community, that virtual doesn’t work. 

I also wonder whether everything going on in society — the dehumanization, the different ideologies, the role of social media — kind of aggravates the sense of isolation, which leads to depression and anxiety. People are realizing that there must be a better way, and that it goes beyond this idea of being spiritual but not religious: They realize spirituality has to be within the context of a community of faith. My gut feeling is that these things have something to do with it.

On Paschal days, life is filled with joy, and even the other God’s creatures, animals and birds, praise the Lord these days! This story took place on April 24, 2020, during a cross procession, which was held with the blessing of Archbishop Sophrony of Mogilev and Mstislavl of the Belarusian Orthodox Church.

The Belynichi Icon of the Mother of God The traditional procession of the cross from Mogilev to Belynichi in honor of Holy Pascha and the Mother of God took place on Friday of Bright Week, on the eve of the feast-day of the Belynichi Icon of the Mother of God (April 12/25). According to Church tradition, this icon was brought in the thirteenth century by pious monks to the town of Belynichi and placed at St. Elias Church, where a miraculous, supernatural light shone from the icon of the Heavenly Queen during Vigil. This icon of the Theotokos is specially venerated in Belarus.

Those who participated in the cross procession recalled that an unusual pilgrim, a white stork, had joined the column at some point. In Belarus since ancient times, storks have been regarded as “birds of peace”. The number of their huge nests increases every year, and locals treat weak or injured “citizens of the sky” carefully.

The participants of the extraordinary event recalled the “winged pilgrim” with joy. As the procession was walking among the awakening spring fields, a stork appeared from somewhere. Making a circle over the cross procession, it began to descend, as if peering into the Belynichi Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, which the Cossacks in the cross procession were carrying on a special bearer.

After that, the stork descended and walked ahead! “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!” the pilgrims sang joyfully, while the tall, stately bird was strutting beside them.

    

The wonderful stork walked in procession right with the faithful along the side of the road as far as Belynichi—over seven miles! When the “winged pilgrim” was slightly behind, because the faithful were walking at a regular pace, it flew up to where the banners were being carried, and then walked again!

Those in the cross procession were worried for the stork’s life when the bird flew over to the traffic area. The traffic police car that accompanied the cross procession even delayed traffic several times so that cars would not accidentally knock down the “winged worshipper”. Then everyone begged it to cross or fly to the safe side of the road and continue along with the column, and the stork obeyed them.

But all the attempts of those in the cross procession to persuade the stork to rest were in vain: the bird walked on and on, afraid neither of people, nor of passing cars or trucks. This went on for more than four hours.

    

When the pilgrims would stop for a short rest, the bird would stroll serenely among groups of the faithful, but it was not so tame as to allow anyone to stroke it or to take food from their hands.

When they made their last halt in the woods just over a mile away from the town, the miraculous “pilgrim” stood, surrounded by people, listening to prayers and Paschal hymns. Then it went straight up to the Belynichi Icon of the Mother of God, bowed before it and, according to eyewitnesses, touched the highly venerated icon with its peak with reverence. After this pause, the stork proceeded as part of the cross procession to its final destination.

It was already dark when the pilgrims reached the town. The stork took wing, and making a circle of honor, as if blessing the people, flew away… This is a lesson of boundless devotion and trust in God and His Most Pure Mother that a brave bird taught the pilgrims. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord (Ps. 150:3). Christ is Risen!

Svetlana Rybakova

Translation by Dmitry Lapa

Sretensky Monastery