The Catholic Church needs the enthusiasm, daring and hope of young people so that it can preach the Gospel energetically and respond to the questions men and women raise today, Pope Francis told some 300 young adults.
The Catholic Church needs the enthusiasm, daring and hope of young people so that it can preach the Gospel energetically and respond to the questions men and women raise today, Pope Francis told some 300 young adults.
After two years working on a documentary about Pope Francis, the noted German filmmaker Wim Wenders said he is most struck by the pope’s courage.
While Pope Francis may be the one who finally canonizes Blessed Óscar Romero, Cardinal José Gregorio Rosa Chávez – his one-time close friend – says he believes the late El Salvadoran martyr will be known as “the saint of four popes.”
In just five years as leader of the universal church, Pope Francis has made 22 international trips, traveling 154,906 miles – the equivalent of six times around the world.
Despite perceptions in some quarters that they represent competing visions of the world, U.S. President Donald Trump on March 13 reached out to Pope Francis, offering him congratulations on behalf of the American people on the fifth anniversary of his election to the papacy.
By truly listening to the penitent during confession, “we listen to Jesus himself, poor and humble; by listening to the Holy Spirit, we put ourselves in attentive obedience, becoming listeners of the Word” in order to know what God wants to be done, he said.
Pope Francis shakes hands with Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., during a private audience at the Vatican.
When Pope Francis was elected five years ago today, he came into office with a reform mandate and a vow to make the Church less self-referential, focused on the peripheries rather than the center. Many of the challenges ahead seemed obvious: shaking up the Roman curia, cleaning up the Vatican’s finances, and continuing the work of clerical sex abuse reform efforts.
In his formal documents, many speeches and unscripted morning homilies the past five years, Pope Francis has given the church plenty of “food for thought” on many issues of great importance.
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election, retired Pope Benedict XVI defended the continuity of the Church’s teaching under his successor and dismissed those who criticize the pope’s theological foundations.