A look back on Pope Leo XIV visit to France, it's hoped for impact, through the eyes of a nun and undersecretary of Synod of Bishops

 

Sr Nathalie Becquart speaks to Vatican News in Metz 

Pope

• apostolic journey
• interview
• Pope Leo XIV
• France

Sr. Nathalie Becquart: Pope Leo’s Visit to France, a 'moment of grace'

In an interview with Vatican News as Pope Leo's Apostolic Journey to France draws to an end, Sister Nathalie Becquart, Undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, reflects on the Pope’s journey, its impact, and his message of peace and reconciliation in Metz.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov - Metz

“We are in a very secularized country, but Pope Leo has highlighted and given us, speaking also as French, really an awareness of our long history of faith in this country, and how Christianity has really shaped all of our history,” Sister Nathalie Becquart said, adding that the Pope has also “given hope for the future.”

The French-born Undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops expressed this sentiment in an interview with Vatican News as Pope Leo XIV's Apostolic Journey to France came to an end on Monday, after he had traveled to Paris, Lourdes, and Metz

During the conversation in Metz, Sr. Becquart described the journey as a “moment of grace,” highlighting the enthusiasm of those who came to encounter the Pope, the participation of young people and people with disabilities, and the Pope’s message of peace, reconciliation and hope for Europe.

In a special way, she suggested that through the Venerable Robert Schuman, "you can see concrete ways of what is possible."

Q: Now that Pope Leo's Apostolic Journey to France has come to an end, how would you assess its overall impact on the Church and on French society?

It's really a great gift for the French Church and also for our country, for France. We can feel such joy. I think so many people have been touched by what has happened. We can see that there was really a kind of encounter between Pope Leo and France, and between the Pope and so many people who were there. There was such mobilization and enthusiasm.

We are in a very secularized country, but Pope Leo has highlighted and given us, speaking also as French, really an awareness of our long history of faith in this country, and how Christianity has really shaped all of our history. At the same time, he recognized this while opening hope for the future, highlighting also how so many young people now are asking to be baptized and helping us, you know, just to be Christian amongst the others and to help the Church, yes, to continue the journey in this society.

I think it was really a gift because, like many other societies, especially in Europe, it's not an easy situation, with the international situation, so many divisions, and with the political and also economic situation. So, for so many people, it has really been a moment of joy, hope and feeling unity, as we really needed that.

It has been really a moment of grace, and we could see also how Pope Leo, I think, has been touched. We had beautiful celebrations. All the different moments were very well prepared in different ways.

I'm thinking of yesterday in Lourdes. That was really a very, very important moment, and it's really a place for people with disabilities, illness, so many people who are suffering in different ways, showing clearly, they could have a voice; they were at the center. The Pope also gave a very important speech in this context about the importance of the dignity of everyone, the dignity of life.

Today, with the European dimension, it was also, in the context of our country, to have together the President of the Republic, President Macron, the President of the Bishops' Conference, the Pope, of course, and so many different people in the room, with also the interreligious dimension, because they also delivered a commitment, one that's also highlighting the history of Europe, each one with his angle, but I think the fact that the Pope received that applause and received an ovation during such a time really speaks a lot. I believe that for everyone it has been a moment of grace.

Q: What do you hope will remain in France after Pope Leo's departure?

I think we can also really congratulate France. We didn't have very much time to prepare. So many people have been working, many behind the scenes. Everything went well, and it really is such a massive task to organize. But the good thing, including now, just at the end of the Mass, is that the gifts that were given to the Pope were prepared in a school by so many young people.

You realize that such a visit like this mobilizes so many people in many different ways. There were so many volunteers helping in each place, and so much preparation. You could see that so many people came because the Church is, first of all, relationships. It is a network, a network of dioceses and parishes.

The fact that you had so many young people in the Stade de France, for me, was already very significant. I've been serving in youth ministry here in France for ten years at the French Bishops' Conference, and I experienced this beautiful vigil in resonance also with World Youth Day in 1997.

We had been in Paris thirty years ago. That was also a kind of turning point for the French Church. I believe all we have experienced here is also, in a way, a kind of fruit of what, after World Youth Day, we have been able to do and to continue the journey.

This visit of the Pope will also be an historical moment like this. Really, you could feel that the Holy Spirit is there. The Holy Spirit will continue and there will be a lot of fruits, but I believe the people in France will need to take time also to process, because those were very intensive days. In my opinion, many people were really touched by the way Pope Leo is close to everyone, meeting also so many babies, people with disabilities, all kinds of people with such simplicity, closeness and authenticity. Many people are touched by that.

We can also highlight the group of victims and survivors who were listened to by the Pope. They were very, very touched by this deep listening. We also observe when the Pope is here among such a crowd and celebrating, that he is so peaceful. He has this inner peace, and it helps people to understand that we need to continue to work for peace.

That was the message from today and I believe it will really give strength, hope and confidence and light, you know, to continue the journey.

Q: You said that Pope Leo has this peaceful way that we notice, and he comes out often with the greeting "Peace be with you.” On the last day in Metz, in the city associated with Venerable Robert Schuman, what message do you believe Pope Leo wanted to send by including this important, though brief, moment in the Apostolic Journey?

I think the main message is that, especially because of the history of this region, so many people have suffered from three wars between France and Germany, and Robert Schuman, in his own life and in his family, experienced that. But he was a man of faith who was prophetic and had the intuition, just at the end of World War II, that we can't just continue with war, and that we need to find ways for peace and reconciliation.

So, the main message here, I think, is really to highlight that reconciliation is always possible if we believe in Christ, and we are called, as baptized people, to really embrace the Gospel message, which is a message of reconciliation and peace.

Through Robert Schuman, you can see concrete ways of what is possible. I think that was very important. And in the situation of Europe now, I think the Church has a very important duty to continue together to find ways for dialogue and peace. That, I would say, was a very important message that Pope Leo wanted to give, in a very symbolic and specific place, here.

Pope Leo XIV prays at the tomb of St. Paul

 

Pope Leo prays at the tomb of St Paul  (@Vatican Media)

Pope

• Pope Leo XIV
• prayer
• Rome

Pope Leo prays at tomb of St Paul

Pope Leo visits the tomb of St Paul and prays: “May the Lord grant me the grace to respond faithfully to his call.”

By Joseph Tulloch

On Tuesday afternoon, Pope Leo XIV visited the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls, the Roman church traditionally thought to hold the saint’s remains.

After a moment of prayer in front of St Paul’s tomb, the Pope presided over a brief service.  

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on a reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which, he said, contains three major themes – grace, faith, and justification – which can help illuminate the Petrine Ministry to which he has been called.

Grace

The Pope began by discussing the first of these topics, 'grace' - or God's help.

In his letter to the Romans, Pope Leo said, Paul acknowledges that encountered Christ only because Christ reached out to him first – his encounter and his subsequent ministry were “the fruit of God’s prior love, which called him to a new life while he was still far from the Gospel”.

St Augustine said something similar, Pope Leo noted, when he asked “How can we choose, unless we have first been chosen?  We cannot love, unless someone has loved us first”.

We cannot lead good lives without God's help, the Pope said, and this reality is “at the root of every vocation”.

Pope Leo delivers his homily   (@Vatican Media)

Faith

The Pope then turned to consider the role of faith in St Paul’s account of his calling.

When God appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, Pope Leo said, “he did not take away his freedom”, but rather gave him “the opportunity to make a decision”.

“Salvation does not come about by magic,” the Pope explained, “but by a mysterious interplay of grace and faith, of God’s prevenient love and of our trusting and free acceptance.”

Justification

The final aspect of Paul’s calling that Pope Leo considered was that of ‘justification’, or the process of increasing in holiness. The Acts of the Apostles describes how, after his vision of Jesus, Paul ceased persecuting Christians and began working alongside them.

The Pope urged his listeners to “compete” in showing this kind of love, which led St Paul to give himself so wholly to others that he was eventually martyred.

Love as the basis of every mission

Pope Leo brought his homily to a close with a quotation from Pope Benedict XVI: “God loves us.  This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful.” 

This insight, Pope Leo said, is “the basis of every mission”, including “my own mission as the Successor of Peter and the heir to Paul’s apostolic zeal."

“May the Lord grant me the grace to respond faithfully to his call", he concluded. 

A wonderful witness to the gift of consecrated virginity in a modern, 21st century world

 

Consecrated virgin ‘gives all, day and night,’

 amid Russia’s war in Ukraine

Olena Punda, a consecrated virgin for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Odesa-Simferopol, Ukraine, is seen Sept. 5, 2024, at the offices of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Odesa. Punda told OSV News her vocation enables her to "give all, day and night," to those impoverished by Russia’s war on Ukraine. (OSV News photo/Gina Christian)

By

Gina Christian

 

ODESA, Ukraine (OSV News) — A consecrated virgin in Ukraine told OSV News she is grateful for her vocation, which enables her to “give all, day and night,” to those impoverished by Russia’s decade-long war against her nation.

“For me it is a great privilege,” said Olena Punda, speaking to OSV News Sept. 5 in the historic port city of Odesa, located on the Black Sea.

Punda, who hails from Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine, took her vows as a consecrated virgin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Odesa-Simferopol in 2021, having formerly been a member of a religious congregation.

She told OSV News that while she was serving in her previous order — the “particular mission” of which was “working with the poor” — she “felt a calling to (an even) more personal relationship with God,” especially in prayer.

“I felt I needed more space for this personal prayer, and more time (for it),” said Punda.

She began discerning a vocation to the life of a consecrated virgin, by which a never-married, celibate woman, after a period of formation, vows under her diocesan bishop to dedicate herself to Christ “with spousal love … in virginity,” while remaining in her “ordinary context of life” in her diocesan community, as described in the 2018 Vatican instruction on the vocation, “Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago.”

The vocation, which emerged in the church’s first centuries but was eclipsed by consecrated life in religious communities, was renewed by St. Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council. In 1970, the pope promulgated a new liturgical rite for the consecration of women living “in saeculo” (“in the world”), as well as a form for perpetually professed nuns living in community.

Punda, who lives alone, begins her day at 5 a.m. with prayer at her home, where — with episcopal permission — a tabernacle is present. She then heads to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Odesa, whose main altar’s Marian image received a papal crown in August 2022 — eight months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which continues attacks launched in 2014.

Daily Mass is followed by morning prayer with “all the priests of the cathedral,” followed by a group breakfast, said Punda.

“We share the Eucharist and the table,” Punda said.

And then the work day begins, with the priests and Punda — who provides administrative support for Bishop Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk of Odesa-Simferopol — putting in long hours to keep the diocese running smoothly, even as Russia’s war on Ukraine has created a host of humanitarian and spiritual challenges.

“When the war started, our life changed, and our ministry expanded,” Punda said.

Along with handling chancery correspondence, Punda coordinates “various charity projects” and other initiatives for the diocese.

“And we also go out to extend a hand of help to the underprivileged and those who have suffered from the war,” especially those in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions within the diocese, she said.

Punda admitted that “sometimes it’s dangerous to go” to such places, given Russia’s relentless attacks on civilian targets.

But “there are people there where no one can reach them,” she said. “They need basic things, such as food, hygienics and cleaning products.”

In Odesa and other cities, the need is just as great, since “they are filled with internally displaced people who have no means to survive,” said Punda. “So many people come to our church just to have anything we can give.”

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — declared a genocide in joint reports by New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — approaches its third year, “there is a lot to be done” to help those suffering, Punda said.

Her vocation as a consecrated virgin uniquely enables her to assist the church in that mission, she said.

“It is important in a special way, because you can give all of you, day and night, when the need arises,” said Punda. “A wife or husband with children has so many cares, and they don’t necessarily have that opportunity to give themselves to that kind of service.”

Ultimately, her vocation is a grace, she said.

“It is God who can use me all the time that he needs, where he wants and to whom he wants,” said Punda.

Pope Francis speaks of confession; moment of grace and forgiveness

 

Pope Francis with participants in this year's course on the internal forum  (Vatican Media)

POPE

• POPE FRANCIS
• AUDIENCES
• PRIESTS
• SEMINARIANS
• SACRAMENTS

Pope: Confession offers ‘unique moment of grace and God’s forgiveness’

Pope Francis meets with future priests in an annual course on the internal forum, and invites them to administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation with a focus on “the sweetness of God’s love.”

By Devin Watkins

“May this year of preparation for the Jubilee see the Father's mercy blossom in many hearts and places, and so God may be ever more loved, recognized, and praised.”

Pope Francis expressed that hope on Friday as he met with seminarians taking part in a course on the internal forum organized by the Apostolic Penitentiary.

The annual course seeks to guide priests and future priests studying in Rome in the art of administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Experiencing ‘sweetness’ of God’s love

In his prepared remarks, the Pope told participants that their task is to help people who come for confession to experience “the sweetness of God’s love.”

“I encourage you,” he said, “to live each confession as a unique and unrepeatable moment of grace and to generously give the Lord's forgiveness, with affability, fatherhood, and I dare say, even with maternal tenderness.”

Pope Francis focused his reflections on three elements of the Act of Contrition, which penitents recite during confession before receiving absolution.

Repenting of our sins, not condemning ourselves in guilt

The Pope first spoke about “repentance,” saying it differs greatly from the psychological sense of guilt.

Repentance, he said, springs “entirely from the awareness of our misery in the face of God's infinite love and his limitless mercy.”

Christian repentance is not self-destructive but rather filled with confidence and trust in God’s forgiveness and fatherhood.

“The sense of sin is directly proportional to the perception of God's infinite love,” he said. “The more we feel his tenderness, the more we desire to be in full communion with Him, and the more evident the ugliness of evil in our lives becomes.”

Trusting in God’s goodness

Pope Francis then turned to the aspect of “trust,” as the Act of Contrition describes God as “all good and deserving of all my love.”

He noted that loving God above all things means putting God at the centre of our lives and entrusting everything to Him.

“This primacy,” he said, “animates every other love: for men and creation, because he who loves God loves his brother and seeks his good, always, in justice and peace.”

Resolving never to sin again, with God’s help

The Pope spoke finally about “resolution,” which is the penitent’s will not to fall again into the sin committed.

This firm will, he said, allows the Christian to pass from “attrition to contrition, from imperfect to perfect sorrow.”

The words—“I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin”—express a resolution, not a promise, said the Pope.

“None of us can promise God never to sin again,” he added, “and what is required to receive forgiveness is not a guarantee of impeccability, but a current intention, made with the right intention at the moment of confession.”

Our commitment to never sin again, said the Pope, is accompanied by our request for God’s help, without whom “no conversion would be possible.”

God shines through in mercy

Mercy, concluded Pope Francis, wraps up the Act of Contrition and expresses an important divine trait.

“Lord, mercy, forgive me,” are the final words of the prayer, he said. “God is mercy; mercy is His name, His face. It is good for us to remember this, always: in every act of mercy, in every act of love, the face of God shines through.”

Pope Francis speaks of God's grace

 

Pope Francis receives delegation of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit movement  (VATICAN MEDIA Divisione Foto)

POPE

• POPE FRANCIS
• ECCLESIAL MOVEMENTS

Pope: We must stand in awe of God's grace

Pope Francis welcomes a delegation of the 'Renewal in the Holy Spirit' Church movement in the Vatican, and urges them to move forward in prayer, especially adoration, evangelization, and communion.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"In a world dominated by the culture of having and efficiency, and also in a Church sometimes too worried about organization - be aware of this! - we all need to make room for thanksgiving, praise, and awe before God's grace," Pope Francis told a delegation of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit movement on Saturday morning.

Addressing those who lead and manage the Italian-based movement on the national level, the Pope offered a pastoral look at their presence and service, encouraging them to stay close to the Lord in all they do and to be concrete in their actions.

"I thank the Lord and I thank you," Pope Francis said, "for the good that the Renewal's communities sow in the midst of God's holy faithful people."

Prayer and evangelization

During the audience in the Vatican, the Pope urged them to go forward in prayer, especially adoration and evangelization.

"The charismatic movement by its very nature gives space and emphasis to prayer, especially prayer of praise, and this is very important," he said.

“The charismatic movement by its very nature gives space and emphasis to prayer, especially prayer of praise, and this is very important.”

"I ask you, brothers and sisters, to continue to serve the Church in this, especially by promoting the prayer of adoration," he added, especially a worship "in which silence is predominant, in which the Word of God prevails over our words, in short, a worship in which He, the Lord, is truly at the centre and not us."

Builders of communion

Their members, the Holy Father reiterated, must be at the service of the entire community, diocesan and parish, according to the pastoral indications of the Bishop.

The Pope also stressed the importance of their communion with other ecclesial realities, associations, movements, and groups, in a way that always "bears witness to fraternity, mutual esteem in diversity, collaboration in the commitment to common initiatives, at the service of the people of God, and also on social issues, where the dignity of persons is at stake."

"I urge you to be builders of communion, first among yourselves, within your movement, and then in your parishes and dioceses," he said.

The Holy Father concluded by expressing how he has grown to appreciate their movement more over the years, inviting them to go forward with joy, and entrusting them to the Blessed Mother.

“I urge you to be builders of communion...”

Editorial on baptisms, sacraments, traditions and more in light of this week's Vatican announcement

 

A baby is baptized in the Sistine Chapel  (ANSA)EDITORIAL

VATICAN

• ANDREA TORNIELLI
• FAITH
• HOMOSEXUALITY
• DICASTERY
• SACRAMENTS
• CATHOLIC CHURCH
• CHILDREN
• POPE JOHN PAUL I
• POPE JOHN PAUL II
• PAPAL MAGISTERIUM

The grace of baptism, tradition, and clerical tollhouses

Our Editorial Director reflects on the responses of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to questions concerning the celebration of baptism and transsexual and homosexual persons.

By Andrea Tornielli

St Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage who was martyred in 258, participating in a synod of African bishops observed: “God's mercy and grace should not be refused to anyone born”. And St Augustine wrote: “When children are presented to be given spiritual grace, it is not so much those holding them in their arms who present them – although, if these people are good Christians, they are included among those who present the children – as the whole company of saints and faithful Christians … It is done by the whole Mother Church which is in the saints, since it is as a whole that she gives birth to each and every one of them”.
 

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09/11/2023

Transsexual and homosexual persons and the Sacraments

These are two statements by the Fathers of the Church that attest to the absolute gratuitousness of baptism, in some way even relativizing the role of parents and godparents (“if they are good believers”) who ask for the sacrament and present the child. These words, better than others, illuminate the recent response of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to a Brazilian bishop’s questions about baptism.

The note, signed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandéz and approved by Pope Francis, shows a clear harmony with the recent papal magisterium. In fact, Pope Francis has repeatedly insisted that the door of the sacraments, and in particular that of baptism, must not remain closed, and that the Church should never turn into a tollhouse, but should instead welcome and accompany everyone on their bumpy paths in life.

The replies of the doctrinal dicastery, in the highly polarised context that characterizes the Church today, have provoked opposing reactions. Some fear that, by admitting the children of homosexual couples (whether they or adopted, or children of one of the two partners, even if generated by surrogate motherhood) to the sacrament of baptism would make both so-called “gay marriage” and the practice of surrogate motherhood (known as “womb renting” in Italian) morally licit. Such critics would do well to consider the relaxation of the prohibitions regarding who can serve as godparents at baptisms, which the Dicastery presents in the form of a question and answer.

It is interesting to note, first of all, a passage in the note that recalls that the newly published responses “re-propose, in substance, the fundamental contents of what has already been affirmed in the past by the Dicastery concerning these matters.” The reference is to previous pronouncements that have remained sub secreto, or reserved, (including one quoted in the footnote) that date back to earlier in this pontificate and its predecessors. Moreover, the initial quotations from the two Church Fathers proposed at the beginning of this article are contained, with many others, in a public document of the then Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at the time by Croatian Cardinal Franjo Šeper and Dominican Archbishop Jérôme Hamer. This was the instruction Pastoralis actio, approved in October 1980 by Saint John Paul II, in which he responded to a series of objections against the celebration of infant baptism, reaffirming the importance of an “immemorial practice” of apostolic origin that should not be abandoned.

The 1980 document had in fact already indirectly responded o those who today would deny baptism to children of homosexual couples because by baptizing them the Church would make gay unions or the practice of uterus surrogacy morally licit, affirming that the practice of infant baptism “is truly evangelical, since it has the force of witness, manifesting God's initiative and the gratuitous character of the love with which He surrounds our lives: ‘not that we loved God but that He loved us... We love, because He first loved us’ (1 John 4:10, 19)”. And “even in the case of adults, the demands that the reception of Baptism involves should not make us forget that “He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit (Tit. 3:5)”.

The instruction approved by Pope John Paul II forty-three years ago obviously took into account the changed social context and secularisation: “It sometimes happens that pastors are approached by parents who have little faith and practice their religion only occasionally, or even by non-Christian parents who request Baptism for their children for reasons that deserve consideration”. How should one act in such cases? While noting that the criterion remains valid, that the baptism of children is to be celebrated if there is an assurance that the child “will be given the benefit of a Christian upbringing”, the 1980 document specified: “With regard to the assurances, any pledge giving a well-founded hope for the Christian upbringing of the children deserves to be considered as sufficient”. Current practice in parishes attests to the fact that, following the example of the Nazarene, tireless in His search for every lost sheep, it is enough for a relative to make the commitment before the Church, in order not to close the door.

Today, is there not a greater need to believe more in the action of grace working through the sacraments, which are not a reward for the perfect but medicine for sinners? Should we not look more at the pages of the Gospel, where Jesus emerges as the One Who loves first, forgives first, embraces with mercy first, and where we see that it is within this embrace that people’s hearts are moved towards conversion?

And again, what fault do children have? However they came into the world, they are always God’s beloved and cherished creatures. Would it not be better, then, to focus more on the positive, namely the fact that people ask for baptism in a post-Christianity context, where it is increasingly rare for it to happen out of mere custom?

It is comforting to reread the words that a great 20th-century bishop had spoken in an interview in July 1978 about Luise Brown, the first “test-tube baby”. He denounced the risk that “baby factories”, separated from family contexts, might arise and explained that he shared “only partially” the enthusiasm for the experiment. But in the end, he offered his “best wishes to the child” and an affectionate thought to the parents, saying: “I have no right to condemn them: subjectively, if they have acted with the right intention and in good faith, they may even have great merit before God for what they have decided and asked the doctors to carry out”. That bishop was Albino Luciani, at the time the Patriarch of Venice, who a month later would become John Paul I and today he is recognized as Blessed.