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catholicnewsherald.com | July 8, 2022 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD
Amid war, reconciliation among Christians can foster peace, pope says
(Right) Pope Francis and Orthodox Archbishop Job of Telmessos, head a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, pray in front of the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29.
JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
(Below) Deacons ascend the stairs from near the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican June 29 as they carry palliums for Pope Francis to bless and distribute to archbishops named during the past year. The pope blesses the palliums, woolen stoles worn around the shoulders, during Mass each year on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. CNS | VATICAN MEDIA
Pope at pallium Mass: Freedom comes from welcoming Christ JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
VATICAN CITY — Sts. Peter and Paul were great not just because of their zeal for the Gospel, but because they allowed Christ to enter their hearts and change their lives, Pope Francis said. “The Church looks to these two giants of faith and sees two apostles who set free the power of the Gospel in our world, but only because first they themselves had been set free by their encounter with Christ,” the pope said during his homily at Mass for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29. The feast day celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica included the traditional blessing of the pallium, the woolen band that the heads of archdioceses wear around their shoulders over their Mass vestments. The pallium symbolizes an archbishop’s unity with the pope and his authority and responsibility to care for the flock the pope entrusted to him. The pope blessed the palliums after they were brought up from the crypt above the tomb of St. Peter. According to the Vatican, 34 archbishops from 18 countries who were named over the past 12 months were to receive the palliums. “This sign of unity with Peter recalls the mission of the shepherd who gives his life for the flock,” the pope told the archbishops before concluding his homily. “It is in giving his life that the shepherd, himself set free, becomes a means of bringing freedom to his brothers and sisters.” Keeping with a long tradition, a delegation from the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople was present for the Mass and, afterward, went with Pope Francis down the stairs below the main altar to pray at St. Peter’s tomb. In his homily, the pope reflected on the lives of Sts. Peter and Paul, the “two pillars of the Church” who, after experiencing God’s love in their lives,
“became apostles and ministers of freedom for others.” Because of Jesus’ unconditional love, Peter was set free “from his sense of inadequacy and his bitter experience of failure,” the pope explained. While Peter “often yielded to fear,” Jesus “was willing to take a risk on him” and encouraged him to not give up. “In this way, Jesus set Peter free from fear, from calculations based solely on worldly concerns,” the pope said. “He gave him the courage to risk everything and the joy of becoming a fisher of men. It was Peter whom Jesus called to strengthen his brothers in faith.” On the other hand, the pope continued, Paul experienced a different kind of freedom “from the most
oppressive form of slavery, which is slavery to self.” Christ also freed Paul “from the religious fervor that had made him a zealous defender of his ancestral traditions and a cruel persecutor of Christians,” he added. “Formal religious observance and the intransigent defense of tradition, rather than making him open to the love of God and of his brothers and sisters, had hardened him,” the pope said. God, however, did not spare Paul from “frailties and hardships,” such as illness, violence and persecution during his missions, thus revealing to the apostle that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,” he said. Pope Francis encouraged Christians to be free from fear like Peter and, like Paul, to be free “from the temptation to present ourselves with worldly power rather than with the weakness that makes space for God” and “free from a religiosity that makes us rigid and inflexible.” “Peter and Paul bequeath to us the image of a Church entrusted to our hands, yet guided by the Lord with fidelity and tender love,” the pope said. “A Church that is weak, yet finds strength in the presence of God. A Church set free and capable of offering the world the freedom that the world by itself cannot give: freedom from sin and death, from resignation, and from the sense of injustice and the loss of hope that dehumanizes the lives of the women and men of our time,” he said.
VATICAN CITY — Now more than ever, divided Christians must reconcile with each other and become signs of peace in a time of war, Pope Francis said. Meeting with a delegation from the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople June 30, the pope said that as war continues to rage in Ukraine, it is a time not for “talking and discussing, but for weeping, for helping others and for experiencing conversion ourselves.” “Reconciliation among separated Christians, as a means of contributing to peace between peoples in conflict is a most timely consideration these days, as our world is disrupted by a cruel and senseless war of aggression in which many, many Christians are fighting one another,” he said. Continuing a long-standing tradition, the delegation, led by Orthodox Archbishop Job of Telmessos, was in Rome to participate in the celebration of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. In turn, a delegation from the Vatican travels to Istanbul every year in November to commemorate the Orthodox feast of St. Andrew the Apostle. In his address, the pope said the presence of the delegation at the June 29 Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica “was a source of great joy for me and for all present,” as well as a visible reminder of “the closeness and fraternal charity of the church of Constantinople toward the Church of Rome.” The exchange of delegations each year, he added, serves as “a tangible sign that the days of distance and indifference, when our divisions were considered irreparable, is long past.” Recalling the words of the late Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, the pope said that as “sister churches, brother peoples,” Orthodox Christians and Catholics must unite in answering the call to help those suffering in war. Pope Francis subtly alluded to support by leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church for Russia’s war on Ukraine. “We also need to experience conversion and to recognize that armed conquest, expansionism and imperialism have nothing to do with the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed,” the pope said. It has “nothing to do with the risen Lord, who in Gethsemane told His disciples to reject violence, to put the sword back in its place, since those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and who, cutting short every objection, simply said: ‘Enough!’” he said. The long-sought goal of Christian unity, he continued, can become a reality when both churches exemplify “a more fraternal humanity” and follow Jesus’ call “to be merciful and never violent, to be perfect as the Father is perfect, and not be conformed to the world.” “Let us start anew from Him and recognize that it is no longer the time to order our ecclesial agendas in accordance with the world’s standards of power and expediency, but in accordance with the Gospel’s bold prophetic message of peace,” the pope said. Pope Francis expressed his hope that the continuing theological dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Church will help to promote “a new mentality” that can help both sides “look together to the present and future, without letting ourselves be trapped in the prejudices of the past.” “Let us not be content with an ‘ecclesiastical diplomacy’ that would allow us to politely maintain our own points of view, but instead journey together as brothers and sisters,” he said.
