Habemus Papam

"I announce to you with great joy;

We have a Pope;

The most eminent and most reverend Lord

Jorge Mario

Cardinal of Holy Roman Church Bergoglio

Who has taken the name Francis."

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On 13 March 2013 at 8:24pm, the Holy Father Francis, preceded by the Cross, appeared at the Loggia of the brightly lit Vatican Basilica. Before imparting the “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world) apostolic blessing he greeted the enormous crowd that had been gathering all afternoon in cold and rainy St. Peter's Square saying:

“Dear brothers and sisters,

Good evening. You know that the duty of the Conclave was to give Rome a bishop. It seems that my brother cardinals picked him from almost the ends of the earth. But here we are! I thank you for the warm welcome. The diocesan community of Rome has its bishop. Thank you! First and foremost I would like to say a prayer for our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI. Let us pray together for him, that the Lord bless him and the Virgin keep him.”

After leading the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Gloria, Pope Francis again addressed the crowd saying:

“And now let us begin this journey, bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which is the one that leads all the churches in charity. A journey of fraternity, of trust between us. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the world so that this might be a great brotherhood. I hope that this journey of the Church that we begin today, and in which my Cardinal Vicar here present will assist me, will be fruitful for the evangelization of this beautiful city.”

“Now I would like to impart the blessing, but first, first I ask a favor of you. Before the bishop blesses the people, I ask that you pray to the Lord that He bless me: the prayer of the people asking a blessing for their bishop. Let us pray in silence, this your prayer for me.”

“Now I will impart the blessing to you and all the world, to all men and women of good will.”

After imparting the apostolic blessing Pope Francis added: “Brothers and sisters, I take my leave. Thank you for your warm welcome. Tomorrow I'm going to pray to the Virgin, that she will safeguard all of Rome. Good night and rest well.”

For more information, please visit:

 http://www.news.va/en/news/habemus-papam-cardinal-bergolio-elected-pope

 http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-his-first-words

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May the Lord bless our Holy Father Pope Francis

as he leads the Church on our journey of faith.

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May God Grant Us a New Pope as a Gift of His Goodness and Providence

“During the vacancy of the Apostolic See, and above all during the time of the election of the Successor of Peter, the Church is united in a very special way with her Pastors and particularly with the Cardinal electors of the Supreme Pontiff, and she asks God to grant her a new Pope as a gift of his goodness and providence. Indeed, following the example of the first Christian community spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 1:14), the universal Church, spiritually united with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, should persevere with one heart in prayer; thus the election of the new Pope will not be something unconnected with the People of God and concerning the College of electors alone, but will be in a certain sense an act of the whole Church. I therefore lay down that in all cities and other places, at least the more important ones, as soon as news is received of the vacancy of the Apostolic See and, in particular, of the death of the Pope, and following the celebration of his solemn funeral rites, humble and persevering prayers are to be offered to the Lord (cf. Mt 21:22; Mk 11:24), that he may enlighten the electors and make them so likeminded in their task that a speedy, harmonious and fruitful election may take place, as the salvation of souls and the good of the whole People of God demand.”

Universi Dominici Gregis
On the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff

 (No. 84)

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_22021996_universi-dominici-gregis_en.html

Statue of Saint Peter in the Basilica

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The Conclave will begin on Tuesday, 12 March 2013. A “pro eligendo Romano Pontifice” Mass will be celebrated in Saint Peter’s Basilica at 10:00 that morning. In the afternoon, the cardinals will enter into the Conclave.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/conclave-to-begin-tuesday-march-12th

 

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For everything you want to know about a Conclave, please listen to a Vatican Radio interview with Monsignor John Kennedy from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

http://www.news.va/en/news/questions-of-faith-congregations-conclaves-and-smo

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"All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus...."

Acts 1:14

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Let us go forward with the Lord for the good of the Church and the world.

On 28 February 2013, shortly after 5:00 pm, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI left the Vatican for the last time as Supreme Pontiff…. In full military regalia, the Swiss Guard troops paid him homage. Many of the workers of the Vatican City State, with their families, were also in attendance and greeted the Pope with warm applause.

Before leaving the Vatican, Benedict XVI issued his last tweet: “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives.”

Shortly afterwards the Holy Father, accompanied by his private secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the Papal Household, took a car to the Vatican heliport where he boarded the helicopter that carried him to Castel Gandolfo. As the helicopter lifted off, the bells of St. Peter's Basilica and the churches of Rome began ringing.

The Pope's helicopter flew over the city of Rome, passing by the Colosseum and St. John Lateran Basilica, and landed at the Castel Gandolfo heliport just after 5:20 pm….The Pope was then taken by car to the Castel Gandolfo Apostolic Palace, where he was greeted by hundreds of people while the bells of Castel Gandolfo's parishes rang out.

Shortly afterwards, Benedict XVI appeared at the balcony of the Apostolic Palace and said to the many faithful who were waiting to thank him for his pontificate: “Thank you. Thank you all. Dear friends, I am happy to be with you, surrounded by the beauty of Creation and your well wishes, which do me such good. Thank you for your friendship and your affection. You know that this day is different for me than the preceding ones. I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, or I will be until 8:00 this evening and then no longer. I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth. But I would still—with my heart, with my love, with my prayers, with my reflection, and with all my inner strength—like to work for the common good and the Good of the Church and of humanity. I feel very supported by your kindness. Let us go forward with the Lord for the good of the Church and the world. Thank you. I now wholeheartedly impart my blessing. Blessed be God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Good night! Thank you all!”

Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate concluded at 8:00 pm (Rome time), at which time the period of the Sede Vacante began.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/benedict-xvi-to-work-for-the-good-of-the-church-an
http://www.news.va/en/news/benedict-xvi-the-end-of-a-long-goodbye
http://www.news.va/en/news/sede-vacante-the-see-of-rome-is-vacant

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"I adore you, my God, and I love you with all my heart."

On 27 February 2013, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his last general audience. In St. Peter's Square, crowded with tens of thousands of people wishing to bid him farewell, the Pontiff said:

“I feel that I am carrying everyone with me in prayer in this God-given moment when I am collecting every meeting, every trip, every pastoral visit. I am gathering everyone and everything in prayer to entrust it to the Lord: so that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding in order to live in a manner worthy of the Lord and His love, bearing fruit in every good work (cf. Col 1:9-10).”

“At this moment I have great confidence because I know, we all know, that the Gospel's Word of truth is the strength of the Church; it is her life. The Gospel purifies and renews, bearing fruit, wherever the community of believers hears it and welcomes God's grace in truth and in love. This is my confidence, this is my joy.”

“When, on 19 April almost eight years ago I accepted to take on the Petrine ministry, I had the firm certainty that has always accompanied me: this certainty for the life of the Church from the Word of God. At that moment, as I have already expressed many times, the words that resounded in my heart were: Lord, what do You ask of me? It is a great weight that You are placing on my shoulders but, if You ask it of me, I will cast my nets at your command, confident that You will guide me, even with all my weaknesses. And eight years later I can say that the Lord has guided me. He has been close to me. I have felt His presence every day. It has been a stretch of the Church's path that has had moments of joy and light, but also difficult moments. I felt like St. Peter and the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and light breezes, days when the fishing was plentiful, but also times when the water was rough and the winds against us, just as throughout the whole history of the Church, when the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But I always knew that the Lord is in that boat and I always knew that the boat of the Church is not mine, not ours, but is His. And the Lord will not let it sink. He is the one who steers her, of course also through those He has chosen because that is how He wanted it. This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. And that is why my heart today is filled with gratitude to God, because He never left—the whole Church or me—without His consolation, His light, or His love.”

“We are in the Year of Faith, which I desired precisely in order to strengthen our faith in God in a context that seems to relegate it more and more to the background. I would like to invite everyone to renew their firm trust in the Lord, to entrust ourselves like children to God's arms, certain that those arms always hold us up and are what allow us to walk forward each day, even when it is a struggle. I would like everyone to feel beloved of that God who gave His Son for us and who has shown us His boundless love. I would like everyone to feel the joy of being Christian. In a beautiful prayer, which can be recited every morning, say: 'I adore you, my God and I love you with all my heart. Thank you for having created me, for having made me Christian...' Yes, we are happy for the gift of faith. It is the most precious thing, which no one can take from us! Let us thank the Lord for this every day, with prayer and with a coherent Christian life. God loves us, but awaits us to also love Him!”

“I also thank each and every one of you for the respect and understanding with which you have received this important decision. I will continue to accompany the Church's journey through prayer and reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and His Bride that I have tried to live every day up to now and that I want to always live. I ask you to remember me to God, and above all to pray for the Cardinals who are called to such an important task, and for the new Successor of the Apostle Peter. Many the Lord accompany him with the light and strength of His Spirit.”

“We call upon the maternal intercession of Mary, the Mother of God and of the Church, that she might accompany each of us and the entire ecclesial community. We entrust ourselves to her with deep confidence.”

“Dear friends! God guides His Church, always sustaining her even and especially in difficult times. Let us never lose this vision of faith, which is the only true vision of the path of the Church and of the world. In our hearts, in the heart of each one of you, may there always be the joyous certainty that the Lord is beside us, that He does not abandon us, that He is near and embraces us with His love. Thank you.”

For the complete text, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/benedict-xvis-final-general-audience-i-asked-god-t

http://www.news.va/en/news/popes-english-remarks-during-final-general-audienc

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Certain of God's Victory

At the conclusion of this year's Lenten spiritual exercises, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI thanked the members of the Curia who had accompanied him in these days and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravisi, who led the retreat. The Pope referred to his preaching, the theme of which was “The Art of Believing, the Art of Praying” as “'beautiful' walks through the universe of faith, and the universe of the Psalms.”

“Truth is beautiful. Truth and beauty go together. Beauty is the seal of truth.”

“And yet… It almost seems that evil wants to permanently mar creation, to contradict God and to make His truth and His beauty unrecognisable…. The incarnate Son, the incarnate 'Logos' is crowned with a crown of thorns and, nevertheless, just that way, in this suffering figure of the Son of God, we begin to see the most profound beauty of our Creator and Redeemer. In the silence of the 'dark night' we can still hear the Word. Believing is nothing other than, in the darkness of the world, touching the hand of God and thus, in silence, listening to the Word, seeing Love.”

Benedict XVI again thanked Cardinal Ravasi, expressing his wish to “take other 'walks' in this mysterious universe of the faith and to always be more capable of praying, proclaiming, and being witnesses to the truth, which is beauty and which is love.”

“…Dear friends,” he finished, “I would like to thank all of you and not only for this week, but for these past eight years that you have carried with me—with great skill, affection, love and faith—the weight of the Petrine ministry. This gratitude remains with me and, even if this 'exterior', 'visible' communion—as Cardinal Ravasi said—is now ending, our spiritual closeness remains, the deep communion in prayer. We go forward with this certainty, certain of God's victory, certain of the truth of beauty and love.”

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-benedict-truth-and-beauty-go-together

http://www.news.va/en/news/popes-letter-to-cardinal-gianfranco-ravasi

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SECRETARIAT OF STATE COMMUNIQUE

Vatican City, 23 February 2013 (VIS) – The freedom of the College of Cardinals, which, by law, is responsible for providing for the election of the Roman Pontiff, has always been strongly defended by the Holy See as the guarantee of a choice based solely on deliberations directed toward the good of the Church….

Never before as at this moment are Catholics focusing on what is essential: praying for Pope Benedict, praying that the Holy Spirit might enlighten the College of Cardinals, and praying for the future Pope, confident that the future of the barque of Peter is in God's hands.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/secretariat-of-state-communique

 

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A Time of Conversion and Penitence

More than one hundred and fifty thousand people attended His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's second-to-last Angelus in St. Peter's Square on 17 February 2013. The Pope, who appeared at the window of his study at noon, focused his Sunday meditation on Lent, "a time of conversion and penitence in preparation for Easter."

"The Church, who is mother and teacher," he said, "calls on all of her members to renew their spirit, to reorient themselves toward God, renouncing pride and selfishness in order to live in love. In this Year of Faith, Lent is a favourable time to rediscover faith in God as the fundamental criterion of our lives and the life of the Church. This always implies a struggle, spiritual combat, because the spirit of evil, naturally, opposes our sanctification and tries to turn us from God's path. …"

"As the Church Fathers teach us, temptation forms part of Jesus' 'descent' into our human condition, into the abyss of sin and its consequences. It is a descent that Jesus follows to its very end, even to death on the cross and the hell of extreme distance from God. … As St. Augustine teaches, Jesus has taken temptation from us in order to give us victory over it. Therefore we too have no fear of facing the battle against the spirit of evil. What is important is that we face it with him, with Christ the Victor," the pontiff concluded.

After the Marian prayer the Pope thanked everyone for their prayers and affection, which he has felt in these days. "I ask," he said, "that you continue to pray for me and for the next Pope, as well as for the spiritual exercises that I will begin with the members of the Roman Curia this afternoon."

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-at-core-of-temptation-always-lies-instrumenta

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-at-sunday-angelus-lent-a-time-of-spiritual-co

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Fidelity to God's Will Must Guide Our Lives

Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Psalm 51:14, 17

 

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“…What sustains and illuminates me is the certainty that the Church belongs to Christ whose care and guidance will never be lacking. I thank you all for the love and prayer with which you have accompanied me….”

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

General Audience, 13 February 2013
 

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, Ash Wednesday, we begin our yearly Lenten journey of conversion in preparation for Easter. The forty days of Lent recall Israel’s sojourn in the desert and the temptations of Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry. The desert, as the place of silent encounter with God and decision about the deepest meaning and direction of our lives, is also a place of temptation. In his temptation in the desert, Jesus showed us that fidelity to God’s will must guide our lives and thinking, especially amid today’s secularized society…. In this Lenten season, Christ once again knocks at our door (cf. Revelation 3:20) and invites us to open our minds and hearts to his love and his truth. May Jesus’ example of overcoming temptation inspire us to embrace God’s will and to see all things in the light of his saving truth.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

General Audience, 13 February 2013

 

For the complete text, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-pray-for-me-and-the-future-pope-the-lord-will

 

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