At a meeting at the Vatican with participants in the 3rd World Meeting of Popular Movements,   Pope Francis said: “The entire social doctrine of the Church and the magisterium of my predecessors rebel against money as an idol that reigns instead of serves, tyrannising and terrorising humanity.

“When this terror, which is sown in the peripheries with massacres, pillaging, oppression and injustice, explodes in the centres with various forms of violence – including odious and vile attacks – the citizens who still have some rights are tempted by the false security of physical or social walls. Walls that enclose some and exile others. Frightened citizens building walls on one side and frightened and excluded people on the other.

“Fear, besides being good business for merchants of weapons and death, weakens and destabilises us, destroying our psychological and spiritual defences, anaesthetising us to the suffering of others and, in the end, making us cruel.”

Chinese cardinal criticises Pope

The news spread by several news agencies that an agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese government is in the offing was publicly criticised by Chinese Cardinal Joseph Zen. The former head of the Church in Hong Kong told the Wall Street Journal that such an agreement is “absolutely unacceptable”.

Cardinal Zen acknowledged the goodwill of the Pope but added that he thinks the Pope did ridiculous things, such as his intervention that influenced the US to lift its sanctions against Cuba. Zen added that the Pope lacks a good understanding of Communism. According to the Chinese cardinal the Pope does not know the communist persecutors, nor does he know “the communist governments who killed thousands and hundreds of thousands of people”.

Website offers encouragement for people nearing death

The Art of Dying Well is a new website launched by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales aimed at helping those near death as well as their families. The site, using the latest technology, is inspired by the 15th-century manuscript, Ars Moriendi, which served similar needs in a different culture and using a different technology, namely print.

The website provides users with information, encouragement and counsel aimed at people suffering from terminal illnesses as well as their families. It provides several links to prayers as well as rituals. Hospital chaplains and medical experts working in palliative care cooperated together to build up the website. Users are encouraged to send photos of such patients to a number of convents where religious have promised to pray for these people.

‘Grant citizenship to children of immigrants born in Italy’

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said “young people born in Italy or who came to Italy as children and are integrating very well, need to be given the chance to be legally recognised as Italian citizens”. Mgr Tomasi was interviewed by the website Vatican Insider.

The archbishop acknowledged that many people in Italy are worried about admitting a large number of immigrants from the Middle East, but he said the dangers are minimal. “Current fears are caused by a lack of information,” he said.

He added that the contribution non-EU citizens make to the Italian and European economy is “crucial” and that Europe has fallen prey to an “extreme subjectivism” that is killing solidarity, while the causes of mass migration are not being dealt with.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)

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