Offline: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg chats with Pope Francis

The Pope didn’t need to log in to his Facebook account.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, together with his wife, Priscilla Chan, met with Pope Francis in his home in Vatican City.

“It was a meeting we’ll never forget. You can feel his warmth and kindness, and how deeply he cares about helping people,” Zuckerberg told his followers on Facebook.

“We told him how much we admire his message of mercy and tenderness, and how he’s found new ways to communicate with people of every faith around the world,” he said.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke says one topic of discussion at Monday’s meeting was “how to use communication technologies to alleviate poverty, encourage a culture of encounter, and make a message of hope arrive, especially to those most in need.”

Francis received a drone model from the “honored” couple, and was told of the couple’s works at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative which was launched in December 2015.

Aquila, a solar-powered aircraft that will beam internet connectivity to places with no internet connection, is part of Facebook’s efforts to bridge the digital divide.

“We also discussed the importance of connecting people, especially in parts of the world without internet access,” he said.

The social networking giant runs Free Basics, a platform for delivering basic information and services to developing economies like the Philippines.

The meeting with the pontiff was part of Zuckerberg and Chan’s tour of the quake-struck Italy.

The atmosphere appeared informal, with the chat taking place in the Santa Marta residence, the guest house in Vatican City where the Pope lives.

Zuckerberg ditched his regular gray shirt and suited up for the occasion.

The couple also met with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and appeared in a Q&A session in Rome, which was streamed on Facebook Live. With a report from the Associated Press

source: technology.inquirer.net

Francis, the revolutionary pope

 

It’s less than a week before Pope Francis steps foot in the Philippines to visit Yolanda survivors and other members of the Filipino faithful. Before his historic visit, GMA News Online looks back at why the Pontiff—the first Jesuit and the first non-European and Latin American pope in 1,300 years—is shaping up to be a revolutionary leader of the Catholic Church. 

 

Before he became Pope Francis, the pontiff was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, the son of a rail worker father and a housewife mother. He led a simple life as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires before he was elected to the papacy in March 2013. 

 

Moments after his election, Pope Francis made history by taking on the name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi, who was known to have shunned wealth to live in poverty.

 

Throughout his almost two-year leadership, Pope Francis has proven to be a pope to watch, one that has breathed life back into a tired church with his views on controversial issues, including the treatment of gays and lesbians, evolution, divorce and others.

 

LGBTs should be respected

 

In a remarkable change from his predecessor Benedict, who said homosexuality was an intrinsic disorder, Francis said that when homosexuals told him they were always condemned by the Church and felt "socially wounded," he told them "the Church does not want to do this."

 

Pope Francis defended gays from discrimination by saying he was in no position to judge members of the Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender community.
 

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?" the pope said.

 

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this (orientation) but that they must be integrated into society," he said in 2013.

 

However, the Pope also referred to the Catholic Church's universal Catechism, which says that while homosexual orientation is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

 

"The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem," he said.

 

Evolution not in contradiction with God

 

Another issue where Pope Francis diverted from the longtime stance of the Catholic Church is on the topic of evolution.

In October of last year, Pope Francis embraced evolution and said the Big Bang Theory is not at odds with God’s teachings.

 

Addressing a meeting of the Pontificial Academy of Sciences, an independent body housed in the Vatican and financed largely by the Holy See, Francis said scientific explanations for the world did not exclude the role of God in creation.

 

"The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to something else, but it derives directly from a supreme principle that creates out of love," he said.

 

"The 'Big Bang', that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it," he said.

 

"Evolution in nature is not in contrast with the notion of [divine] creation because evolution requires the creation of the beings that evolve," the pope added.

 

Abortion still horrific

 

Yet while he has embraced views that some may call revolutionary for the 2,000-year-old Catholic Church, there are some issues on which Pope Francis stays with the script. A notable issue which the Church has long condemned is the practice of abortion. 

 

Last year, Pope Francis, pushed by critics, called the act “horrific.”

 

"It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day," he said in a section of the speech about the rights of children around the world.

 

Abortion, he said, was part of a "throwaway culture" that had enveloped many parts of the world.

 

"Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as unnecessary," he said.

 

Moral renewal

 

Pope Francis has also proved that he was not immune to criticizing those in his backyard. In his New Year’s message, Pope Francis cited the need for moral upheaval in Rome and in the Vatican itself.

 

“The Curia needs to change, to improve ... a Curia that does not criticize itself, that does not bring itself up to date, that does not try to improve, is a sick body," the Pope said.
 

Francis even went as far as to say that some in the Curia acted as if they were "immortal, immune or even indispensable," an apparent reference to retired cardinals who remain in the Vatican and continue to exert influence.

 

With all of his pronouncements that have brought the Catholic Church into the light of the 21st Century, it’s no wonder the world’s Catholics have embraced Francis as the “people’s pope.” —KG, GMA News

 

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope condemns Paris shooting, says stop spread of hate

 

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis condemned as "abominable" the attack on Wednesday that killed 12 people at the Paris offices of a weekly satirical magazine known for lampooning Islam, calling on everyone to stop the spread of hate.

"The Holy Father expresses his firmest condemnation of the horrible attack," chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in statement.

Francis "calls on everyone to oppose every method of spreading hate" because it "radically undermines the fundamental good of peaceful coexistence of people despite national, religious and cultural differences".

"Whatever its motivation might be, homicidal violence is abominable (and) is never justified," the spokesman said, reflecting the sentiments of the pope.

The leader of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church was "participating in the prayers and sufferings of the injured and the families of the dead", the spokesman said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Vatican's deputy spokesman, Father Ciro Benedettini, called the Paris attack "abominable because it is both an attack against people as well as against freedom of the press."  — Reuters

Pope Francis, Netanyahu spar over Jesus’ native language

JERUSALEM - Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago.

"Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity.

"Aramaic," the pope interjected.

"He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back.

Like many things in the Middle East, where the pope is on the last leg of a three-day visit, modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated and often political.

A Jew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the Roman-ruled region of Judea, now the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He grew up in Nazareth and ministered in Galilee, both in northern Israel, and died in Jerusalem, a city revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and to which Israelis and Palestinians lay claim.

Palestinians sometimes describe Jesus as a Palestinian. Israelis object to that.

Israeli linguistics professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann told Reuters that both Netanyahu, son of a distinguished Jewish historian, and the pope, the spiritual leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, had a point.

"Jesus was a native Aramaic speaker," he said about the largely defunct Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. "But he would have also known Hebrew because there were extant religious writings in Hebrew."

Zuckermann said that during Jesus' time, Hebrew was spoken by the lower classes—"the kind of people he ministered to." — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Holiday atmosphere as Rome gears up for papal canonization

VATICAN CITY - St. Peter's Square was packed ahead of Sunday's canonization of two of the 20th century's great popes but hustling tour guides and a hint of the fairground were reminders that it will be a show as well as a solemn ceremony.

More than a million people are expected in and around the square to see Pope Francis declare as saints John XXIII, the Italian pontiff who launched the modernising Second Vatican Council in 1962, and John Paul II, the revered Pole who led the Church for almost 27 years before his death in 2005.

Groups of pilgrims from Poland to Paraguay have come to attend the ceremony, drawn partly by the appeal of Francis, who has injected fresh enthusiasm into many Catholics since his appointment just over a year ago. The fame of the two popes being canonised has also attracted the faithful.

"I feel very happy because both of them inspire us," said Father Emmanuel Emeka, a priest from Nigeria. "I think both of them have a lot to teach us."

As has been true since Christian pilgrims began arriving in Rome more than 1,500 years ago, religious devotion exists side by side with the excitement of a holiday despite gloomy weather.

Tour guides in colored T shirts offered bus tours of the city and promised to get groups into Saint Peter's Basilica without the need for long queuing. Beggars circled wide-eyed tourists from as far away as Africa or Japan.

Alfredo Chiarelli, one of a small group of street merchants known as "urtisti," Italian for people who stop you on the street, has been busy selling religious souvenirs.

He engages curious tourists who stop to look at his tray of crucifixes, medallions and special rose-scented rosaries, his biggest seller.

"It's Pope Francis who has done this, he's really got through to people," he said, adding that the surge of interest in Francis had helped make up for pressure from cheaper Chinese-made wares and tighter spending in the economic downturn.

So far, most people have been interested in images of the Argentinian-born pope and articles connected with John Paul II, whose death brought huge crowds to Saint Peter's chanting "Santo subito!", calling for him to be made a saint immediately.

John XXIII, sometimes known as the "Good Pope" due to his friendly, humorous character, is less sought after by casual passers-by. "Most young people have no idea who John XXIII was anymore," Chiarelli says, sounding slightly regretful.

Trains and planes

For those unable to pack into Saint Peter's on Sunday, 18 huge television screens will be set up around Rome, with reinforced police and paramedical teams deployed around the city to handle crowds boosted by around a million foreign visitors.

"I always knew that our pope was a saint. Now it's only going to be official," said Piotr Kurylo, a Polish endurance runner who ran all the way to Rome to attend the ceremony. "Everything he did in his life always made him a saint."

For thousands of others, special trains and planes have been laid on and many people are planning to spend Saturday night in churches that will remain open all night, praying rather than sleeping. For more earthly needs, authorities have installed 980 chemical lavatories and plan to distribute 4 million bottles of water over the weekend to keep the crowds cool.

The local Rome daily Il Messaggero reported that many bars and restaurants in the area around Saint Peter's planned to shut their doors to avoid being overwhelmed in the crush. With most of the city's hotels booked out, police were cracking down on improvised bed and breakfasts set up specially for the occasion.

The mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, said there were no signs of any security problems. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope Francis breaks protocol, goes to confession in public

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis surprised his own master of ceremonies on Friday by confessing his sins to an ordinary priest in St. Peter's Basilica.

The pope was presiding at service intended to show the importance he attaches to the sacrament of reconciliation, commonly known as confession.

After reading a sermon, he was to have gone to an empty confessional booth to hear confessions from ordinary faithful as some 60 priests scattered around the huge church did the same.

His master of ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini, pointed him toward the empty booth but the pope went straight to another one, knelt before a surprised priest, and confessed to him for a few minutes.

He then went back to the empty one and heard the confessions of a number of faithful.

The pope goes to confession regularly but in private. -- Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope tells cardinals to shun intrigue, cliques of a royal court

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis urged cardinals, who make up the top echelon of the Roman Catholic Church, on Sunday to shun the intrigue, gossip and cliques typical of a royal court.

Since his election nearly a year ago, Francis has often told his top aides not to live or behave like a privileged class. The eight-year papacy of his predecessor, Benedict, was marked by mishaps and missteps, which were often blamed on a dysfunctional Vatican bureaucracy and intrigue befitting a Renaissance court.

On Sunday, Francis celebrated a mass with 18 of the 19 new cardinals who were elevated to that rank on Saturday. One could not attend because of illness.

"A cardinal enters the Church of Rome, not a royal court," Francis said in his sermon, welcoming the men into the elite group that help him run the Church in the Vatican and around the world.

"May all of us avoid, and help others to avoid, habits and ways of acting typical of a court: intrigue, gossip, cliques, favouritism and preferences," he said during a solemn ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica.

It was the second consecutive day that Francis had warned cardinals to shun worldly temptations in the corridors of clerical power, either at home or in the nerve centre of the 1.2 billion-member Church.

At the induction ceremony on Saturday, which was attended by ex-pope Benedict, Francis urged the cardinals to avoid rivalries and factions. It was the first time Francis and Benedict, who resigned on Feb. 28, 2013, had been together for a liturgical celebration.

The "Vatileaks" scandal, in which Benedict's butler was arrested for leaking the pope's private papers to the media, alleged corruption in the Holy See, something the Vatican denied.

"Jesus did not come to teach us good manners or to behave as if we were at a social gathering," Francis told them.

United in simplicity and service

He asked the new cardinals to remain united among themselves and with him as they advise and help him run the Church in the Vatican and beyond in a spirit of simplicity and service.

Since his election last March as the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, Francis has attempted to infuse the Vatican and the Church with his simple style.

Last month, when he announced the names of the new cardinals, he quickly followed up with a letter to each asking that they not see their appointment as a promotion and not to waste money holding celebratory parties.

Francis, who has called for a "poor Church, and for the poor", has set the example himself. He has opted to live in a simple boarding house rather than the Apostolic Palace, and travels in a blue Ford Focus rather than a luxury car.

Cardinals are the pope's closest advisers in the Vatican and around the world. Apart from being Church leaders in their home countries, those who are not based in the Vatican are members of key committees in Rome that decide policies that can affect the lives of all Roman Catholics.

Sixteen of the new appointees are "cardinal electors" who join 106 existing cardinals who are also under 80 and thus eligible to enter a conclave to elect a pope from among their own ranks.

They come from Italy, Germany, Britain, Nicaragua, Canada, Ivory Coast, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Haiti. The non-electors come from Italy, Spain and Saint Lucia. — Reuters

Pope inspires nativity scene art in Naples

NAPLES - Nativity scene artisans in Italy have taken Pope Francis's social message to heart this Christmas, giving a bigger role to ordinary people in their work and reviving the tradition's simple origins.

Statuettes of disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi are less and less popular at the bustling San Gregorio Armeno market in Naples, where figures of the new pope—named by Time magazine as its person of the year on Wednesday—are now all the rage.

"It's about simplicity," said Antonio Cantone, one of the city's most prestigious artists, who sells fine statuettes in the ramshackle courtyard of a 16th-century palazzo near the market.

Cantone has been commissioned to make the giant nativity scene that will be unveiled on St Peter's Square at the Vatican on Christmas Eve this year—the first Neapolitan artist to have the honour.

"I have based the scene on the message of Pope Francis," he said, adding that it will feature prominently a pauper dressed in rags and a peasant and shepherd bearing humble gifts.

"There are no noblemen, except for the Three Kings," Cantone said, adding: "The first to arrive when Jesus was born were ordinary people, that is the core of the message I wanted."

Elaborate nativity scenes began in Naples churches in the 18th century to make religious teachings more accessible by including snapshots of daily life that people could relate to.

The custom was then adopted by the aristocracy and spread to ordinary people, becoming a yearly and much-loved tradition for millions of Italians.

The most traditional statuettes are painstakingly handcrafted out of terracotta, given glass eyes and painted—each one a unique work of folk art.

Pope: 'You made me look thinner'

"Nativity scenes are a serious thing. They can transmit a message," said Cantone, adding that many popular additions—like a tavern setting—were intended as a warning against the perils of sin.

More recently, some artists have begun crafting more unorthodox statuettes—from football legend Diego Maradona to famous tenor Luciano Pavarotti—in a bid to raise their profile.

But Cantone, who started out as an art restorer and took up making nativity figures later in life, has a more academic approach to the craft.

He said his inspiration for the Vatican nativity came from the oldest, purest historical tradition "with no contamination, no excesses".

Shoppers thronging the tiny street of San Gregorio Armeno, which is visited by tens of thousands of people a day in the Christmas season, echoed the idea of going back to basics.

"I like the classic nativity scene... No Berlusconi, no!" said Bianca, a pensioner out shopping with her husband for a nativity scene for their son, who has had to leave Naples because of the city's rampant economic crisis.

"The tradition had fallen away but now it's back in fashion," she said.

Following multiple sex scandals and trials and his eviction from the Italian parliament last month, Berlusconi is very much out of favor at San Gregorio Armeno, but the statuettes of Pope Francis are selling like hotcakes.

Artisan Genny Di Virgilio, whose family has been in the business since 1830, said the pope is his top seller but noted that "current affairs statuettes" should not be confused with the traditional nativity, which he said would be a "blasphemy".

Demand is so high for the pope that Di Virgilio cannot make the terracotta figures fast enough.

"Yesterday I had 80 of them and I sold them all by 11 in the morning! I had one guy from Florence who bought the raw terracotta model and took it just like that, unpainted!" Di Virgilio said.

The artist met with the pope during a general audience and handed him a statue of himself.

"You made this? Good, good, you made me look thinner!" Di Virgilio said the pope told him.

The pope's statue was "definitely" more popular than that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, because "all the generations like him," Di Virgilio said.

Giorgio Sannino, 26, out Christmas shopping with his girlfriend, is one fan.

"We have to get one! We like this pope a lot because he is close to people.

"I think it is an important statue to have for any self-respecting family." — AFP

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope urges Catholic priests to help poor, shun careerism

VATICAN CITY  - Beginning a busy programme of Easter events, Pope Francis on Thursday urged Catholic priests to devote themselves to helping the poor and suffering instead of worrying about careers as Church "managers".

Francis' homily at his first Holy Thursday service as Roman Catholic leader was the latest sign since his surprise election two weeks ago of his determination that the 1.2 billion-member Church should be closer to the poor.

"We need to go out, then, in order to experience our own anointing (as priests) ... to the outskirts where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters," he said during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

The 76-year-old former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina has inherited a Vatican rocked by a scandal in which documents leaked to the media spoke of alleged corruption in its administration and depicted prelates as fighting among themselves to advance their careers.

At the Mass, the start of four days of hectic activities leading up to Easter this Sunday, Francis said priests should not get bogged down in "introspection" but step outside of themselves and concentrate on those who need their help.

"Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager ... doesn't put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks," he said.

In the next few weeks, Francis is expected to start making changes in the Curia, the central bureaucracy that was at the heart of the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal.

The new pope delivered his appeal for priests to live simply and closest to the needy on the day when the Catholic Church commemorates when Jesus founded the priesthood at the Last Supper on the night before he died.

Speaking to about 1,600 priests from Rome who attended the Mass, he said those who did not live in humility close to the people risked becoming "collectors of antiques or novelties - instead of being shepherds living with 'the smell of the sheep'"

The pope took the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, who is associated with austerity and helping the poor. The new pontiff has already set a clear tone for a humbler papacy and Church.

Later on Thursday, he will wash and kiss the feet of 12 young inmates at a youth prison on the outskirts of Rome, at a Holy Thursday ceremony commemorating Jesus's gesture of humility towards his apostles on the night before he died.

All popes in living memory have held the service either in St. Peter's or the Basilica of St. John in Lateran, which is the pope's cathedral church in his capacity as bishop of Rome.

The four days leading up to Easter are the most hectic in the Church's liturgical calendar.

On Friday Francis will preside at two Good Friday services including the traditional "Via Crucis" (Way of the Cross) procession around the ancient Colosseum in Rome.

He celebrates an Easter eve service on Saturday night and on Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Church's liturgical calendar, he will deliver his first "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message to a large crowd in St. Peter's Square.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope joining twitterverse in December, says Vatican

Pope Benedict XVI is joining the twitterverse in December, and details of his account will be made public this coming week, the Vatican has said.

The Vatican Information Service said all related information will be presented at a press conference at the Holy See press office on December 3.

"The Pope has already used the 140 character 'tweet' format when, in June 2011, he launched the Vatican information portalwww.news.va., with the words: 'Dear friends, I just launched News.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI,'" it said.

Expected to attend the press conference are:

- Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications
- Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the same dicastery
- Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office
- Professor Gian Maria Vian, editor of “L'Osservatore Romano”
- Greg Burke, Media Adviser to the Secretariat of State.

A separate report on Fox News Latino cited sources who said it is unlikely Benedict XVI himself will write the tweets, though he will approve them before they are posted. — LBG, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com