Pizza for the poor as Mother Teresa set for sainthood

Tens of thousands of pilgrims flocked into St. Peter’s square on Sunday to hear Pope Francis proclaim Mother Teresa a saint.

The nun, revered for her work with the poor of Kolkata, will be elevated to Catholicism’s celestial pantheon at a canonization mass presided over by Francis and due to get underway at 0830 GMT.

Around 100,000 faithful have been issued tickets for the mass, although the Vatican could easily have issued double that number but for space and security restrictions.

Helicopters buzzing over the 16th-century basilica testified to the huge security operation underway. Some 3,000 officers were on duty to ensure the day passed off peacefully.

Among the assembled crowd were some 1,500 poor or needy people who are looked after by the Italian branches of Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity. After the mass they were to be Francis’s guests at the Vatican for a giant pizza lunch served by 250 sisters and 50 male members of the order.

Teresa died 19 years ago on Monday in the Indian city where she spent her adult life, first teaching, then tending to the dying poor.

It was in the latter role, at the head of her now worldwide order that Teresa became one of the most famous women on the planet.

Born to Kosovar Albanian parents in Skopje — then part of the Ottoman empire, now the capital of Macedonia — she won the 1979 Nobel peace prize and was revered around the world as a beacon for the Christian values of self-sacrifice and charity.

She was simultaneously regarded with scorn by secular critics who accused her of being more concerned with evangelism than with improving the lot of the poor.

The debate over the nun’s legacy has continued after her death with researchers uncovering financial irregularities in the running of her Order and evidence mounting of patient neglect, insalubrious conditions and questionable conversions of the vulnerable in her missions.

Miracles or medicine

Sceptics were absent from the Vatican Sunday however as Francis prepared to pay homage to a woman he sees as the embodiment of his vision of a “poor church for the poor.”

“Tomorrow we will have the joy of seeing Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint,” the Argentinian pontiff said on Saturday. “And how she deserves to be!”

By historical standards, Teresa has been fast-tracked to sainthood, thanks largely to one of the few people to have achieved canonisation faster, John Paul II.

The Polish cleric was a personal friend of Teresa and as the pope at the time of her death, he was responsible for her being beatified in 2003.

Achieving sainthood requires the Vatican to approve accounts of two miracles occurring as a result of prayers for Teresa’s intercession.

The first one, ratified in 2002, was of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, who says she recovered from ovarian cancer a year after Teresa’s death — something local health officials have put down to medical advances rather than the power of prayer.

In the second, approved last year, Brazilian Marcilio Haddad Andrino says his wife’s prayers to Teresa led to brain tumours disappearing. Eight years later, Andrino and his wife Fernanda will be in the congregation on Sunday.

Unique example

Also due to be in the crowd at St. Peter’s was Teresa Burley, an Italy-based American teacher of children with learning difficulties who says the soon-to-be Saint Teresa inspired her vocation.

“I’m also named Teresa,” she told AFP on the eve of the ceremony. “I remember growing up admiring the things she did for children and the poor.

“We need to remember we are here to help each other. We need to be here for those who can’t help themselves. It’s the same for refugees arriving here: we have to be there to help them transition into their new lives.”

Many Indians have made the trip to Rome, among them Kiran Kakumanu, 40, who was blessed by Teresa when he was a baby and grew up to become a priest.

Abraham, an Indian expatriate in London, said Teresa’s life had set a unique example to the world.

“She practised Christianity. The majority of Christians only spend their time talking about it.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Pope Francis opens Catholic Holy Year dedicated to mercy

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Tuesday launched an extraordinary Catholic Jubilee year by opening a "Holy Door" in the walls of St Peter's, embracing a 700-year-old tradition while urging the Church to reach out and embrace the modern world with mercy.

"This is the door of the Lord. Open to me the gates of justice," the Argentinian pontiff said before being helped up three marble steps to push the giant bronze doors open.

In a break with tradition that reflected Francis's modernising instincts, the order to open the doors was delivered in Italian rather than Latin.

The 78-year-old then paused on the threshold of the renaissance basilica for two minutes of silent prayer before walking inside in an act to be carried out by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in the coming months.

Francis was followed through the door by his predecessor, the now-retired Benedict XVI, 88, and by hundreds of cardinals, bishops and male and female members of religious orders.

Clutching a walking stick in his right-hand and looking extremely pale, Benedict was helped into the basilica on the arm of a young cleric.

Amid heightened security following recent terror attacks around the world, an estimated 50,000 pilgrims packed into St Peter's square and surrounding streets to watch Francis open the usually bricked-up wall in the facade of the renaissance basilica.

Many had tears rolling down their cheeks or eyes clenched shut in prayer as Francis ordered the door open for the first time since the last Jubilee, in 2000.

The first pilgrims had been in the square since before dawn in search of a prime spot to watch the latest enactment of a ceremony laden with religious symbolism.

"To pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them," Francis said in a homily during the preceding mass.

Francis also underlined the significance of his decision to start the Jubilee on the 50th anniversary of the end of the second Vatican Council, a gathering of bishops credited with a modernisation of the Church that Francis is attempting to emulate.

Francis said the 1960s council had allowed the Church to emerge from self-enclosure.

"It was the resumption of a journey of encountering people where they live: in their cities and homes, in their workplaces," he said.

"Wherever there are people, the Church is called to reach out to them and to bring the joy of the gospel."

For Francis's predecessor, the German-born Joseph Ratzinger, Tuesday's ceremony represented a rare public outing.

The Emeritus Pope, as he is officially known, has lived in seclusion within the Vatican since retiring in 2013 as failing health left him incapable of running an institution beset by the clerical sex abuse scandal and internecine bickering in its upper echelons.

Tuesday's celebrations will conclude in the evening when images by some of the world's greatest environmental photographers will be projected onto the facade of Saint Peter's in an initiative linked to the ongoing global climate conference in Paris.

Mercy not judgement
The Jubilee, which runs until November 20, 2016, was called by Francis with the express goal of changing the way the Church is perceived by the faithful, lapsed believers and the rest of the world.

"How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we speak of sins being punished by his judgment before we speak of their being forgiven by his mercy," he said on Tuesday.

"We have to put mercy before judgment ... Let us set aside all fear and dread, for these do not befit men and women who are loved."

In a surprise move reflecting that aim, Francis announced in September that for the duration of the Jubilee, priests would be given special dispensation to absolve women who have had abortions.

In addition, some 800 priests around the world are to be designated "missionaries of mercy" tasked with encouraging higher levels of confession amongst believers.

Those involved have been selected for their ability to preach well, understand human frailty and ensure the confessional is not experienced "like a torture chamber" as the pope has put it.

Francis's push for a less judgemental, more understanding Church has encountered fierce resistance from traditionalists opposed to any relaxation of teaching on hot-button subjects such as homosexuality, divorce and unmarried cohabitation.

Traditionally, Catholics were expected to make a pilgrimage to Rome to benefit from the indulgences on offer to the faithful who pass through the Holy Doors during Jubilee years.

Francis has effectively done away with this custom by ordering cathedrals around the world to open their own Holy Doors. That will happen on Sunday, when Francis himself opens the door at one of Rome's major churches, St John Lateran. —Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Pope says Church doors must stay open despite terror fears

Pope Francis said Wednesday that the doors of Catholic churches around the world must remain open, despite increased security fears in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

"Please, no armored doors in the Church, everything open," the 78-year-old pontiff told pilgrims in St Peter's square, Italy's AGI news agency reported.

"There are places in the world where doors should not be locked with a key. There are still some but there are also many where armored doors have become the norm.

"We must not surrender to the idea that we must apply this way of thinking to every aspect of our lives," Francis said.

"To do so to the Church would be terrible."

The pope did not explicitly refer to last week's attacks on Paris, which he has condemned as "inhuman."

His comments came in the context of intense discussion in Italy about the security of the Vatican and Rome, which are seen as potential targets for Islamist militants.

Francis's comments also had a spiritual significance -- he has urged the Church to keep its doors open to lapsed believers who are considering returning and to the hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving in Europe from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

Italy announced this week that it would close airspace over Rome to drones for the duration of the upcoming Catholic jubilee year, which is expected to bring more than a million extra visitors to the Italian capital.

The move reflects fears a remote-controlled aircraft could be used by Islamic State or other militant groups to stage a potentially spectacular attack on the home of the Catholic church.

Security has also been stepped up at airports and train stations and some 700 extra troops deployed in public spaces in Rome.

Individuals purporting to be Islamic State militants have made a number of threats against Rome on social media and in the group's propaganda outlets.

Italian officials say they take such statements seriously but that they have never received evidence of a credible, specific plot to bomb Rome, the Vatican or the Pope. —Agence France-Presse

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