SUMMARY:
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Francis receives the president of the Slovak Republic, 25 years after
the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Holy See
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The Holy Father addresses the Patriarchal Synod of the Armenian
Catholic Church
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Presentation of the Holy See pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale
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Audiences
______________________________________
Francis
receives the president of the Slovak Republic, 25 years after the
restoration of diplomatic relations with the Holy See
Vatican
City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) – This morning the Holy Father Francis
received in audience, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the president
of the Slovak Republic, Andrej Kiska, who subsequently met with Msgr.
Antoine Camilleri, Under-Secretary for Relations with States, in the
Secretariat of State.
During
the cordial discussions, which took place shortly before the 25th
anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic relations between the
Holy See and the then Czech and Slovak Federative Republic on 19
April 1990 following St. John Paul II’s visit to the country,
satisfaction was expressed for the good bilateral relations sealed by
the Agreements in force and by the fruitful dialogue between the
Church and the civil authorities.
The
Parties then turned their attention to the current International
context, with particular attention to the challenges affecting
certain areas of the world, especially the Middle East, and the
importance of the protection of the dignity of the human person.
The
Holy Father addresses the Patriarchal Synod of the Armenian Catholic
Church
Vatican
City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) – This morning Pope Francis received in
audience twenty bishops of the Synod of the Armenian Catholic Church,
who will attend next Sunday's Holy Mass to be celebrated for faithful
of Armenian rite in St. Peter's Basilica, during which St. Gregory of
Narek will be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church.
In
the discourse he addressed to the bishops, the Holy Father remarked
that on Sunday they will “raise a prayer of Christian intercession
for the sons and daughters of your beloved people, who were made
victims a hundred years ago”, and invoked Divine Mercy “so that
it might help all, in the love for truth and justice, to heal every
wound and to expedite concrete gestures of reconciliation and peace
between the nations that still have not managed to reach a reasonable
consensus on the interpretation of these sad events”.
Francis
greeted all the clergy and lay faithful of the Armenian Catholic
Church, many of whom have accompanied the bishops to Rome in these
days, as well as “those who live in the countries of the diaspora,
such as the United States, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, up
to the Motherland”. He added, “I think with particular sadness of
those areas, such as that of Aleppo, that a hundred years ago were a
safe haven for the few survivors. In such regions the stability of
Christians, not only Armenians, has latterly been placed in danger”.
“Your
people, whom tradition recognises as the first to convert to
Christianity in 301, has a two thousand-year history and preserves an
admirable patrimony of spirituality and culture, united with a
capacity for recovery amid the many persecutions and trials to which
it has been subjected. I invite you always to cultivate a sentiment
of acknowledgement of the Lord, for having been capable of
maintaining fidelity to Him even during the most difficult periods.
It is important, furthermore, to ask of God the gift of wisdom of the
heart: the commemoration of the victims of a hundred years ago indeed
places us before the darkness of the mysterium iniquitatis”.
“As
the Gospel tells us, from the depths of the human heart there may
emerge the darkest powers, capable of planning the systematic
annihilation of one's brother, of considering him an enemy, an
adversary, or even without the same human dignity”, he observed.
“But for believers the issue of the evil committed by man also
introduces the mystery of participation in the redemptive Passion: a
number of sons and daughters of the Armenian nation were capable of
pronouncing Christ's name to the point of shedding their blood or of
death by starvation during the interminable exodus they were forced
to undertake”.
“The
painful pages in the history of your people continue, in a certain
sense, the Passion of Christ, but in each one of these there is also
the germ of the Resurrection. There is no lack of commitment among
you, Pastors, to the education of the lay faithful to enable them to
interpret reality with new eyes, in order to be able to say every
day: my people consists not only of those who suffer for Christ, but
above all of those who are risen in Him. Therefore it is important to
remember the past, in order to draw from it the new lymph needed to
nurture the present with the glorious announcement of the Gospel and
with the witness of charity. I encourage you to support the path of
continuing formation of priests and consecrated persons. They are
your first collaborators; the communion between them and you will be
strengthened by the exemplary fraternity they may observe in the
Synod and with the Patriarch”.
The
Pope expressed his gratitude to those who made efforts to alleviate
the sufferings of their ancestors, making special reference to Pope
Benedict XV “who intervened before the Sultan Mehmet V to bring an
end to the massacre of the Armenians”, and who was “a great
friend of the Christian Orient: he established the Congregation for
the Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Oriental Institute, and in
1920 he inscribed St. Ephrem the Syrian among the Doctors of the
Universal Church”. Francis continued, “I am pleased that our
meeting takes place on the eve of the same gesture I will have the
pleasure of performing on Sunday regarding the great figure of St.
Gregory of Narek”.
“To
his intercession, I entrust in particular the ecumenical dialogue
between the Catholic Armenian Church and the Armenian Apostolic
Church, aware of the fact that the 'ecumenism of blood' has already
been achieved through the martyrdom and persecution that took place
one hundred years ago”, he concluded. “I now invoke the Lord's
blessing upon you and your faithful, and I ask you not to forget to
pray for me”.
Presentation
of the Holy See pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale
Vatican
City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) - “In the beginning … the Word became
Flesh” is the name of the Holy See's pavilion at the upcoming 56th
Venice Biennale of Art (9 May to 22 November 2015), which was
presented this morning by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of
the Pontifical Council for Culture and commissioner of the Pavilion,
along with Paolo Baratta, president of the Biennale and Micol Forte,
curator of the Vatican Museums Collection of Contemporary Art and of
the pavilion.
During
the press conference, held in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal
Ravasi explained that, continuing from the theme of the Holy See's
first contribution to the 2013 Venice Biennale, the 2015 pavilion
will see to re-establish the dialogue between art and faith and the
need to examine, especially at an international level, the
relationship between the Church and contemporary art. “Continuing
from the first edition, the Holy See pavilion of the 56th Venice
Biennale will develop the theme of the 'Beginning', with an itinerary
leading from the Old to the New Testament, making 'logos' and 'flesh'
the terms of a relationship constantly in progress”.
“The
reference to Genesis, understood as Creation, De-Creation,
Re-Creation, in 2013 constituted the object of a reflection that is
now further developed in the Prologue of the Gospel of John. In this
latter, two essential poles are highlighted: the transcendent Word
that is 'in the Beginning', and at the same time, reveals the
dialogical and communicational nature of the God of Jesus Christ; and
the Word that becomes 'flesh', body, bringing the presence of God
into the essence of humanity, especially where it appears to be
wounded and suffering. The 'vertical-transcendent' dimension and the
'horizontal-immanent' dimension of flesh thus constitute in this
sense the axes of research. It is necessary to refer to these axes –
and their intersection – to understand the individual works and the
dialogue that is interwoven between them within the exhibition space.
Micol
Forti presented the works and artists represented in the Pavilion,
remarking that the “indissoluble bond between 'logos' and 'flesh'
produces a dialectic dynamism … that inspires, in artists as well
as in the public, reflection on the binomial that is at the root of
humanity. The three artists, all young, of differing provenance,
experience, ethical and aesthetic vision, have been required to flesh
out the idea evoked in the Prologue of the Gospel of John”. They
include the Colombian Monika Bravo who, Forti explained, “has
developed a narrative, deconstructed and recomposed on six screens
and the same number of transparent panels, positioned on strongly
coloured walls. In each composition, Nature, the Word (written and
spoken) and artistic abstraction are presented as active elements of
heuristic vision, open to a margin of experimental indeterminacy in
the development of a new perceptive space and sensory fullness”.
The
Macedonian Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva has designed a “monumental,
architectural installation, whose 'fabric', almost a sort of skin or
mantle, welcomes the visitor in a dimension that is simultaneously
physical and symbolic. [The work is] made of organic waste material,
in a journey from 'ready-made' to 're-made'”. Forti continued,
“Flesh transforms into history in the reality offered without
falsification” by the photographer Mario Macilau, from Mozambique.
The series of nine black and white photographs taken in Maputo,
capital of Mozambique, depicts the street children who at a young age
are compelled to face life in terms of survival. “It is not a
photo-reportage, but rather a poetic work that reverses the
connections between now and before, near and far, the visible and
what cannot be seen”.
Audiences
Vatican
City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received in
audience:
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Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secreteriat for the Economy;
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Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, archbishop of Perugia - Citta della
Pieve, Italy;
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Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana, apostolic nuncio in Australia;
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Msgr. Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council
“Cor Unum”.
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