Evangelization

Poor Sisters: "We want to share our contemplative life".

The Poor Sisters have turned social media into an evangelization tool, bringing their contemplative life and music to thousands of people.

Javier García Herrería-February 15, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsLiturgical music or music in the liturgy?Related News'Barefoot', Hakuna's film about the life force of musicRelated NewsI will sing to the Lord: meaning and reason for music in the liturgy.

The Poor Sisters have found in social networks an unexpected form of evangelization. Through Instagram and YouTube, their community has grown exponentially, reaching thousands of people with their music and testimony. In this interview, they tell us how this initiative was born, anecdotes they have experienced and their vision of vocational formation. 

We spoke with them at the Vocations Congress organized by the Spanish Episcopal Conference, where they also performed their music at the closing concert.

In social networks it is perceived that your community is made up of very young sisters and very old ones. How do you experience this generational difference?

- In reality, there are not as many generational leaps as it seems. Our community is made up of 14 sisters, and we have representation from all decades. It is true that the youngest is 24 years old and the oldest is 92, but in between there is a great diversity of ages that makes living together very enriching.

How did you come up with the idea of using Instagram and YouTube to share your day-to-day life?

- It all started in a very simple way. We had an Instagram account with about 7,000 followers, but we used it mainly to spread our work and show a bit of our way of life. On Contemplative Living Day we asked ourselves how we could share with people the importance of this day for us. So we decided to publish a song.

We started with the guitar and other instruments, looking for the ideal place to record. We went from one place to another without being convinced by any of them, until, tired, we almost gave up. But one sister insisted: "No, no, we'll do it however we want". And so we did. We recorded, we published... and from that moment on everything changed.

What year did it occur?

- Last year. It was incredible. In just over a year we went from 7,000 followers to more than 338,000. And the most beautiful thing is that we realized the impact it had on people. Many people wrote to tell us that our songs had helped them in very difficult moments.

Any particular story that has marked you?

- Yes, a very special one. A doctor called us from France to tell us about a cancer patient who was in his last days. The patient was completely isolated, he didn't talk to anyone, neither to his family nor to the doctors. The doctor decided to play our songs for him, and in one of them, a sister got it wrong and the patient started laughing, "Play it again," he kept saying over and over again. That broke the ice, and little by little he began to communicate with others. He even called his family and reconciled with them before he died.

And any funny anecdotes?

- Once, while we were shopping for furniture at Ikea, a woman recognized us and was very excited. She said, "I can't believe it, the poor sisters, you helped me so much! She didn't pay us for the furniture (laughs), but she helped us carry it, which is enough.

You have also promoted the image of the Virgen de la Mirada. How did this initiative come about?

- St. Clare spoke constantly about the gaze. She said that one must look at Jesus in order to follow Him, contemplate Him and not take one's eyes off Him. She also pointed out that Our Lady was the first one to look at Jesus and the first one He looked at. That bond inspired us to commission an image that would reflect that relationship of love between Mother and Son.

The image is very particular, because the Virgin is looking directly at the Child...

- Yes, we have been told this many times. In many images, Mary holds Jesus, but looks straight ahead or away. In this one, both look at each other with love and complicity. It is a gesture that invites contemplation. The children hang on her, touch her, approach her... She is already very "worn out", as we usually say.

We are at the Vocation Congress, how do you take care of the formation and accompaniment of young vocations in your community?

- We believe that accompaniment is fundamental, not only in religious life, but in all aspects of life. When a girl is discerning, we prefer to lead the process ourselves, accompany her well and help her to really discover if this is her path.

We do not want to fill the house with vocations, but we want people to encounter God. To achieve this, formation, dialogue, prayer and, above all, the Scripture. Formation in Sacred Scripture is a fundamental source of Christian life. If we do not know it, we cannot love Jesus Christ. Everything we need to know is in the Word of God.

Anything else you would like to share?

- Just to thank all the people who follow us and support us. And remember that, although we are in networks, the most important thing is always the encounter with God in daily life.

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Culture

Catholic scientists: José de Acosta, theologian and researcher

On February 15, 1600, José de Acosta, a Jesuit theologian and researcher who was present in America, died. This series of short biographies of Catholic scientists is published thanks to the collaboration of the Society of Catholic Scientists of Spain.

Leandro Sequeiros San Roman-February 15, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

José de Acosta (October 1, 1540 - February 15, 1600) was a scientist and missionary in Spanish America who was nicknamed "the Pliny of the New World". He was ordained a Jesuit as a young man and, when he was 31 years old, he was assigned to the Andes. There he founded several colleges, among them those of Panama, Arequipa, Potosi, Chuquisaca and La Paz. He later held the chair of theology at the University of San Marcos in Lima and was also elected provincial of the Society in Peru in 1576.

He is also mentioned supervising the casting of a large bell and investigating the tides of the straits in view of a possible attack by the Englishman Francis Drake. He also directed the elaboration of the Trilingual Catechism and Breviary (Spanish, Aymara and Quechua). In addition, he made at least three long trips through the interior of Peru in which he visited the missions established there, which allowed him to get to know the nature and social life of the indigenous people.

Two of his scientific contributions stand out. The first is the discovery of the Humboldt Current in the eastern Pacific Ocean near South America (250 years before the Prussian scientist Alexander von Humboldt).

The second is related to evolution. In 1590 he published "Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias" (Natural and Moral History of the Indies), which deals with the remarkable things of Heaven, elements, metals, plants and animals; and the rites, ceremonies, laws, government and wars of the Indians. There he postulates a timid but evolutionary interpretation of the animal, vegetable and cultural reality. For him all the animals of America would be nothing more than a modification of the original ones of Europe, where the difference in the different characters of the animals could have been caused by various accidents. For this reason he is cited in several books on the history of science as the founder of biogeography, which consists of the study of the geographical distribution of living beings on Earth over billions of years of evolution. His bold contributions made him anticipate Alexander von Humboldt (who quotes him profusely) and Charles Darwin (who copies what Humboldt says) in some ideas about the distribution and migrations of living beings in Spanish America for millions of years.

The authorLeandro Sequeiros San Roman

Professor of Paleontology. Faculty of Theology of Granada.

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The Vatican

Pope Francis cancels his schedule

Pope Francis, 88, was admitted on February 14 to Rome's Gemelli hospital for medical tests and further medical care.

OSV / Omnes-February 14, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsPope Francis admitted to hospital for treatment of bronchitisRelated News35 Jubilees and 58 Jubilee Ways in the Eternal City

- Cindy Wooden, CNS

After suffering from bronchitis for more than a week and having obvious breathing difficulties, Pope Francis, 88, was admitted on February 14 to Rome's Gemelli hospital.

"This morning, at the end of the audiences, Pope Francis - says the press release- has been admitted to the Policlinico Agostino Gemelli to undergo some necessary diagnostic tests and to continue in a hospital environment his treatment for bronchitis, which is still ongoing," the Vatican press office told reporters. The Pope is expected to remain in the hospital for several days.

Before leaving the Vatican for the hospital, the Pope met privately with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Mark Thompson, president and CEO of CNN, and held a group meeting with members of the Gaudium et Spes Foundation.

Christopher Lamb, CNN's Vatican correspondent, was present at the beginning of the Pope's meeting with Thompson and said that "the Pope was mentally alert, but struggling to speak for long periods due to breathing difficulties," CNN reported.

Artists' Jubilee

In a second statement on February 14, the Vatican press office said that the Jubilee general audience with Pope Francis scheduled for February 15 was canceled and that Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, will celebrate the Mass Pope Francis was scheduled to preside at St. Peter's Basilica on February 16 with pilgrims attending the Jubilee of Artists and the World of Culture.

The Pope's visit to Cinecittà, the Rome film studio, to meet with actors and other artists on February 17 was also cancelled.

The last few weeks

The Pope, who underwent surgery in 1957 to remove part of one of his lungs after suffering from a severe respiratory infection, has been prone to colds and bouts of bronchitis.

Beginning with his weekly general audience on February 5, Pope Francis has had an aide read most of his prepared homilies and speeches at Masses and public audiences.

The Holy Father explained that he found it difficult to speak when he addressed visitors to the February 5 audience before handing them his text.

At the February 9 Mass for the Jubilee of the Armed Forces, Police and Security Corps, he apologized, saying he had "difficulty breathing."

At his Feb. 12 general audience, he apologized for not delivering the keynote address himself, saying it was "because I still can't deal with my bronchitis. I hope to be able to do it next time."

But on all those public occasions, he took the microphone to call for prayers for peace and to give his blessing.

In addition, from Feb. 6 until the morning he was admitted to the hospital, Pope Francis maintained his schedule of meetings with individuals and small groups, but held the meetings in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, his residence, rather than in the library or the ornate halls of the Apostolic Palace.

Recent hospitalizations

Pope Francis has been hospitalized several times at Gemelli Hospital.

In March 2023, he was hospitalized for three days for what doctors said was a "respiratory infection." He tested negative for COVID-19.

He returned on June 7, 2023, when he underwent a three-hour surgery to repair a hernia and spent nine days in the hospital, where St. John Paul II had been hospitalized on multiple occasions. The operation on Pope Francis, under general anesthesia, was performed using a surgical mesh to reinforce the repair and prevent the recurrence of a hernia. Surgeons also removed several adhesions or bands of scar tissue that, according to doctors, had formed after previous surgeries decades ago.

Prior to that, the Pope had spent seven days in the hospital in July 2021 after undergoing colon surgery to treat diverticulitis, an inflammation of lumps in the intestine. Pope Francis repeatedly denied that doctors had found cancer during the operation.

The authorOSV / Omnes

RelatedRelated NewsPope Francis admitted to hospital for treatment of bronchitisRelated News35 Jubilees and 58 Jubilee Ways in the Eternal City
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The Vatican

Pope Francis admitted to hospital for treatment of bronchitis

Pope Francis has been admitted to Gemelli hospital to treat the bronchitis he has been suffering from for about a week now.

Paloma López Campos-February 14, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute
RelatedRelated NewsHow is Pope Francis really doing?Related NewsDoes the Pope have a vacation?

Pope Francis has been admitted to the Gemelli hospital to receive treatment for a bronchitis that has been afflicting him for a week. This was confirmed by the Press Office of the Holy See on the morning of February 14.

In spite of the admission, the Pontiff received early Friday morning the Prime Minister of Slovakia and has not changed his agenda, full of celebrations and audiences in this Jubilee year.

During his stay at the Gemelli hospital, the medical team will perform some tests on Pope Francis and will apply a treatment to help alleviate the discomfort he has been suffering for days and which has prevented him from delivering the speeches prepared for various audiences.

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Evangelization

Saints Cyril and Methodius, co-patron saints of Europe, and St. Valentine, martyr

Saints Cyril and Methodius, brothers, spread the Christian message in Eastern Europe, which is why St. John Paul II proclaimed them co-patrons of Europe. The Church celebrates them today, February 14, together with St. Zeno and St. Valentine, martyrs. The latter is considered the patron saint of lovers.    

Francisco Otamendi-February 14, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

The eldest of the brothers was Bishop Methodius (actually his name was Michael) and he was born in 825 in Thessaloniki, where in 827, two years later, Cyril (called Constantine), a monk, was born. Both were sent to Moravia, Czech Republic, in order to preaching the Christian faith. They carried out their evangelizing work in the 9th century in Central Europe. 

They are referred to as "apostles of the Slavs."Among other reasons for having created a new alphabet, the "Cyrillic" alphabet, named after St. Cyril, which offered the Slavic world linguistic and cultural unity with the translation of the Bible, the missal and the liturgical ritual. In 1980, St. John Paul II declared them patrons of Europe, thus uniting them with Saint Benedict, proclaimed patron of the continent by St. Paul VI in 1964.

Subsequently, in 1999, the Polish Pope declared the Patroness of Europe to three womenSt. Bridget of Sweden, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

St. Valentine, patron saint of lovers

On February 14, the martyr St. Valentine is also celebrated. He is the patron saint of lovers because, according to tradition, during the persecution of Christians in the 3rd century, the saint put his life at risk in order to to unite in marriage to couples, against the order of the emperor.

The thesis can be completed with the following. There were two 'Valentine' saints and both have a similar history, since both (perhaps they were the same), preferred to be executed rather than renounce their Christian faith. In short, St. Valentine was executed for celebrate marriages in secret, and every February 14th their bravery and commitment to love is commemorated.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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  • The Origins of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross
Books

The Origins of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross

An exhaustive study of the early years of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross reveals how St. Josemaría Escrivá, from the very beginning, sought to serve and spiritually form diocesan priests in full communion with their bishops.

José Carlos Martín de la Hoz-February 14, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
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Santiago Martínez Sánchez, professor of history at the University of Navarra and director of the University's Josemaría Escrivá Study Center, has carried out a truly exhaustive study of the early years of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, from October 2, 1928, when St. Josemaría Escrivá was born. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (1902-1975) founded Opus Dei until the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council on December 8, 1965. 

The first thing that this in-depth investigation shows is that Opus Dei's work with diocesan priests throughout the world was, from the very beginning of St. Josemaría's priestly life, a true "dominant passion. That is to say, that God's will for him to work in the formation of the secular clergy, their spiritual support, their preparation to work in the orders of the Ordinaries of the places and, finally, in the building of united and vibrant priestly presbyteries, was already in St. Josemaría's heart from his time as a seminarian in Saragossa and would remain so until his death in Rome.

The legal configuration

The legal history of the Priestly Society of the Holy CrossIt responds to God's will and will cross all the juridical circumstances of Church law from the Code of Canon Law of 1917 to that of 1984 and of the history of the Church and theology from the twentieth century to the present. Both tributaries converged in 1982 in the Apostolic Constitution "Ut Sit" and its juridical formulation in the Bull "Ut Sit" of March 19, 1983, with which the charism of the Prelature of Opus Dei and the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross has been formulated inseparably united. This juridical formula contains the foundational elements and safeguards them by law.

The fundamental core of this work will consist in explaining how this will of God was carried out: that Opus Dei should work with diocesan priests in full communion with the bishops of the whole world, promoting the full identification of these priests with their Ordinaries and with the priests of the diocesan presbyterate, converting the priestly task entrusted to it by the Ordinaries of each place as a matter to be sanctified (17, 44, 456, 461).

Serving priests

It is well known, and the study we now present explains it in great detail, the moment when St. Josemaría, when he was about to proceed to request Pontifical approval of Opus Dei, then as a Secular Institute, faced with the difficulties he encountered in explaining what would become the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, was determined to abandon the Work to found an Association for priests throughout the world and promote the pursuit of holiness in the ministry.

Just as God confirmed to him the presence of women in Opus Dei, he also made him see that "diocesan priests had a place" without diminishing his love for the diocese, nor double obedience, nor division in the presbyterate. with a lay and diocesan mentality among the other members of the Work (258). It is convenient to read this chapter slowly because it provides documentation of great interest (280-281).

Precisely, the best conclusion of this extensive and solid work of research is to highlight the supernatural nature of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross and the fruits of holiness, of union with the bishops of each diocese and among the members of the priestly presbyterate. Obviously, St. Josemaría always asked priests who wished to acquire formation and spiritual direction in this institution to show that they had received a divine vocation and a desire to allow themselves to be helped and to be in communion of prayer with the bishop and with the Father of this spiritual family.

Context

Likewise, the author has tried to approach the mentality about clerical associations that some prelates, their diocesan curias and seminary formators had in the forties, fifties and sixties. This is necessary to understand why some bishops did not fully grasp the freedom of a priest to join the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, just as they would not later understand the changes that young people demanded after the revolution of 1968. In short, the dialogue with the contemporary world that the Second Vatican Council brought about in order to be able to work better in the contemporary world.

It is also important to read the first chapters to learn a little about the rural world, so different from the present, indeed, almost disappeared ("con la gente se va el cura" p. 153), because without these historical coordinates we cannot understand the pedagogical system of the diocesan seminaries and the intellectual formation that was given to them. 153), because without these historical coordinates one cannot understand the pedagogical system of the diocesan seminaries and the intellectual formation that was given to them, since most of those boys would arrive at the capital of the region or province, if they stood out a lot, with a very mature age, a long experience and after many years of reading and personal study that would enable them to finish their days working in parishes with families and parishioners that required a little higher level.

The only problem of this interesting study lies in its great length, because when one reaches the ninth chapter, which is the most interesting: "Diocesan history of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross" (539-626), one has already had to read many previous questions. Logically, it is a difficult problem because it is also important to base well the previous questions to be able to understand the facts. It is true that the elaborate graphs make it much easier to understand the issues. Finally, we must emphasize the high spiritual level of those priests (306).

Undoubtedly, the hope that the next volume will be published, the one that will show how the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross will truly survive the tremendous onslaught of the phenomenon of contestation and the identity crises that occurred in many places in Spain. It will also show the intense work of the Priests of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross to discover many vocations for the seminaries and to collaborate with the authorities of the seminaries and the bishops so that many vocations were born who today are, together with their companions, the hope and the future of the Church in Spain (422).

Santiago Martínez Sánchez, Párrocos, obispos y Opus Dei. Historia y entorno de la Sociedad Sacerdotal de la Santa Cruz en España, 1928-1965, Rialp, Madrid 2025, 702 pp. 

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Vocations

Engagement, a time to work on love

Pope Francis defined courtship as: "The time in which the two are called to do a good work on love, a participative and shared work, which goes to the depths". Based on this and other reflections of the Pontiff, the author offers advice for working on love in a relationship.

Santiago Populín Such-February 14, 2025-Reading time: 8 minutes
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In the general audience On May 27, 2015, Pope Francis defined courtship as: "The time in which the two are called to do a good work on love, a shared and participatory work, which goes to the depths. Both discover each other slowly, mutually, that is, the man 'knows' the woman by knowing this woman, his bride; and the woman 'knows' the man by knowing this man, her bridegroom."

Likewise, he commented that the biblical account in Genesis speaks of all creation as a work of God's love; from that image it is understood that God's love, from which the whole world proceeds, was not something taken lightly. "No! It was a beautiful work. God's love created the concrete conditions of an irrevocable, solid covenant, destined to last." In the same way, the covenant of love between a man and a woman takes time, it is not something instantaneous, therefore "it is necessary to work on love (...)". In other words, the loving union between man and woman is cultivated and perfected over time. "I allow myself to say that it is an artisanal alliance. To make of two lives a single life, it is even almost a miracle, a miracle of freedom and of the heart, entrusted to faith".

Love is a relationship

On February 14, 2014, in an address to engaged couples preparing for marriage, Pope Francis, addressing a query he was asked about whether it is possible to love forever, commented: "But what do we understand by 'love'? Just a feeling, a psychophysical state? True, if it is this, one cannot build on it something solid. But if instead love is a relationship, then it is a reality that grows, and we can even say, by way of example, that it is built like a house. And the house is built together, not alone. To build here means to favor and help growth".

It is interesting to note that a year earlier, in his first encyclical letter ".Lumen fidei" n. 27, had already expressed something similar: "In reality, love cannot be reduced to a feeling that comes and goes. It certainly has to do with our affectivity, but in order to open it to the beloved person and to begin a journey, which consists in leaving the isolation of one's own self in order to move towards the other person, to build a lasting relationship; love tends towards union with the beloved person. And so we can see in what sense love needs truth. Only insofar as it is founded on truth can love endure in time, overcome the fleetingness of the instant and remain firm in order to give consistency to a common path. If love has nothing to do with truth, it is subject to the sway of feelings and does not stand the test of time.

True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of the person and becomes a new light towards a great and full life. Without truth, love cannot offer a solid bond, it cannot take the 'I' beyond its isolation, nor free it from the fleetingness of the instant to build life and bear fruit".

In the fourth chapter of the apostolic exhortation ".Amoris laetitia"Pope Francis commented that, in St. Paul's Hymn to Charity, we find "some characteristics of true love". Paraphrasing it, he presented some indications for spouses that lead to conjugal charity. Considering courtship, in the words of the Pontiff, as a "path of preparation for marriage", it is necessary that the engaged also know them in order to work on the love of their relationship.

The first point of the Hymn is patience. The Pope emphasized that, driven by love, patience is strengthened when we recognize "that the other person also has the right to live on this earth together with me, just as he or she is," leaving aside the perfectionist desire and the ambition to have everything the way we want it to be.

The second is the attitude of service. He indicated that patience leads to an active, "dynamic and creative posture towards others", translated into a servant attitude, because "love benefits and promotes others".

In the third, he emphasized that love leads to looking at the other with the eyes of God, healing envy and leading to joy for the good of the other.

Regarding the fourth and fifth points, he explained that love leads to not "boasting or aggrandizing oneself", as it helps to place oneself in one's rightful place without seeking to be the center.

He then addressed the following four points. He stressed that "to love is to become kind"; "courtesy is a school of sensitivity and selflessness, which requires a person to cultivate his or her mind and senses, to learn to feel, to speak and, at certain times, to be silent." In this context, he encouraged to observe and learn the gentle language of Jesus. Then, love "does not seek its own interest", "it can go beyond justice and overflow freely without expecting anything in return".

Moreover, love leads us not to be irritated; it is an attitude that arises "from an inner violence, from a non-manifest irritation that makes us defensive towards others, as if they were annoying enemies to be avoided". Subsequently, "it does not take evil into account", love knows how to forgive; a form that arises from "a positive attitude, which tries to understand the weakness of others and tries to find excuses for the other person, as Jesus did when he said: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Lk 23:34)".

He concluded this explanation of the Hymn with the following aspects. He stressed that love leads to "rejoicing with others." "If we do not nourish our capacity to rejoice with the good of the other and, above all, we concentrate on our own needs, we condemn ourselves to live with little joy." Likewise, love "excuses everything." This term is distinguished from "disregards evil" because it refers to the use of language, which can sometimes involve knowing how to "keep silent" about the shortcomings of others.

In this sense, "spouses who love and belong to each other, speak well of each other, try to show the good side of the spouse beyond their weaknesses and mistakes". Moreover, "love believes all things", "trusts". Trust allows to have a healthy relationship, with freedom and with a wide horizon, because "love trusts, leaves in freedom, renounces to control everything, to possess, to dominate".

Another of the traits he emphasized is that "love expects everything", it does not become impatient in the face of the future. It arises from an attitude that "indicates the expectation of one who knows that the other person can change", thus giving rise to hope in the other person. And lastly, "love endures all things". It refers to "standing firm in the midst of a hostile environment". It is "love in spite of everything, even when the whole context invites otherwise".

How love is built

Francisco, in the speech to engaged couples in February 2014, after explaining the meaning of love, he encouraged the couple to grow together, to build a house and live together for life. He warned them not to build that house "on the sand of feelings that come and go, but on the rock of authentic love, the love that comes from God." He also explained to them that the family arises from this project of love, which has to grow as a house is built. "Let it be a place of affection, of help, of hope, of support. As God's love is stable and forever, so also the love that builds the family is stable and forever. family We want it to be stable and forever. She also revealed the secret to healing the fear of "forever":

"It is healed day by day, entrusting oneself to the Lord Jesus in a life that becomes a daily spiritual journey, built by steps, small steps, steps of common growth, built with the commitment to become mature women and men in faith. Because, dear engaged couples, 'forever' is not only a question of duration. A marriage is not fulfilled only if it lasts, but its quality is important. To be together and to know how to love forever is the challenge of Christian spouses".

In line with the aforementioned, on September 26, 2015, at the speech During the Feast of Families and Prayer Vigil in Philadelphia, the Pope explained that love is an apprenticeship that seeks to grow: "There are no perfect families and this should not discourage us. On the contrary, love is learned, love is lived, love grows by 'working it out' according to the circumstances of life that each concrete family is going through.

Love is always born and develops between light and shadow. Love is possible in concrete men and women who seek not to make conflicts the last word, but an opportunity. An opportunity to ask for help, an opportunity to ask ourselves where we need to improve, an opportunity to discover the God with us who never abandons us.

This is a great legacy that we can leave to our children, a very good teaching: we make mistakes, yes; we have problems, yes; but we know that this is not the definitive thing. We know that mistakes, problems, conflicts are an opportunity to get closer to others, to God".

One year later, in "Amoris laetitia". n. 134, Francis insisted: "Love that does not grow begins to run risks, and we can only grow by responding to divine grace with more acts of love, with more frequent, more intense, more generous, more tender, more joyful acts of affection". In other words, it is "a path of constant growth".

Courtship as "a life itinerary".

At the general audience of May 27, 2015, the Pope said that the covenant of love between man and woman is not improvised, it is not born from one day to the next, "it is necessary to work on love, it is necessary to walk". Francis explained that God, when he speaks of the covenant with his people, sometimes does so in terms of courtship. To support his argument he cited two passages of Sacred Scripture: "In the book of Jeremiah, speaking to the people who had strayed from Him, he reminds them of when the people were God's 'bride' and says thus: 'I remember your youthful affection, the love you had for me as a bride' (2:2). And God made this itinerary of courtship; then he also makes a promise: we heard it at the beginning of the audience, in the book of Hosea: 'I will betroth myself to you forever, I will betroth myself to you in righteousness and justice, in mercy and tenderness, I will betroth myself to you in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord' (2:21-22). It is a long road that the Lord travels with his people in this itinerary of betrothal. In the end God espouses his people in Jesus Christ: in Jesus he espouses the Church. The people of God is the bride of Jesus".

The Bible passages explained by Francis illustrate that the same itinerary happens in the courtship between a man and a woman: first they begin to walk together, then comes the promise of fidelity that will culminate in marriage, this being the sign of the union of Christ and the Church.

On December 26, 2021, the feast of the Holy Family, at the letter to married couples on the occasion of the "Amoris laetitia Family Year", the Holy Father said that, like Abraham, "each of the spouses leaves his or her own land from the moment when, feeling the call to conjugal love, they decide to give themselves to the other without reserve". For this reason, he affirmed that courtship means "walking together the road that leads to marriage". And in this shared itinerary it is essential that the bride and groom learn to love each other.

Excuse me, thank you and sorry

 Pope Francis, in his address to engaged couples on February 14, 2014, characterized by his simple yet profound style of speaking, stressed the importance of certain essential rules that can be summed up in three words: "permission," "thank you" and "forgiveness. Three words that, in the context of courtship conceived as a period destined to "travel together the road that leads to marriage" and of learning to love each other as traveling companions, it is good to keep in mind.

"Permission." The Pope commented that it is "the gentle request to be able to enter into the life of another with respect and attention". In other words, it is "knowing how to enter with courtesy into the life of others", since true love does not impose itself, it is for this reason that courtesy maintains love.

"Thank you." Francis affirmed that it may seem like a simple word to say, but it is not always the case. "Remember the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals ten leprosy patients and only one comes back to say thank you to Jesus. And the Lord says: and the other nine, where are they? This is also valid for us: do we know how to give thanks? In your relationship, and tomorrow in married life, it is important to keep alive the awareness that the other person is a gift from God, and to God's gifts we say thank you, we always say thank you". For this reason he encouraged the bride and groom to be grateful, in order to move forward together and positively towards married life.

"Forgiveness." The Pontiff stressed that the human condition leads to making mistakes and errors throughout life, therefore, it is imperative to apologize on the many occasions of the day. ""Forgive me if I raised my voice today"; "forgive me if I passed by without saying hello"; "forgive me if I was late", "if I was too silent this week", "if I talked too much without ever listening"; "forgive me if I forgot"; "forgive me, I was angry and I took it out on you".

We can say 'sorry' many times a day". He also explained that this is a teaching of Jesus, who encourages us to never end the day without asking for forgiveness, without peace returning to the home, to the bosom of the family. "If we learn to ask for forgiveness and to forgive each other, the marriage will last, it will go forward."

The authorSantiago Populín Such

Bachelor of Theology from the University of Navarra. Licentiate in Spiritual Theology from the University of the Holy Cross, Rome.

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United States

Bishop Barron wants to found an evangelization-oriented congregation

Bishop Barron, at the head of the "Word on Fire" platform, has a new project in mind: founding an evangelization-oriented religious order.

Editorial Staff Omnes-February 13, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

Bishop Robert Barron, known for his platform "Word on Fire."has announced a new project: a religious congregation oriented towards evangelization.

Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of "Word on Fire," the U.S. prelate is looking for between three and five priests and three or five novices who feel called to evangelize following the style of the Catholic content platform.

The religious community will be governed by rules already drafted by Bishop Barron and will receive an in-depth formation for evangelization. To achieve this, the future order already has a first house in the city of Rochester, Minnesota, where the community will begin.

In the press release published in "Word on Fire" they announce that "recruitment of priests will begin shortly". However, they also warn that there is a lack of donations "to finance the costs associated with living expenses, training and education". In fact, on the website they explain that the funding goal is $25,000,000, of which only $778,281 has been raised so far.

The announcement of this congregation founded by Bishop Barron ends with the wish that "this order will exist in perpetuity, leading the way in evangelization and drawing people into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ".

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Cinema

'Barefoot', Hakuna's film about the life force of music

On Friday 14th, 'Descalzos' (Barefoot), the film by Hakuna about the process of creation of his music, which basically comes from prayer, the relationship with God, will be released in Spanish theaters. It is an extensive musical report with testimonies about a Catholic movement that attracts many young people. "We sing what we live and live what we sing," they say.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 13, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes

The official synopsis of the film Barefoot', which opens on February 14 in theaters, by the hand of Bosco Films y A Contracorriente Filmsgives enough clues about the documentary. "Who taught the bird to sing?", he launches into the air, for reflection. "'Descalzos' plunges into the silence that music awakens", and "uncovers the history of the group that has baffled the music scene, going through their creative process and delving into the Life that moves them".

"When man dares to take off his shoes, opening himself to the Truth," he continues, "the music that springs forth is like an unstoppable arrow that reaches the heart of the person who dares to put himself in range. Life was the question; music, the answer," he says in a somewhat cryptic way, which is best understood by watching the film.

"When something is true."

Hakuna Group Music's music producer, Iñigo Guerrero, says it on several occasions in the film, and he also says it commented these days, reflecting on the keys to the success of his concerts with thousands of people. "When something is true, it's attractive."

That is one key to the boom of Christian music in Spanish, as seminarian Luis Sierra explains in Omnes magazine this month: "The spiritual restlessness that the artists manifest explicitly, their own relationship with God", living life "with bare feet", "killing indifference", as the lyrics of the song that gives the film its title say. 

The songs of "Hakuna Group Music, a formation linked to the movement The songs of the same name have become one of the most listened to in Spain. 'Huracán' was a hit at World Youth Day (WYD) in Lisbon in 2023. Indeed, Hakuna Group Music accumulates more than 342,000 monthly listeners on Spotify alone, although Huracán already has 14.5 million listens.

"Bare feet, bare soul."

This same week, at the conclusion of the preview of 'Descalzos', several of the attendees, particularly those from the HakunaFor example, the founder himself, the priest José Pedro Manglano (Josepe for his friends), asked me if I liked the film. I guess as an audience, because I am not an expert in cinema.

Against the backdrop of bare feet, "the naked soul" (as some said in the movie), I thought there could be no deception in the answer. The truth up front. And I told them what I really thought: that I had liked it a lot, even a lot, and that I had rested and enjoyed it, both things, which is no small thing in these times.

But it doesn't hurt to know what you're going to see. Neither with this movie nor with any other movie. In my family, a bit scattered by age, we don't go to the movies much, because cell phones and series have taken over. So, without spoilers, it's good to know beforehand if you're going to be offered a cachopo, a steak, or a sea bream.

Poster of the film 'Descalzos'.

Music that gets through the cracks of the soul

That is, if we are going to see an action movie, or a play with a beginning, middle and end, or a serene and calm documentary. Well, 'Barefoot' is the latter. At heart, 'Barefoot' is a comprehensive report on Hakuna, its genesis, with music that slips through the cracks, and real personal testimonies. No special plot, interesting and simple. Magnificent photography and splendid nature.

I stood in the back row. The preview audience was varied, but, with a few exceptions, not young people, and from what I could see, with people who appear in 'Descalzos', such as Agueda, an ALS patient, and her family. 

And so the film by director Santos Blanco, known for Freeon monastic life. From inside to outside, from inside to nature, from the Holy Hours of adoration of God to music. 

"It's something else."

With real testimonies. Javi Nieves (Cadena 100), the aforementioned Iñigo Guerrero, Manuel Alejandro, a wise old flamenco singer, a nun cured of cancer, a theologian, members of Hakuna, and so on. Without identifying themselves even with a sign, bareback. Confessing, showing their amazement, telling their story, their relationship with transcendence, revealing the soul. "Music can change the world because it can change people", that's what they say.

To be honest, it is not technically a documentary about this musical phenomenon, although it is popularly referred to as 'the film about Hakuna'. ' It's something else, has written a critic who usually hits the bull's eye. That's it. And to reiterate: the photography and sound are superb.

In addition, there are always songs like "Sencillamente", "Olor a tostadas", "Un segundo", "Noche" or "Dime Padre", the aforementioned 'Huracán', and of course, 'Forofos' (fans)with its message of unity.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Evangelization

Giavani Cairo, The Chosen actor, tells how the series rekindled his faith

Actor Giavani Cairo, who plays the apostle Judas Thaddeus, was raised Catholic but fell away from his faith. He rediscovered it while still acting in Los Angeles.

OSV / Omnes-February 13, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
RelatedRelated News"The Chosen", a series with an impactRelated NewsJonathan RoumieI always start by praying to interpret Jesus".Related NewsTheology at the crossroads of '68

OSV News / Jack Figge

Over the past four years, the television series The Chosen has taken the Catholic world by storm, as thousands eagerly await the premiere of the fifth season.

The Chosen is a popular historical drama that follows the life of Christ and his disciples. Produced by 5&2 Studios, a studio founded by Dallas Jenkins, the series' creator and director, The Chosen is currently in its fourth season. The fifth season will premiere in theaters nationwide next March.

Thanks to their participation in The Chosen, many of the show's cast and crew - including Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus - have rediscovered faith.

Giavani Cairo

One of them is Giavani Cairo, who plays Judas Thaddeus, one of the Twelve Apostles. Cairo was raised Catholic in Michigan, but fell away from his faith.

"Growing up, faith seemed to be something you just did," Cairo told OSV News. "You do first communion and confirmation, and then you go to church on the weekends. But I never felt like I had a relationship with Christ."

Cairo never wanted to be an actor until he took a class his senior year of high school. So, that's all he could dream of doing.

"We needed a public speaking class to graduate, so I took an acting class," Cairo said. "I didn't know if I would like it, but I found it was a great way to express myself through it, and it made me want to learn more about the acting world, so I moved to Los Angeles."

"There, I just fell more in love with it and did more acting training," he said.

Tired of life as an actor

"In 2018, I had been in Los Angeles for a few years chasing this dream, but for the wrong reasons," Cairo said. "I wanted to be an actor so I could be on TV or so I could be in the limelight, and it just wasn't fulfilling."

"I missed my family and my relationship with them was deteriorating," he explains. "I wasn't talking to them as much and I felt very lost."

Talking to a friend, she suggested to Cairo that he start volunteering in his spare time and set specific goals for the year. Cairo began praying regularly again and within a few months was hired for a television program.

Encounter with Scripture

"I made a pact to read the Bible every day. I started praying every day, even though I didn't think I was doing it right," Cairo says. "What's crazy is that a few weeks before the new year I auditioned for 'The Chosen Ones' after I heard they were looking for actors."

At first, Cairo was hesitant to audition for The Chosen. It was a low-budget production, and faith-based shows rarely succeed. However, he was so impressed by the script and Jenkins' vision that he took a leap of faith and applied for the casting call. After a second call, Cairo had a memorable Skype conversation with Jenkins and other crew members.

"Dallas told me, 'We don't know where we're going to put you, but we want you to participate,'" Cairo recounts. "I was very excited because the two things I wanted most of the year, which were to grow more in my faith and book a series, came true."

Acting in The Chosen has been a life-changing experience for him, he said. "It's made me want to be a better person," he said. "The character I play, Thaddeus, is a peacemaker who tries to see people for who they are and wants people to feel seen. That's the kind of friend I always wanted and always wanted to be when I was growing up. What I've learned is to love people for who they are."

Like Cairo, many viewers identify with the characters in the series. He says this is intentional, and has helped the series become popular with a large audience.

"If you watch the series, you start to see parts of yourself in them," he says. "You see Simon Peter frustrated or feeling like he's going to lose everything because he's been taxed. You see Jesus laughing and telling jokes at a wedding with his disciples. People feel that in person we do these things with our friends. We identify with the characters.

Ficcionar a Tadeo

When Cairo and the screenwriters began discussing how to portray Thaddeus, also known as St. Jude, they had little to rely on. Little is known about Thaddeus other than that he is a saint and that he appeared to be an observer. This gave Cairo the freedom to mold and elaborate the character to make him more relatable.

"He's a little quieter than many of the other disciples; he's an observer, as I am too," Cairo says. "But the truth is, I didn't have the confidence to speak my mind or stand up for others. But Thaddeus did." Through the program, Thaddeus is teaching me to be a better person to myself; therefore, I can be a better person to a lot of other people."

Over the past seven years, the cast and crew of The Chosen have formed a close-knit community in their attempt to portray the life of Christ, a community that Cairo will cherish forever.

"They have become my family, my brothers and sisters," he says. "We've been through so many trials and so many victories together. We've laughed together, we've cried together. We've shared victories and incredible moments. I just love these guys."

The fifth season of "The Chosen" will premiere in theaters beginning in March, with a subsequent release on "The Chosen" streaming app. Although the series approaches the death and resurrection of Christ, Cairo knows that "The Chosen" will always remain relevant as it tells the most timeless story.

"It's the most important story ever told," he says. "We all know where this story is going, but in the grand scheme of things, we all have a responsibility to share it, and that will never end. This is just the beginning of what we can do as disciples: show love to one another and spread the Gospel."

The authorOSV / Omnes

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Gospel

Faith and Social Justice. Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Joseph Evans comments on the readings for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) corresponding to February 16, 2025.

Joseph Evans-February 13, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

Luke's Gospel is, in general, the most optimistic of the four Gospels. In it, and perhaps even more so in the Acts of the ApostlesLuke unfailingly manages to see the positive side of things. If Mark emphasizes the Passion of Christ and John, while stressing the divinity of Christ, also sees sharply the opposition that Jesus must face from the forces of darkness and even from his own people (cf. John 1, 5-11), Luke joyfully announces the salvation of Christ (e.g., Lucas 2, 10-11). 

Matthew's account of Matthew's childhood presents us with the grim reality of the massacre of the innocents, but in Luke's account all is joy, with barely a glimpse of the future suffering to which the aged Simeon alludes (Lucas 2, 34-35). For Luke, persecution hardly seems a problem (e.g., Lucas 4, 28-30) and can even become an opportunity for growth (Facts 8, 1-6).

It is surprising, therefore, that in Luke's version of the BeatitudesIn Matthew's Gospel, which is today's Gospel, he - unlike Matthew - refers to the curses that a worldly lifestyle will bring upon us. In Matthew's account of the beatitudes, Jesus only proposes a whole series of blessings: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, etc... Of course, Jesus speaks in both versions, but the issue here is what the evangelist, inspired by the Holy Spirit, chooses to record.

Luke gives half as many beatitudes as Matthew and fills the spaces with curses. Blessed are the poor, those who now hunger and mourn, and the persecuted... In that sense, his account is much more social, with a greater concern for the poor and marginalized and for social justice (all typical of Luke). Matthew's list is more interior and spiritual ("Blessed are the poor"). His concern is more for interior renewal; Luke's is more for social change. The two versions complement each other perfectly. 

And with this same social concern (such as his account of the Magnificat of Mary: see Lucas 1:50-54), Luke outlines the curses that the oppression of the lowly will bring. The rich, the puffed-up, the empty laughers and fame-seekers, all will be cursed. In the first reading, Jeremiah has his own brief and much simpler list of blessings and curses. We are cursed for trusting in ourselves and blessed for trusting in God. It's like Matthew and Luke, but in a nutshell.

If the generally positive Luke can be so hard on the abuses of others, it must be a serious matter. In the end, we need both versions: where Matthew's Jesus calls us to holiness, in Luke he warns us that there is no holiness without a practical concern for social justice.

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Twentieth Century Theology

The Essence of Christianity, by Romano Guardini

On December 15, 2017, the cause for the beatification of Romano Guardini was introduced, almost 50 years after his death.

Juan Luis Lorda-February 13, 2025-Reading time: 7 minutes

It is always difficult to trace the history of ideas: what are the moments and contexts in which they take shape, are formulated and achieve diffusion. That Christianity is centered on the person of Christ was beautifully and clearly formulated by Guardini, with an impact that has marked the entire Catholic theology of the twentieth century. But evidently he did not invent it.

The Lord Himself implies it when He says "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me." (Jn 14:6). With all the mysterious power of the "I am" of Christ, in the Gospel of St. John: "I am the bread of life" (Jn 6:35,48,51), "I am the light of the world." (Jn 8:12; 12:46-48), "I am the door." (Jn 10:1-6), "I am the resurrection." (Jn 11:25). 

Contexts

On the one hand, there is the "liberal rationalist" effort, which, since the eighteenth century, has tried to reduce Christianity to some "universal" idea or essence, disregarding its historical concreteness, which seems doubtful. On the other hand, since the 19th century, the knowledge of other religions has grown exponentially: what do they have in common, what characterizes the religious fact? And, within this, what makes Christianity unique?

– Supernatural liberal protestant theologysince Schleiermacher, has assumed the idea that Christianity represents the essence of the religious in its most complete historical concreteness. Indeed, the religious can be defined as the relationship of submission and recognition towards the absolute. And, for Schleiermacher, Christianity realizes this in an eminent way.

But in parallel, during the 19th century, the comparative study of religions has spread. And just as one tries to find in other religions the outline and the elements that are so clearly observed in the Christian religion, with its beliefs, its sacred books, its morals, its worship and its church or believing community, one also tries to typify the Christian religion by comparison with the others. And Christ is seen in the Founder and Prophet of the Christian religion. 

Of course, Jesus Christ is the founder and prophet of the Christian religion, the vehicle through which this message reaches and spreads throughout the world. But, above all, he is the center and the content of the message. 

This is the singularity, which finds no resemblance in the history of religions. Buddha or Mohammed can be vehicles and even models in the practice of a religion (although in the case of Buddha it was more of a philosophy), but they are not its essence. On the other hand, with his Incarnation, the Word of God has made himself present in history in the form of a person. In Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, God manifests himself and saves. This is why the Christian religion is not summed up in an idea but in a person. 

Guardini will explain: "Jesus is not only the bearer of a message that demands a decision, but it is He Himself who provokes the decision, a decision imposed on every man, which penetrates all earthly attachments and which no power can either contrast or stop." (The essence of ChristianityCristiandad, Madrid 1984, p. 47). 

The title

Two famous books already bore the same title. In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach had published his The essence of Christianity. It was a reductive hermeneutic explanation of Christianity. Christianity would be the opposite of what it claims to be. Not the manifestation of a God who wants to save man, but the illusion of man who sublimates his own aspirations in the idea of God. God is only what we would like to be, taken to infinity. 

Adolf von Harnack, a famous historian of Christian antiquity and a liberal Protestant, answered him with a series of lectures in the book The essence of Christianity (1901). This is not an illusion, but the commandment of love is the highest historical expression of inner human progress. Christian history has perhaps paid too much attention to the doctrine of God or of Jesus Christ - so it seems to him - but the essence lies in the realization of the inner man in justice and charity. That is what gives it its universal significance, for men of all times. 

Actually, they had quite a lot in common. As children of their time, they found the history of salvation problematic and gave it only an allegorical value. But where Feuerbach saw an unhappy mirage, von Harnack found the ultimate manifestation of the human spirit. 

The liberal naivety that wants to contemplate human progress in history, also religious, would be shipwrecked in the First World War. And Barth would judge harshly the attempt of liberal theology to make Christianity reasonable, turning it into an idea and essence. It is the scandal of revelation that has to judge reason, and not the other way around. Thus he saves it and takes it out of its limits. But Barth does not descend to concrete history.

Guardini's book

Without quoting him, Guardini follows the opposite itinerary to Harnack: he starts from the historical fact of Jesus Christ and shows his universal significance, which cannot be reduced to any idea. Jesus Christ, as he was and as he is, is the essence of the Christian religion.  

As he points out in the "Preliminary Warning", The essence of Christianity was published in 1929, in the magazine Die Schildgenossen. But Guardini saw fit to publish it separately, because it seemed to him that it could serve as a "methodical introduction" to his other books on Christ, especially The image of Jesus, the Christ, in the New Testament, y The Lord. 

It develops the argumentation in four parts that we will briefly follow: I. The problemII. By way of differentiationIII. The person of Christ and what is essentially and properly Christian. Finally, in section IV, Resultbriefly summarizes his thesis.

The problem

"The question of the essence of Christianity has been answered in many different ways. It has been said that the essence of Christianity is that in it the individual personality advances to the center of religious consciousness; it has also been affirmed that the essence of Christianity lies in the fact that in it God reveals Himself as Father, the believer being placed before Him [...]: it has also been maintained that the peculiarity of Christianity is that it is a religion that elevates love of neighbor to the category of a fundamental value [...]. Of all these answers, there is not one that hits the mark." (16). They are also false, "are formulated in the form of abstract propositions, subsuming their 'object' under general concepts." (17). 

"Christianity is ultimately neither a doctrine of truth nor an interpretation of life. It is that too, but none of it constitutes its nuclear essence. Its essence is constituted by Jesus of Nazareth, by his existence, his work and his concrete destiny; that is to say, by a historical personality." (19). 

This poses a "problem". Because we are used to submitting to rules or laws, but here it is a matter of "to recognize another person as the supreme law of the whole religious sphere.".

By way of differentiation

Discernment is needed: "A superficial glance is enough to realize the immeasurable significance of the person of Jesus in the New Testament." (25). Remember the case of Buddha, and also of the prophets of Israel: "The prophet as well as the apostle are bearers of the Message, laborers in the great work, but nothing more." (32). "By contrast with all that, it becomes clear how fundamentally different is the position of the person of Jesus in the religious order proclaimed by him." (33).

The person of Christ and what is essentially and properly Christian

There are many versions of Christ's message: he preached the coming Kingdom, universal love, a new idea of God. In short, "it has been repeatedly asserted that Jesus is not part of the content of his message." (37). Well then, "this theory is false" (38). For many reasons. 

The first is that Jesus "explicitly demands that men follow him." (38), who opt for him, in a full-fledged way. In addition, his words and gestures "make the person of Christ appear as the criterion and motive for conduct". (40). Even the scandal of the "the fact that a historical person claims for himself an absolute religious significance." (50). "Everything Christian that comes from God to us, and likewise everything that goes from us to God, must pass through Him." (52). It is a mediation that is part of the content.

"The doctrine of Jesus is the doctrine of the Father. But not as in a prophet who receives and makes revelation known, but in the sense that its starting point is found in the Father, but, at the same time, also in Jesus." (60). 

Salvation is also given in him and through him. This is why the frequent expression in St. Paul is understood: "in it"The liturgy: "Through Christ, with him and in him.". This is how Christians live, this is how they pray, this is how they are saved, by the action of the Holy Spirit. Each one in particular and, at the same time, all in the Church. And it is expressed in a special way in the Eucharist: all are called to eat his Body, a necessary condition for entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

Result

This last brief section concludes everything: "There is no doctrine, no fundamental structure of ethical values, no religious attitude, no order of life that can be separated from the person of Christ and which can then be said to be Christian. What is Christian is Himself, what through Him reaches man and the relationship that through Him man can maintain with God." (103).

Christianity has a doctrine and a morality (a system of values) and a public worship and personal prayer. It has; but it is neither a doctrine, nor a morality, nor a cult, nor a church. Its essence is Jesus Christ. Its doctrine, its morals, its worship are realized in Christ. And there is neither doctrine nor morals nor worship that are Christian if they are not rooted and expressed in Christ. 

And finally, citing without citing the other "essences of Christianity," he concludes: "The thesis that Christianity is the religion of love can only be accurate in the sense that Christianity is the religion of love for Christ and, through Él, of love directed to God, as well as to other men [...]. Love for Christ is, then, the attitude that gives absolute meaning to all that is. All life must be determined by him". (105).  

The Italian theologian and bishop Bruno Forte has an essay on The essence of Christianity (2002), with a rethinking of the topic today and some historical assessments; and also the Spanish theologian Olegario González de Cardedal wrote The essence of Christianity (1997), much more voluminous and extensive, although with less detail as far as Guardini is concerned.

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Spain

The Spanish Episcopal Conference launches the campaign "Marriage is +".

The Spanish Episcopal Conference presented on February 12 the campaign "Marriage is +", which aims to "show the beauty of the Christian marriage proposal".

Editorial Staff Omnes-February 12, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes
RelatedRelated News"It is the year to revalue the beauty of marriage and the Christian family."

On February 12, the Spanish Bishops' Conference presented the campaign ".Marriage is +". This presentation precedes Marriage Week 2025, which runs from February 14 to 21 and aims to "show the beauty of the Christian marriage proposal".

The presentation was attended by José Gabriel Vera, director of Communications of the Conference; Miguel Garrigós, director of the Episcopal Subcommission for the Family and the Defense of Life; and Carlota Mariño Esteban, a member of the creative team that designed the campaign.

This year, 2025, the bishops have innovated with the proposal of the week of marriage, with the participation of final year students of the Faculty of Communication of the Pontifical University of Salamanca. These students have created a campaign whose axis "revolves around the heartbeat," as Mariño Esteban explained. Through this image, the contents follow in three videos the story of a real couple going through different stages.

Miguel Garrigós pointed out that this campaign stems from two concerns: "the decrease in the number of people who decide to get married" and "the increase in the number of divorces".

A proactive campaign in favor of marriage

In spite of this, the Episcopal Subcommittee is "convinced that the heart of each person aspires to a love that completes, is fruitful and endures. For this reason, this year's campaign "is proactive" and shows, through its slogan, that "marriage is more".

On the campaign's website you can find several resources for bride and groom and couples who want to deepen their relationship. There are also testimonies, articles to reflect on the identity of marriage in the Church and advice.

(From right to left) José Gabriel Vera, Carlota Mariño Esteban and Miguel Garrigós (Flickr / Conferencia Episcopal Española)

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The Vatican

Pope highlights God's humility in entering history

In his Jubilee Year cycle of catecheses on 'Jesus Christ, Our Hope', Pope Francis, still suffering from bronchitis, focused this morning on the birth of Jesus and the visit of the shepherds. He emphasized God's humility in entering history. He also prayed for "penance for peace".  

Francisco Otamendi-February 12, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes

The Pontiff has dedicated the catechesis of the Audience This morning in the Paul VI Hall at the birth of Jesus, with a meditation that underlined "the humility of God in entering history". 

At the beginning, he reported that "with my bronchitis, I still can't read, but next week I will be able to", so except for his words in Italian and Spanish, his reflection for the pilgrims was read in several languages by the priest Pierluigi Giroli, from the Secretariat of State.

"May paths of peace be found."

At the end of catechesis in Italian, before reciting the Our Father and giving the Blessing, the Pope encouraged two general considerations, asking for prayer and penance for peaceThe day after tomorrow (14th), we will celebrate the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the first propagators of the faith among the Slavic peoples. May their witness help you too to be apostles of the Gospel, leaven of renewal in personal, family and social life".

Reflecting on peace, the Holy Father recalled "so many countries that are at war", and encouraged: "Let us pray for peace, let us do everything for peace, we were not born to kill, but to make people grow. May paths of peace be found. May your daily prayer be, please, to ask for peace, for the martyred Ukraine that suffers, think of Palestine, Israel, Myanmar, North Kivu, South Sudan, please, let us pray for peace, let us do penance for peace".

Signs of the Messiah's humility

"In our catechesis today" (based on Luke 2:10-12), "we contemplate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, who enters history by becoming our companion on our journey," the Pope began his reflection.

"He Himself, from the womb, was always on the way. First, from Nazareth to the house of Elizabeth and Zechariah - in the Visitation -; then, from Nazareth to Belen to fulfill the census. This shows the humility of God, who does not evade or undermine the structures of the world, but illuminates and recreates them from within."

"Another sign of the humility of the Messiah is that he is not born in a palace, but in a place destined for animals. He does not manifest himself in clamor, but in silence; he does not impose himself, but offers himself." 

Shepherds, "recipients of the most wonderful news in history".

The Pope also stressed that God chooses shepherds "to be the recipients of the most wonderful news that has ever resounded in history: the shepherds, simple and humble people, are the first to receive this good news. The long-awaited Savior is born for them, to be the Shepherd of his people. They welcome him with grateful wonder and, as they set out to meet him, their hearts are filled with joy and hope".

Francis encouraged: "Let us ask the Lord for the grace to go to meet them promptly and simply, like shepherds, announcing to all the hope and joy of the Gospel". 

Jubilee, a time of spiritual renewal

As for his words to the pilgrims of different languages, perhaps those addressed to the English-speaking pilgrims, and then to the Chinese-speaking pilgrims, can summarize his speeches.

"I wish that the Jubilee of hope may it be for you and your families a time of grace and spiritual renewal. I invoke upon you all the joy and peace of the Lord Jesus," he said to the pilgrims from England, Northern Ireland, Malta, Sweden, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States, with special mention to "the seminarians of the Pontifical Irish College, assuring them of my prayers for their preparation for the priesthood".

"I cordially greet the Chinese-speaking people. Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you to work for a just and united society. My blessing to all!" he said to the Chinese-speaking people.

"Discerning in weakness the strength of the Child God."

Finally, the Pope made two requests. First, that "we too may ask for the grace to be, like the shepherds, capable of wonder and praise before God, and capable of guarding what He has entrusted to us: our talents, our charisms, our vocation and the people He places at our side". 

And secondly, "let us ask the Lord to know how to discern in weakness the extraordinary strength of the Child God, who comes to renew the world and transform our lives with his hope-filled plan for all humanity".

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Initiatives

Friends of Monkole projects change lives

Enrique Barrio, president of Amigos de Monkole, hopes that "peace will soon return to Congo". "We will go ahead with our projects in Kinshasa."

Teresa Aguado Peña-February 12, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsFriends of Monkole and toy company ASÍ help orphaned children with Christmas campaign

The lives of 27,438 people have been changed thanks to the Friends of Monkole Foundation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, financing health care for poor families through the Monkole Maternity and Children's Hospital and its three medical clinics on the outskirts of Kinshasa (the country's capital).

Since its establishment in 2017, they have helped more than 150,000 Congolese in vulnerable situations, mostly women and children, and last year the volunteer doctors of Friends of Monkole provided more than 2,000 hours of training. Currently, this foundation carries out 13 projects focused on improving the health and educational quality of people.

"Friends of Monkole" in 2024.

Among the 2024 projects, the Elikia Project (which means "hope" in Lingala) for uterine cancer screening in women stands out. Thanks to the work of Dr. Luis Chiva, head of Gynecology at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, and his teams of volunteers, 1,200 women have been treated and 8 women have undergone surgery for serious cancers. With the Rickets Project they have attended 79 children and with Forfait Mamá they have supported the birth, control and follow-up of 56 premature babies.

They also promote the Primary Care service, serving 25,400 people in 2024. With the Dentistry Project, thanks to the work and solidarity trips of the stomatologist Ignacio Martínez, 103 children, adolescents and elderly people without resources were attended.

Thanks to the hip depranocytosis project, 27 young people have been successfully operated on, in which the work of Dr. Víctor Barro and his team of volunteers has been fundamental.

The Agricultural Training for Women Project has had a significant impact on the lives of 40 women market gardeners from the COMABOK Cooperative, improving both their productive capacity and their resilience to climate change.

In addition, Amigos de Monkole has been able to provide schooling to 30 children from small orphanages by granting them scholarships. They have also promoted the Child Nutrition Project in Kimwenza, taking care, together with the missionaries of Christ Jesus, of 253 children with serious nutritional problems. They have also granted scholarships to 12 young girls from the Monkole Hospital Nursing School so that they can study nursing at the ISSI school.

Upcoming projects

In 2025, the foundation continues to promote these projects and is launching another one for the empowerment and professional training of vulnerable women in the municipalities of Mont-Ngafula and Selembao, in Kinshasa. The aim is to benefit 230 women young peopleparticularly those in vulnerable situations between the ages of 16 and 22.

Regarding the current conflict in the D.R. Congo, Enrique Barrio, president of the foundation, points out that "we are aware of the delicate situation that the D.R. Congo is currently experiencing and we hope that peace and stability will return to the east of the country as soon as possible. "We continue to work on the ground and will continue with all our projects in Kinshasa, which is just over 2,500 kilometers from Goma," he adds.

The authorTeresa Aguado Peña

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  • The day I didn't live the heroic minute 
ColumnistsMaria José Atienza

The day I didn't live the heroic minute 

There are many, more than those who left, who today have also had their heroic minute living the spirit of Opus Dei. Others of us have turned off the alarm clock and turned over in bed..., and nothing happens.

February 12, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

I didn't want to get up. My body said no and that time I decided to listen to it and no. I did not get up when the alarm clock rang. I didn't live the heroic minute, the one that has become so famous. And nothing happened.

No one scolded me, nor did they do violence to me... I didn't even confess not to do it; because it is not a sin to be lazy one day. Because that's what it is, the fall of a day.

The truth is that I get up at 6:30 a.m. to play sports. I also try to do prayer in the mornings, but my lack of diligence that day could have been more terrible for the committed athlete than for the average Christian, whether or not he or she is of the Opus. 

Once again, this institution of the Church is once again the dessert theme.

And I am not saying that there are not those who have felt abandoned, hurt (and not without reason) within the Work, or the Carmelites or the Camaldolese.

Sin is so terrible: the wounds it leaves - in oneself and in one's neighbor - are uncontrollable. As Pope Francis says: "sin always cuts, separates, divides". The people whom, throughout our lives, with or without intention, we have treated or judged badly, often do not manage to heal their wounds and for this reason, we must always ask for forgiveness. To them if we have the possibility, and above all and always, to God.

I know many people of Opus Dei, who continue and live every day happy and content. Celibate and non-celibate. Who mortify themselves (yes, because that is the common patrimony of the Church) and who mess up. Of those I know in Opus Dei, there are a few who I sincerely dislike - why should I deny it -, and there are many others whom I can count among my most loyal friends. 

I also know many people who left Opus and left the institution calmly and peacefully. Others did not.

Other people, whom I also love, were hurt because they lacked explanations and understanding; because they really did not have a vocation and some did not understand that dedication is always to God and not to their works, as Cardinal Van Thuan said; because they lived differently and the sensitivity of some and - at times - the rigorism of others clashed..., for a thousand reasons. Because there are always reasons: to persevere, and to give up. 

And I have seen, among many of those people who left the Work and those who live its spirit on a daily basis, a posture of dialogue, of healing, of reparation if necessary, that has put in order many ideas and healed wounds in their hearts. Not a few of these people have even returned to live their Christian life following the teachings of St. Josemaría Escrivá. 

There are many others, more than those who have left, who today have also had their heroic minute living the spirit of Opus Dei. Others, like me, have turned off the alarm clock and rolled over in bed..., and nothing happens. 

The authorMaria José Atienza

Director of Omnes. Degree in Communication, with more than 15 years of experience in Church communication. She has collaborated in media such as COPE or RNE.

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Vocations

My journey from Sufism to Christianity

My spiritual journey began in Sufism, with its unconditional love and longing for union with God. However, it was in Christ that I found the fullness of that all-transforming love.

Cyrus Azad-February 12, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsJesus of Nazareth' is the life's work of Benedict XVIRelated NewsJesus of Nazareth and historyRelated NewsWhy do philosophers have a patron and not a patron?

I want to tell you a story. The story of a journey in search of light, that light that calms the restless heart and that for centuries has guided mystics and sages. A journey that began with a spark of curiosity and ended with a discovery that changed everything. A path of spiritual transformation, in which Sufism revealed to me its deep connection with Christianity.

Since my childhood, Sufism has been part of my life. This mystical stream of Islam, based on love and the search for union with God, always seemed to me different from orthodox Islam. Its spirit of surrender, its constant yearning for truth and its insistence on the annulment of the ego reminded me deeply of the life of Christ and his teachings.

It is no accident that many historians trace the roots of Sufism back to the earliest Christian communities in Syria and Egypt, and even to the Essenes. The word "Sufi" shares the same root as "sophia," wisdom, a term that resonates with the early Christian tradition. And it is not only in the etymology that we find this relationship, but also in the way Sufis seek truth: through love, detachment and contemplation of divinity.

The Sufism teaches that the way to God is absolute love and the annihilation of self in order to be reborn in Him. This concept finds its parallel in the Christian idea of "dying to self" in order to live in Christ. Sufi poets such as Rumi and Attar described this process as a journey through different stages of purification, similar to the experiences of Christian mystics such as St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila.

The great Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar spoke of the "Seven Cities of Love," a spiritual path that begins with seeking and culminates in the annihilation of the self. Each stage, from desire for God to poverty and renunciation, resonates with the spiritual journey of Christian saints.

The stages

  1. "Talab" - Desire, Seek: The beginning of the path, where the seeker transcends worldly desires and begins his search for truth.
  2. "Eshgh" - Love: The greatest and most fearsome stage, where love for God consumes the seeker and transforms him.
  3. "Ma'arefat" - Knowledge: The knowledge of God and truth, which drives the seeker away from immorality and brings him closer to divine contemplation.
  4. "Bi Niazi" - Not Needing: The renunciation of worldly desires without expectation of reward, seeking only the nearness of God.
  5. "Tawhid" - Oneness: The deep understanding of God's oneness and total surrender to Him.
  6. "Heirat" - Surprise: A state of awe and contemplation in which the seeker is confronted with divine grandeur.
  7. "Faghr and Fana" - Necessity and Annihilation: The culmination of the journey, where the seeker completely renounces self and merges into the love of God.

In my own search, there was a moment when I felt that something was missing. I knew that Sufism brought me closer to the truth, but a question remained latent: where to find the ultimate source of that Love that transforms everything? As if by fate, my studies led me to Jesus of Nazareth, and there I found the answer. Sufism had prepared my heart, but in Christ I found the fullness of that love I had been searching for.

Benedict XVI's resignation was the expression of an act of profound humility, demonstrating that, despite his immense authority over millions of people, his greatest commitment was to the example of Jesus. In a world where few are willing to cede power, he, clothed with the highest spiritual authority as Pope, decided to step aside. This gesture led me to a profound reflection: I understood that my love for him had to be translated into action and commitment. It was then that I had absolute clarity: I had to be baptized in his name and become a child of God, accepting the gift of his sacrifice with gratitude and faith.

Sufism, with its tireless search for God through love, is the expression of Islam that comes closest to the heart of Christianity. And in my case, it was the bridge that led me to Him.

The authorCyrus Azad

RelatedRelated NewsJesus of Nazareth' is the life's work of Benedict XVIRelated NewsJesus of Nazareth and historyRelated NewsWhy do philosophers have a patron and not a patron?
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  • The martyrs of Abitinia and St. Eulalia of Barcelona, witnesses to the faith
Evangelization

The martyrs of Abitinia and St. Eulalia of Barcelona, witnesses to the faith

Today the Church celebrates the 49 holy martyrs of Abitinia or Abitina, today's Tunisia, caught in the Eucharist in defiance of the imperial prohibition. One of them answered before dying: "Sine dominico non possumus" (without Sunday we cannot live). Barcelona commemorates Saint Eulalia, virgin and martyr.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 12, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

At the closing of the XXVI Italian Eucharistic Congress in Bari (Italy), in May 2005, Benedict XVI recalled the scene. It was the feast of Corpus Christi. The Pope said: "It was significant, among others, the answer that a certain Emeritus gave to the proconsul who asked him why they had transgressed the severe order of the emperor. He answered: "Sine dominico non possumus"; that is, without gathering in assembly on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist we cannot live. We would lack the strength to face the daily difficulties and not succumb". 

After atrocious tortures, St. Saturninus and 48 other martyrs of Abitina, recorded in the with their names in the Roman Martyrology, they were killed. "Thus, with the effusion of blood, they confirmed their faith. They died, but they conquered; now we remember them in the glory of the risen Christ. On the experience of the martyrs of Abitina we too, Christians of the 21st century, must reflect," Pope Benedict suggested.

"We need this bread to face the fatigue and weariness of the journey. Sunday, the Lord's Day, is the propitious occasion to draw strength from him, who is the Lord of life", continued the Papa. "To participate in the Sunday celebration, to feed on the Eucharistic bread and to experience the communion of brothers and sisters in Christ is a necessity for the Christian".

Saint Eulalia was a young Christian girl of the 4th century who lived in Barcelona, and did not renounce her faith during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian. As a consequence, she was subjected to severe tortures and is buried in the crypt of the cathedral, dedicated Santa Cruz and Santa Eulalia, who is co-patron saint of the city. On the other hand, the feast of the Virgen de la Merced, patron saint of the city. diocese of Barcelonais celebrated on September 24.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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  • Identity and mission of the Church: interview with Giulio Maspero
Resources

Identity and mission of the Church: interview with Giulio Maspero

How does the Christian community reflect the God it worships? Why can't the Church be reduced to a mere human institution? These are some of the questions to which Giulio Maspero, dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, provides answers.

Giovanni Tridente-February 12, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
RelatedRelated News"'Laudato Si' has been a watershed for the Church and for the world."Related NewsSixty Years of Lumen Gentium: Rediscovering the Mystery of the Church

How does the Christian community reflect the God it worships? How does the history of the people of Israel relate to the mission of Christians, and why can the Church not be reduced to a mere human institution?

In a conversation with Fr. Giulio Maspero, we explore some of the spiritual, anthropological and juridical foundations that characterize the community of believers. A member of the council of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, he is professor of Dogmatic Theology and dean of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Rome. Pontifical University of the Holy Cross of Rome.

Professor, let's start with the concept of identity of a religious community. How does the Church reflect the divinity it worships?

- Every religious community identifies itself according to the deity it worships. In the case of the Church, the deity is the God of Jesus Christ, so that, in order to understand what the Church is and what its mission is, we must start from the mystery of this triune God. Unlike the pagan deities, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is unique, transcendent and creates from nothing out of love. This Trinitarian communion is the model that the Church herself is called to reflect in her life and action.

How can we adequately understand this God who is one but also triune?

- It means recognizing that God, being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is perfect and absolute communion. Man, created in God's image and likeness, participates in this divine life. The Old Testament shows the progressive awareness of the Jewish people of their relationship with God, which culminates in Jesus Christ. The Church is born precisely from the encounter with the Triune God who, in Jesus, gives himself definitively, offering us to be his friends and members of the Mystical Body which is the Church herself.

Where does the history of the people of Israel fit into this discourse?

- Israel is the people called to live the relationship with the one God, discovering little by little the depth of the covenant. After moments of crisis and exile, it has become aware of the value of belonging to a Creator who loves his people.

With the advent of Jesus, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is fully revealed as Trinity: Christianity is not limited to inheriting an earthly monarchy, but welcomes and spreads the possibility of participating in the divine Life open to all. The Church is the prolongation of this love story, where the baptized enter into a profound relationship with the triune God.

It is often stressed that the Church cannot be reduced to a merely human or political structure....

- Indeed, the Church is not a political institution like the Davidic monarchy of the Old Testament, nor is it a mere building or the Vatican State. It is the People of God, the Body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit: three images that speak of the richness of the Trinitarian communion that generates it. The main bond is not juridical, but spiritual: every Christian, by the BaptismThe Church of Jesus Christ, comes into contact with the living God and with all brothers and sisters in the faith.

Obviously, the Church, in the course of two thousand years of history, has equipped herself with structures and rules to make this communion visible and operative, but its origin and its strength lie in the living encounter with the Risen One.

Where does its universal, i.e., "Catholic", character come from?

- It derives from the fact that God is the Lord of all times and places, so that the Church, as the People of God, is destined to bring together people of all cultures, ages and backgrounds. This is already announced in the Scriptures, from the Old to the New Testament: the whole of human history is seen as the progressive encounter between God and man.

The Gospel is not simply a set of words written in a book, but the very presence of Christ dwelling in his community, especially in the sacraments, the liturgy and mutual love. Hence the Church's vocation to be a sign of this unity of God with humanity.

What sources would you recommend to those who would like to know more about the nature and mission of the Church?

- There are three main references. First, the life of the Church itself, with the sacraments, the liturgy and the witness of the saints, which concretely express its reality. Secondly, Sacred Scripture, in particular the Acts of the Apostles, where we find the Church of the origins. Thirdly, the Magisterium of the Church, which includes the documents and the Catechism.

Here are three examples of texts: "The Church Our Mother," by St. Josemaría Escrivá; the Acts of the Apostles, which we find immediately after the Gospels; the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and the Dogmatic Constitution "Lumen Gentium" of the Second Vatican Council. In my opinion, these sources, combined, help us to grasp the Church as a living communion in continuous dialogue with the Lord and with humanity.

Specifically, how can the institution dialogue with today's world?

- The Church is the place where every person is invited to personally encounter the Risen Christ, becoming his friend and sharing his divine life. It is, therefore, a reality that touches the deepest dimension of the person, but which also translates into real and concrete relationships of communion.

In the course of time, this encounter has resulted in a definite structure and identity, despite the limitations and difficulties of human history. In the end, however, what remains crucial is the presence of the Risen One: it is He who makes it possible and impels it to serve the world, announcing the good news to every people and generation.

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RelatedRelated News"'Laudato Si' has been a watershed for the Church and for the world."Related NewsSixty Years of Lumen Gentium: Rediscovering the Mystery of the Church
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Photo Gallery

Jubilee of the armed forces

Members of the Italian Army and Carabinieri attend the Jubilee Mass of the Armed Forces, February 9, 2025.

Editorial Staff Omnes-February 11, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute
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The Vatican

St. Teresa of Calcutta enters in the General Roman Calendar

The Holy See has announced that the free memorial of the holy foundress of the Missionaries of Charity will be included in the General Roman Calendar and celebrated on September 5.

Maria José Atienza-February 11, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute
RelatedRelated NewsDecrees of canonization: Mother Teresa of Calcutta will become a saint on September 4Related NewsMother Teresa of Calcutta, a saint for our time

"The Supreme Pontiff Francis, welcoming the requests and wishes of Pastors, religious, and associations of the faithful, and considering the influence exerted by the spirituality of St. Teresa of Calcutta in many regions of the world, has decreed that the name of St. Teresa of CalcuttaThe decree signed by the Pope and released today by the Holy See highlights the inclusion of the memory of the saint of Calcutta in the General Roman Calendar and her free memory to be celebrated by all on September 5". 

St. Teresa of Calcutta joins the latest additions to the Roman Calendar such as Saints Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus or St. John of Avila.

The Episcopal Conferences must now translate, approve and, after confirmation by this Dicastery, publish the texts corresponding to this memoir and include them in the Calendars and Liturgical Books for the celebration of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. 

The decree issued by the Vatican highlights the "testimony of the dignity and privilege of humble service" of Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, who stands as an "icon of the Good Samaritan" and "never ceases to shine as a source of hope for so many people who seek comfort in the tribulations of body and spirit". 

Teresa of Calcutta was beatified in 2003 by St. John Paul II to whom she was united by a deep and sincere friendship, and canonized in 2016 by Pope Francis within the Year of Mercy. Her feast day is celebrated on September 5, the date of her death. dies natalis.

RelatedRelated NewsDecrees of canonization: Mother Teresa of Calcutta will become a saint on September 4Related NewsMother Teresa of Calcutta, a saint for our time
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  • The Peruvian bishop who multiplied by 4 the number of priests in his diocese in 13 years
Evangelization

The Peruvian bishop who multiplied by 4 the number of priests in his diocese in 13 years

Monsignor José María Ortega, Bishop of the Diocese of Juli in Peru, explains that the first task he undertook after his appointment was to get to know and care for priests. Thanks to his work, he has managed to increase the number of priests in his diocese fourfold in just thirteen years.

P. Manuel Tamayo-February 11, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes
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Monsignor José María Ortega is the resigned bishop of Juli. He was the first Peruvian priest to be ordained in Yauyos and, in 2006, he was appointed bishop prelate of Juli. This prelature, located in the Peruvian puna at 4,000 meters above sea level next to Lake Titicaca, is one of the poorest areas of the country. For 13 years, Monsignor Ortega dedicated his life to serving these communities, facing challenges and leaving a legacy of faith and hope. Today he shares with us his experience and the fruits of his labor in this land of contrasts and extreme beauty. We spoke with him about his experience at the head of the prelature.

What is the territory you were assigned to like?

- The prelature of Juli was erected for the indigenous Aymara race, who live in five provinces and six districts of the Puno region, around Lake Titicaca. It is a very cold and destitute area.

What did you find at the Prelature when you arrived? What struck you most?

- What struck me most was the poverty, both material and spiritual. There were religious, but they had not been looking for vocations or training priests for the jurisdiction for more than 50 years. However, the previous bishops had left six Aymara priests, natives of the area.

How did you plan your work upon arrival? What was the first thing you did?

- The first thing was to take care of the five Aymara priests, since one of them was sick. I knew I needed to gain their trust, since I was from abroad and they were expecting a native bishop. I then focused on seeking vocations, visiting schools and dealing with young people. Inspired by St. Toribio de Mogrovejo, I decided to go all over the prelature to get to know it well.

How was the people's reception and did you encounter any difficulties?

- Yes, there are always difficulties. At the beginning, some authorities and those in charge of municipalities were reluctant, but the simple people, when they saw me celebrating Mass and explaining the sacraments, were happy. Little by little, I gained their trust. I remember a town called Quilcapunco, at 4,800 meters above sea level, where at first they did not open the church to me, but the people finally forced the person in charge to open it. That night we celebrated Mass, and the people were happy.

If there were only six priests, how was the formation of new priests? Was a seminary established?

- It was not easy, but with the help of two priests from Yauyos, Fernando Samaniego and Clemente Ortega, we started touring schools and talking to young people. We did not talk to them directly about vocation, but we showed them our work as priests. We played soccer with them and that is how we gained their trust.

Three years after my arrival, we started the major seminary, and after seven years we had the first ordinations. When I left the prelature, there were 24 ordained priests and 3 deacons, totaling 33 priests.

How was the experience with the women weavers in the region?

- It was an initiative that came later. I contacted friends in Spain, like Adolfo Cazorla, who helped improve the women's weaving. They taught them to perfect their art without losing their culture. This improved their economic and family situation. Today, these women have presentations in Lima and Madrid, and they are very grateful. The association created by these women artisans brings together 300 women from the Peruvian Altiplano, belonging to 21 communities.

What are the fruits and achievements of those years of work?

- I was bishop in Juli for 13 years, from 2006 to 2019. From the spiritual point of view, I left a seminary with 17 major seminarians and 14 minor seminarians. I erected new parishes, going from 17 to 26, all served by priests. We also improved the parish houses.

Materially, we helped improve crops and trout farming in Lake Titicaca, which raised the economic level of the families. All of this was possible thanks to the help of institutions such as AdveniatThe Italian Episcopal Conference and Caritas of Spain.

What message would you give to those who follow your work in the prelature of Juli?

- May they continue to dream and work with hope. As St. Josemaría Escrivá used to say, "dream and you will fall short". The sowing we have done will bear fruit, and good things will come for the Prelature.

The authorP. Manuel Tamayo

Peruvian priest

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Evangelization

Our Lady of Lourdes, Health of the Sick

The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is celebrated on February 11. The story began in the 19th century when little Bernadette Soubirous received a visit from the Virgin Mary. To her questions about who she was, the Virgin replied: "I am the Immaculate Conception". Today is the XXXIII World Day of the Sick.  

Loreto Rios-February 11, 2025-Reading time: 8 minutes

Today the Church commemorates the Virgin of Lourdespatroness and protector of the patients. In 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes. Since then, millions of pilgrims have flocked to the shrine to pray, reconcile with God and bathe in the spring water. 

For this World Day of the Sick, in the Jubilee Year 2025, the Pope has written a Message. The Pontiff concludes by calling Mary 'Health of the Sick', as in the Rosary, and with the prayer Sub tuum praesidium (Under your protection, we take refuge). We review below the key points of the apparitions and the history of the shrine.

Bernadette's childhood

Bernadette was born on January 7, 1844 in the Boly mill in Lourdes. In 1854, the family began to face difficulties due to bad harvests. In addition, there was a cholera epidemic. Bernadette contracted it and carried the after-effects throughout her life.

The economic crisis led to the family's eviction. Thanks to a relative, they were able to move to a 5×4 meter room, a dungeon in a former prison that was no longer used due to unsanitary conditions.

Bernadette could neither read nor write. Because of her family's poverty, she began working as a maid at a very young age, in addition to taking care of household chores and her younger siblings. Eventually, she and one of her sisters began collecting and selling scrap metal, paper, cardboard and firewood. Bernadette did this even though her health was very fragile due to asthma and the after-effects of cholera.

The first appearance

It was on one of these occasions, when Bernadette, her sister and a friend went out of town to get firewood, that the first apparition took place. It was February 11, 1858, and Bernadette was 14 years old (all the apparitions took place in this year, making a total of eighteen). The place they were going to was the grotto of Massabielle.

The girl later recounted that she heard a rustling wind: "Behind the branches, inside the opening, I saw at once a young girl all white, no taller than me, who greeted me with a slight nod of her head," she later said. "From her right arm hung a rosary. I was afraid and I stepped back [...] However, it was not a fear like the one I had felt at other times, because I would have always looked at her ('aquéro'), and when you are afraid you run away immediately. Then the idea of praying came to me. [I prayed with my rosary. The young woman slipped the beads of hers, but did not move her lips. [...] When I had finished the rosary, she greeted me with a smile. She withdrew into the hollow and suddenly disappeared" (the textual words of Bernadette and Our Lady are taken from the website of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes and from the official website of the sanctuary).

Our Lady's Invitation

The second apparition, which took place on February 14, was also silent. The girl sprinkled the Virgin with holy water, the Virgin smiled and bowed her head, and when Bernadette finished praying the rosary, she disappeared. Bernadette told her parents at home what was happening to her and they forbade her to return to the grotto. However, an acquaintance of the family convinced them to let the girl return, but accompanied, and with paper and a pen so that the unknown woman could write her name. 

Thus, Bernadette returned to the grotto, and the third apparition took place. At the request to write her name, the woman smiled and invited Bernadette with a gesture to enter the grotto. "What I have to say need not be written down," she said. She added: "Would you do me the favor of coming here for a fortnight?". Later, Bernadette would say that it was the first time someone had called her "you". "He looked at me like a person looks at another person," she said explaining her experience. These words of the little girl are currently written at the entrance of the Cenacle of Lourdes, a place of rehabilitation for people with different addictions, especially drug addictions.

Bernadette accepted the invitation, and Our Lady added: "I do not promise you the happiness of this world, but that of the next. Between February 19 and 23, four more apparitions took place. In the meantime, the news had been spreading and many people accompanied Bernadette to the grotto of Massabielle. After the sixth apparition, the girl was interrogated by Inspector Jacomet.

The spring

The first appearances, seven in all, were happy ones for Bernadette. During the five subsequent ones, which took place between February 24 and March 1, the girl seemed sad. Our Lady asked her to pray and do penance for sinners. Bernadette prays on her knees and sometimes walks around the cave in that posture. She also eats grass at the direction of the lady, who tells her: "Go and drink and wash in the fountain".

In response to this request, Bernadette goes three times to the river. But the Virgin tells her to return and points out the place where she must dig to find the spring to which she refers.

The girl obeys and indeed discovers water, from which she drinks and with which she washes herself, although, being mixed with mud, she gets her face dirty. People tell her that she is crazy for doing these things, to which the girl replies: "It is for sinners". During the twelfth apparition, the first miracle took place: at night, a woman washed her arm, paralyzed for two years due to a dislocation, in the spring and regained mobility.

Immaculate Conception

In the apparition of March 2, Our Lady entrusted her with a task: to ask the priests to build a chapel in that place and to go there in procession. In obedience to this command, Bernadette went directly to the parish priest. The priest does not receive her very warmly and tells her that, before granting her request, the mysterious woman must reveal her name. Bernadette would never say that she had seen the Virgin, since the woman she was talking to had not told her her name.

On March 25, the girl went to the grotto at dawn, accompanied by her aunts. After praying a mystery of the rosary, the woman appears and Bernadette asks her to tell her name. The girl asks her name three times. On the fourth time, the woman replied: "I am the Immaculate Conception". The Virgin never spoke to the girl in French, but in Bernadette's native dialect, and in this language are written the words under the carving of the Virgin of Lourdes that is currently placed in the grotto: "Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou" (I am the Immaculate Conception).

This term, which refers to the fact that Mary was conceived without original sin, was unknown to Bernadette, and had been proclaimed a dogma of faith only four years earlier by Pope Pius IX.

Recognition of apparitions

Bernadette went to the parish house to give an account of what had been transmitted to her. The priest was surprised to hear that term on the girl's lips, and she explained that she had come all the way repeating the words so as not to forget them. Finally, on July 16, the last apparition took place.

The Church officially recognized the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1862, only four years after they concluded, and while Bernadette was still alive.

After the apparitions, she entered the community of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers as a novice in 1866. She died of tuberculosis in 1879, and was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933, on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Sanctuary sites

The sanctuary has some key places to visit on any pilgrimage. The Masabielle Grotto is one of the most important places of the sanctuary. Mass is currently celebrated in the largest part of it. Located in the place on the rock where Mary appeared, there is a figure of the Virgin that was made from Bernadette's description. 

"She was wearing a white dress, which came down to her feet, of which only the tip was visible. The dress was closed at the top, around her neck. A white veil, which covered her head, descended down her shoulders and arms to the floor. On each foot I saw that she had a yellow rose. The sash of her dress was blue and fell to just below her knees. The chain of the rosary was yellow, the beads were white, thick and very far apart. 

The figure is almost two meters high and was placed in the grotto on April 4, 1864. The sculptor was Joseph Fabisch, a professor at the Lyon School of Fine Arts. The place where the girl stood during the apparitions is indicated on the floor.

The water of Lourdes, places, processions 

The spring that nourishes the fountains of Lourdes and the pools springs from the Massabielle grotto, and it is the one that was discovered by Bernadette at the indication of the Virgin. The water has been analyzed on numerous occasions and contains nothing different from the waters of other places.

The tradition of bathing in the pools of Lourdes stems from the ninth apparition, which took place on February 25, 1858. It was on that occasion that Our Lady told Bernadette to drink and wash in the spring. In the following days, many people imitated her and the first miracles took place, which have continued to this day (the last one approved by the Church dates from 2018).

The water from the spring is also used to fill the marble pools, located near the grotto, where pilgrims immerse themselves. The immersion, during which one is covered by a towel, is done with the help of volunteers from the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes.

In winter, or in pandemic season, full immersion is not possible. Access to the water and bathing are completely free. Many people also choose to take a bottle filled with water from the Lourdes spring, which is easily accessible at the fountains next to the grotto.

In total there are 17 pools, eleven for women and six for men. They are used by approximately 350,000 pilgrims a year.

Places where Bernadette lived

In addition to the sanctuary, in Lourdes you can visit the places where Bernadette was: Boly mill, where she was born; the local parish, which still preserves the baptismal font in which she was baptized; the hospice of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, where she made her first communion; the old parish house, where she spoke with Abbot Peyramale; the "dungeon" where she lived with her family after the eviction; Bartrès, where she resided as a child and in 1857; or Moulin Lacadè, where her parents lived after the apparitions.

Processions

A very important event of the sanctuary of Lourdes is the Eucharistic procession, which has been held since 1874. It takes place from April to October every day at five o'clock in the afternoon. It begins in the meadow of the sanctuary and concludes at the Basilica of St. Pius X.

Also relevant is the torchlight procession. This has been celebrated since 1872, from April to October, every day at 9:00 p.m. The custom arose from the fact that Bernadette often went to the apparitions with a candle. The custom arose from the fact that Bernadette often went to the apparitions with a candle.

After the apparitions, three basilicas were built in the area. The first was the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, which Pope Pius IX made a minor basilica on March 13, 1874. Its stained glass windows depict both the apparitions and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Basilicas and churches

There is also the basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, in Romanesque-Byzantine style. The basilica contains 15 mosaics depicting the mysteries of the rosary. The crypt, which was the chapel built at the request of the Virgin, was inaugurated in 1866 by Monsignor Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, in a ceremony at which Bernadette was present. It is located between the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.

There is also the Basilica of St. Pius X, a subway church of reinforced concrete built for the centenary of the apparitions in 1958.

Finally, there is the church of St. Bernadette, built on the site where the girl saw the last apparition, on the other side of the Gave River, since she could not enter the grotto that day because it had been fenced off. The church was inaugurated more than a century later, in 1988.

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United States

U.S. Sunday Mass attendance returns to pre-pandemic levels

Face-to-face attendance at Sunday Mass in U.S. Catholic churches has returned to pre-pandemic levels, although barely a quarter of the nation's Catholics attend Mass weekly.  

OSV News Agency-February 11, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

- OSV News / Gina Christian

The Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University has noted in a February 5 post on his blog Nineteen Sixty-four research study that attendance at the Sunday Mass on a face-to-face basis has increased to 24 percent since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in May 2023. That rate has been maintained through the first week of 2025.

From the start of the pandemic closures in March 2020 through May 2023, attendance had averaged 15 %. Prior to the pandemic, average attendance was 24.4 %.

Mark Gray, CARA's director of polling and editor of the blog, told OSV News that attendance figures recently released by the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, had underscored a trend he and his colleagues had identified.

Not a direct measurement, but an approximation.

"It's something I became aware of, and when the Diocese of Arlington released its October attendance figures ..., I thought, all right, I'm going to go ahead and put this (data) out there," Gray said, referring to an annual count of Mass attendance conducted by many U.S. dioceses.

Gray, who is also an associate research professor at Georgetown University, and his colleagues have relied on data from their various national surveys, along with Google Trends queries that, he said, "allow us to see variations in how often people search" for certain terms that "would correlate with Mass attendance."

"It's not a direct measurement, but it's an approximation," explained Gray, who also noted that the drop in data does not take into account those who resorted to live-streamed and televised liturgies during pandemic closures.

Analysis of the figures

"We've also analyzed those numbers," he said. "We can alter search terms and Google Trends to different queries. We've done that in the past, and we saw that about the same percentage of Catholics participated in Mass during closings, if you included viewing on TV or online. And then we have surveys about attending Mass in person, and watching it on TV or online."

Gray said the Mass attendance data "almost looks like a more straightforward distribution once you include the TV and Internet figures" during pandemic closures.

He also noted that the pandemic closures were 'a local situation' in which some areas "opened...quickly" and "others remained closed for much longer."

Ash Wednesday, the third day of highest attendance

But since "this last Christmas in 2024, things have gone back to normal," he noted.

Some Masses during the year generally reflect "spikes" in attendance, Gray said. Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday are the most attended liturgies.

"We're always interested in Ash Wednesday," since "it's probably one of the most unusual days," Gray said. "It's not a day of precept, but it's the third highest Mass attendance historically, according to the data," he said. "And it also has probably the highest turnout of young adult Catholics."

Gray added that "if there is ever a time when the Church needs to reach out to young adult Catholics, Lent and specifically the Ash Wednesday it's time. So it's always a good barometer to see what the activity is like during that period, because it gives you a little insight into the future of the next generation of Catholics."

The authorOSV News Agency

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Initiatives

Harambee announces sixth Guadeloupe scholarship program

Harambee is looking for African women scientists who would like to participate in the Guadeloupe Fellowship program starting February 11.

Teresa Aguado Peña-February 10, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes
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In the framework of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, February 11, the terms and conditions of the sixth call for applications for the Harambee Guadalupe Scholarship Program for women scientists from sub-Saharan Africa, which will remain open with a 45-day application period at www.harambee.es.

This program, created in 2019 in memory of the Spanish scientist Guadalupe Ortiz de LandázuriThe Foundation, which was beatified that same year, provides mobility grants to women from sub-Saharan Africa so that they can broaden their scientific horizons during research stays outside their country. 

The objective of this initiative, according to the vice-president of Harambee ONGD, Ramón Pardo de Santayana, is to promote leadership and give visibility to African women in scientific, technological and humanistic research, promote equality in the academic field and help complete scientific and technical training and specialization.

Harambee Scholarships

A total of 25 women scientists have already enjoyed the scholarships, with research projects supported by Harambee ONGD. Seven have been established by the Chair of Sustainable Chemistry of the UNED with funding from the City of Puertollano. 

Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Uganda, D.R. Congo and Senegal are the places where the woodcocks come from. Among them, the Nigerian biologist Brakemi Egbedi, has arrived in Vigo in early 2025 to research on obtaining marine collagen from fishery by-products at the Institute of Marine Research CSIC. 

Prestigious Spanish researchers make up the scientific committee that evaluates the applicants and selects those with the best curriculum among those who meet the requirements, among which is the commitment to return to their country. Harambee ONGD is an international solidarity initiative that promotes, through cooperation and communication, development in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting educational projects for the promotion of women, maternal and child health and food security. As well as the dissemination in the rest of the world of the values and qualities of African culture.

The authorTeresa Aguado Peña

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The Vatican

Israelis, Palestinians and Americans meet in Rome

Young people from Israel, Palestine and the United States met in Rome to discuss the need to seek peace.

Rome Reports-February 10, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute
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Young people from Israel, Palestine and the United States met in Rome to discuss the need to seek peace. All of them gave their testimonies, starting from the horrors of October 7, 2023.

This meeting was made possible by an interfaith event organized by the Scholas Ocurrentes Foundation.

Now you can enjoy a 20% discount on your subscription to Rome Reports Premiumthe international news agency specializing in the activities of the Pope and the Vatican.

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  • Thousands of voices unite to fan the flame of vocations in Spain
Vocations

Thousands of voices unite to fan the flame of vocations in Spain

The Episcopal Conference has organized a major event to revive vocations in Spain and to make a positive and ambitious proposal.

Javier García Herrería-February 10, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes
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From February 7 to 9, 2025, the Spanish Episcopal Conference held at the Madrid-Arena pavilion the Vocations Congress under the theme "Who am I for? Assembly of Mission Callings". For three days, about 3,000 people from different ecclesial realities - dioceses, religious congregations, lay movements and new communities - gathered to reflect on the Christian vocation in all its forms.

The congress was inaugurated with a message from Pope Francis, who recalled that every vocation is born of the love of God and is sustained by generous self-giving. Cardinal José Cobo, Archbishop of Madrid, encouraged the participants to allow themselves to be surprised by the call of God, who always invites us to go out of ourselves. Archbishop Luis Argüello, president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, stressed in his speech that it is not only a question of asking ourselves 'for whom I am', but of making our life a concrete response to God's call.

An ambitious bid to address a key topic

The organization of this congress has been an ambitious commitment on the part of the Spanish Church, which has approached the topic of vocations with a great investment in means and logistics. The choice of the Madrid-Arena pavilion, a venue with a capacity for thousands of attendees, reflected the magnitude and importance of the event.

The congress responded to the need to promote a renewed vocational impulse at a time when the Church is facing great challenges in the transmission of the faith and the accompaniment of those who feel a special call from God. With a varied and dynamic program, the Episcopal Conference has sought to generate a lasting impact on the country's vocation ministry.

A Congress structured in four itineraries

The event was organized around four major thematic itineraries: Word, Community, Subject and Mission. These axes served as a guide for the reflections, testimonies and activities, offering an integral vision of the Christian vocation.

  • Word: The seminar has deepened our understanding of how vocation is born and nourished by listening to God through Scripture and prayer.
  • Community: the importance of accompaniment and community life in the vocational journey has been addressed.
  • Subject: the focus has been placed on the personal identity of each believer and his or her process of discernment.
  • Mission: vocation has been highlighted as a call to dedication and service within and outside the Church.

64 training workshops

Within these itineraries, the participants took part in a total of 64 workshops designed to deepen their understanding of different aspects of vocation. These spaces, led by experts, priests, religious and committed lay people, have included testimonies of people who have discovered and embraced their vocation in various ecclesial realities.

In addition to the workshops, the Congress offered moments of community prayer, spaces for adoration, vocational testimonies and liturgical celebrations, culminating with a sending Eucharist presided over by Bishop Luis Argüello. In his concluding remarks, the president of the EEC recalled that vocation is always a response of love to a God who calls us to serve with joy.

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  • Blessed are those who mourn: my time at Almendral College
ColumnistsJuan Ignacio Izquierdo Hübner

Blessed are those who mourn: my time at Almendral College

It was only one year, but it was the first in my journey as a priest. I say goodbye to the Almendral School of La Pintana, where I was working as chaplain during the year 2024, and I take this opportunity to share his most exciting memories.

February 10, 2025-Reading time: 6 minutes
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Micro 286 is moving fast. A shy sun has not risen high enough to provide warmth. A yawn escapes me as I look out the window. We go around areas with low houses and warehouses; then we leave the city flanking wide uncultivated lands, garbage here and there, homeless people with their cardboard houses; we ford the toll of the southern access to La Pintana and finally enter the El Castillo population. No news. There are stray dogs roaming the streets, work continues to fill holes in the asphalt, drug trafficking sleeps. My destination is the street La Primavera, more specifically, the Almendral school. 

Between March and December 2024 I got to work there every Thursday and Friday. I could have been assigned to one of the other initiatives that Opus Dei supports on the same street: a little further down the street is the Nocedal school (for boys), the rectoral church of St. Josemaría (huge and colorful) and an activity center for families. I worked in a school for almost a thousand girls and, in four words, what a way to learn!

The commune

La Pintana is a lively dragon during the day, but dangerous at night. It was often in the news that such and such a neighbor had been murdered. According to the report of the National Prosecutor's Office, in the year 2023 there were 26 murders in the commune (that is, it was the ninth with the ninth highest number of homicides in the country). But nobody touches the schools of the Nocedal Foundation; on the contrary, the people take care of them and thank them to the point of tears.

At first I was warned to be careful. A few years ago, a Spanish priest was arriving at the Nocedal school in his car and got lost. Apparently, the street that was indicated by the Waze was occupied by the fair, so he decided to roll down the window and asked a young man:

-Do you know how I can get to St. Josemaría Rectory Church?

-Sure, let me see your cell phone and I'll let you know.

The priest held out his arm with the device, the young man received it gently and then fled into one of the narrow passages in the area. He did not return. 

But the anecdote of the Spanish priest is in the past. Now worse things are happening. There are weapons, men who offer drug to children, crazy bullets. On one occasion, while talking with an 8th grade class in chapel, the topic of how to choose the ideal person to marry came up. I proposed a case: "You like a boy and one day you find out that he smokes marijuana, what would you think? Then a student asked, with her yellow tie a little loose and a frown on her face: "Father, I don't understand. So marijuana is bad?". 

I was moved. That weed is in the girls' usual landscape, yet this was the first time they had heard anything to the contrary. But I wasn't moved by that, I was moved by something deeper: I realized that these girls were experiencing something as basic as it was absent in their day-to-day lives, conversation. We dialogued: they asked questions, exchanged ideas, thought, and we learned together. Gritty efforts if you live in a neighborhood where loud music, loud music, the Tik Tok or shouting. 

I was being handed an important question on a platter: "So marijuana is bad?". A unique moment; now, would I be able to convince that little girl to stay off the drug for good? 

It occurred to me to ask her back, "What do you think?". She put her hand to her chin to think and replied genuinely confused, "I don't know. In my passage a lot of people buy. And the other day my aunt told me that smoking once in a while was good for your health." I looked at the others and offered the floor. Several had similar anecdotes. The bell was coming, so I announced a change of plans for the catechetical program: "The next class will not be about the Sacraments. We'll be talking about marijuana." The class went out for recess. I felt challenged. In the next session I could not improvise, I had experienced the passion, the need to teach something.

The school

Many students prefer to stay late for extracurricular activities in order to delay going home. Their alternative is to lock themselves in their room and spend the evening watching Tik Tok. I know because I saw the consequences. 

On one occasion an 8th grade girl fainted during Mass. Her teachers and classmates took her to the infirmary on a stretcher. When I went to see her, she was gone, because her mother had come to pick her up. I asked. The nurse wanted to explain to me what had happened, but she couldn't find the words. I guess she didn't want to hurt me. A young teacher understood the situation and put me in context: "Father, this is not the first fainting spell we have had. This child probably didn't eat breakfast, nor did she eat last night. And perhaps she has been eating very little for several days...". I was surprised, since the school offers breakfast to all students who need it. To my bewilderment, she continued: "Let's see, Father. These girls come to school in the morning and they are fine here. But when they go home in the afternoon, since they can't leave the house much, they spend three or four hours surfing the Internet. Tik Tok. And then come the fashions. Now there are many who have the idea of losing weight. The problem is that the method they use is to stop eating. That's why they faint. 

There is a lot to do and hands are missing. I can attest that the teachers' work is difficult and hidden. These girls need much more help than the school can give them, because they come with big problems from home. Once when I went out to the playground during recess, I started talking to a group of students in the third grade and I took the opportunity to ask them about their projects. One told me: "To study nursing"; another one, "I'm not sure"; and a third one, "the only thing that interests me is to reach the age of majority so I can leave home". 

On another occasion, I was in the chapel telling the 4th grade students about the miracle of the wedding at Cana, and when I said "then Jesus transformed the water into wine, that is, into grape juice", a girl exclaimed with a smile: "Ah, my dad says that every night, he says he is only going to drink a little bottle of grape juice". Some classmates smiled. Others did not. Innocence is a short-lived treasure.

Something that has always struck me is that in all the classes there are cheerful girls, and others are crushed. In some of them their yellow uniforms shine, but in others it seems that even their faces have faded to gray. A former student of Nocedal gave me his theory: when night comes, it is not so easy to sleep, because there are noises, or shots are heard and the mother enters the daughters' room to make sure that they have been thrown to the floor. In any case, even if they have slept regularly, or in the morning they may skip breakfast, the girls go back to school happy. They like it. There they find friends, the teachers treat them well, they learn Nursing and Administration, eventually they plan a future. If they are lucky, they begin to dream. 

The optimism radiated by the people who work at Almendral is striking. Since 1999, the teachers have not only been teaching their classes, but they also make an effort to talk personally with each student. For the 2024 Confirmation, for example, four students chose the same teacher as their godmother. As for the assistants, many proudly tell you that they have daughters studying in this or that class, or that they are already in university. 

Now a nice anecdote, although a bit insolent. I was at the door of the chapel, greeting the students passing by during recess. Many little girls say they want to "say hello to Jesus", or simply come to make the sign of the cross with the holy water (sometimes they even wash their faces). Suddenly, a little girl about six years old comes running up and stares at me.

-Hello? -I asked.

-Hello," she replies, in a shy voice.

-Do you have any questions?

-Yes.

-Dale, ask with confidence.

-Father?

-Yes, tell me...

-How did his nose get so big?

Silence. I shuffle through the options. In the end I decide to think he's just been given a lecture on Pinocchio.

-Don't worry, I've always had this nose.

-Ah, thank you!

And she ran to the backyard to continue playing with her friends.

On another occasion, I was in the same place, next to the life-size statue of St. Josemaría. Like him, I am always in my cassock. Two girls were entering the chapel close together.

-Welcome," I said.

They both gasped, as if a ghost had appeared to them in the house of terror.

-Oh, Father, we thought St. Josemaría had risen from the dead!

Nostalgia

What Almendral School does is colossal. Many girls I met there live with serious problems, but the school offers them an oasis and a launching pad. It gives them the opportunity to enter higher education (88% of the students manage to enroll). It is hard for me, but this 2025 I will stop going to La Pintana. That is why I wrote this article, as a small tribute to the teachers and assistants who are training all these young promises: they have to face all the hustle and bustle of training, and they manage to keep smiling in the midst of a hostile climate. They are the great heroines of this whole story. Thank you for teaching me so much, God bless you.

The authorJuan Ignacio Izquierdo Hübner

Lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Licentiate in Theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome) and Doctorate in Theology from the University of Navarra (Spain).

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Twentieth Century Theology

In praise of Christian humanism

Juan Luis Lorda was honored at the School of Theology of the University of Navarra on his 70th birthday. In his lecture, the professor made a tour of the  "wonderful intellectual heritage" of Christians.    

Juan Luis Lorda-February 10, 2025-Reading time: 8 minutes
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Speech at the academic conference on Theology, humanism, UniversityThe event was held at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarra on January 17, 2025, on the occasion of his upcoming retirement.

Memories and commemorations

We start the Jubilee Year 2025. And we can put together some ideas, going through other years 25. 

In 225 (1800 years ago), Origen wrote the Peri archéThe first systematic attempt at theology. He had purchased a Hebrew manuscript, found in a jar, with which he was to begin the Hexapla. Thus began the work of theology in dialogue with human thought and with the Holy Scriptures.

In 325 (1700 years ago), the Church celebrated the Council of Niceawhich gave rise to a great Creed and defined the place of the Son of God with the term "Son of God". homoousios. It was possible thanks to the protection of Emperor Constantine. The first phase of Christianity began. 

In 425 (1600 years ago), St. Augustine was writing the last books of The City of God on human history where divine history takes place. In barely a hundred years, it was observed that the Christian message was not enough to revitalize the old empire. The West, moderately Christianized, would fall with the barbarian invasions and another world (the Christian nations) would be born after a long period of gestation. The East, on the other hand, would last a thousand years more, until it was subdued by Islam (1453).

In 1225 (800 years ago), St. Thomas Aquinas was born. We owe him the basic structure of Catholic theology, which comes from the Summa. And many other insights. Although the story is not usually well told. What triumphed around 1220 were the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which defined theology for more than three centuries. The Sum later triumphed. In 1526, the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria won a professorship and substituted the Sentences of the Lombardy by the Summa Theologica as a basic book for the study of theology. In addition, he promoted the Law of Nations. 

In 1525 (500 years ago), Juan Luis Vives, fed up with university scholasticism (by writing De disciplinis) and far from Spain (where his father was burned for Judaizing in 1524), he was in England with Thomas More, studying precisely The City of God. That year, Luther married Catherine of Bora. And King Henry VIII, who had merited the pontifical title of Fidei defender for opposing him (1521), he planned to divorce Catherine of Aragon, which would end up splitting the Anglican Church (1534).

In 1825 (200 years ago), John Henry Newman was ordained as an Anglican priest, started as a guide for university students, and began to study the Fathers and the Arian controversy, about which he would write an excellent book. He also began to study the legitimacy of the Anglican Church as a third way between Protestants and Catholics. This would lead him to the Catholic Church. In addition, he lived through the liberal secularization in England, the beginning of the end of the Christian nations forged in the Middle Ages, as the modern democratic and pluralistic state developed.

The events of 1925 

There are a lot of interesting things that happened 100 years ago. 

In 1925, Maritain, a convert to the faith, to Thomism (and to political traditionalism), published Three Reformers. Luther, Descartes, Rousseau.but in 1926, with the condemnation of the L'Action (an unhealed wound), he went from nostalgia for (and vindication of) the Ancien Régime to the defense of the rule of law. He developed a philosophy of the person and of the state inspired by Thomism. And he considered how to live in a Christian way in a democratic and pluralistic society, especially in Integral humanism (1937). He will greatly influence Dignitatis humanae of the Second Vatican Council.  

In 1925, Guardini had already set in motion his great dedications. He was helping the young people of Rothenfels, he had published The spirit of the Liturgy (1918) and the Self-training lettersand prepared Letters on Lake Como (1926), reflecting on the change of epoch and its Christian demands; he would rethink it in The decline of the Modern Age (1950). In addition, he had been a professor for two years. Weltanschauung (1923) rereading Kierkegaard, Dostoyevski, Pascal, Saint Augustine... 

In 1925 Von Hildebrand (aged 36), organized circles on love. Inspired by faith, he dealt with spiritual affectivity (the heart) and its response to values. In addition, in those years he courageously defended other professors in the face of growing Nazi pressure at the German university. 

In 1925, her colleague and friend, Edith Stein was working to form religious vocations in Speyer and was concerned about Heidegger's atheistic drift. They had been, almost at the same time, Husserl's assistants, and while Heidegger lost faith, Edith Stein found it. Thus, they originated two divergent metaphysics. Heidegger summarized it in Being and time, 1927. Edith Stein in Finite and eternal beingpublished posthumously, after his death in a concentration camp (1942). In its last part, he points out what is missing in Heidegger's metaphysics. Tragically parallel lives. It will be worth remembering in 2027.  

In 1925, the Saint Serge Institute of Orthodox Theology was founded in Paris by a group of Russian thinkers and theologians, expelled in 1922. They left with the clothes on their backs. It was the turn of others to premiere the Gulaj Archipelago (1923). Saint Serge made patristic and Byzantine theology present live in Paris, and this is how De Lubac, Congar and other Catholic theologians came to know it. He gave identity to modern Orthodox theology and marked its red lines before Catholicism and Protestantism. 

In 1925, De Lubac, in a Jesuit novitiate in England, read Rousselot (The eyes of faith1910) and Blondel, and was introduced to the Fathers. And Congar began his theological studies at Le Saulchoir (then in Belgium), with Chenu, who had proposed a new curriculum. These ferments would shape the theology of the twentieth century. 

In 1925, Chesterton published The everlasting manThis is a brilliant and highly topical work, which struck a chord with C. S. Lewis and led to his conversion. In two parts, it vindicates the Christian deployment in history and the unique religious value of Jesus Christ in the face of modern "Arian" ("Unitarian") or pan-religious tendencies.

In 1925, St. Josemaría was ordained and began his priestly work, which, with God's inspirations, led him to found Opus Dei. His mission was not academic, but he shed much light on how to be a good Christian in the world. In addition, he had a marked humanistic disposition with his appreciation for the fruits of human labor, language, culture and study, education and virtues, civic and social responsibility. 

What can we take away from all this? 

First of all, we should be amazed and grateful for such a vast and beautiful patrimony, the fruit of so many Christians in dialogue with their times and with the Scriptures (with revelation). There is nothing so rich and coherent in the intellectual universe. Suffice it to recall the dominant communist ideology of the last century (and to read The drama of atheistic humanism de De Lubac). Today transmuted into culture wokewhich promises to be as ubiquitous, arbitrary (and suffocating) as communism was. Epidemics or intellectual covid. 

The Gospel, in dialogue with every epoch and incorporating the legitimate fruits of the spirit, produces around it a Christian humanism. It helps us to understand ourselves. And it is a field of encounter (and evangelization) with all people of good will.

Thus we have an idea of God, which connects with the mystery of the world and with our deepest aspirations (we can no longer believe in other gods). And a rich and exact idea of the human being, of his spirit and development. And of his mysterious wound (brilliantly expressed in the 7 deadly sins). And of his end, happiness and salvation in Christ (way, truth and life, cfr. John 14,6). And it should be emphasized that the Rule of Law, with Human Rights, which is the legal framework of our societies (and our defense against the new tyrannies) is also the fruit of this Christian humanism, and today it is in danger amidst materialistic simplifications and ideological whims.

A new context

In its Introduction to Christianity (1967), Joseph Ratzinger warned that the Church is moving from ancient Christian societies to fervent minorities (a process that may take centuries). The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th and 6th centuries. And since the end of the 18th century, a secularization drive (partly legitimate) dismantles the Christian nations forged in the Middle Ages. And it turns us into a minority, which must carry out as a leaven the mission that the Lord has asked for: "Go and evangelize all nations". (Marcos 16, 15). 

Many things have changed since our Faculty of Theology was founded in 1964. At that time almost 700 priests were ordained in Spain each year, and now there are just over 70. And a few months ago, a process of unification of the Spanish seminaries was initiated. A revision of the ecclesiastical studies will probably follow, because it is felt that they do not correspond to what the times demand: they do not sufficiently encourage the faith of the candidates and do not prepare them for the mission. 

The German synodal journey has revealed the inadequacy of a strictly academic theology (with many means), perhaps too aseptic if not problematic, which has failed to nourish the faith of the ecclesiastical structures it has formed. 

Unresolved issues in theology 

The subject of theology, by definition, is God. But God revealed in history and fully revealed in the Son. Today, a new Arianism wants to turn Jesus Christ into a good person. Chesterton warned in The eternal man and C. S. Lewis, when he posed his famous "trilemma" (see on Wikipedia).

Jesus Christ, the Son, has revealed to us the truth and beauty of God's love, manifested in his complete self-giving. This personal love (person to person) constitutes the Trinitarian union, through the Holy Spirit, and extends to the communion of saints. If Jesus Christ is not homoousiosA solitary God remains locked in his distant and veiled mystery. "No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father has revealed Him to us." (John 1, 18).

And we are left without the way of salvation, which is Jesus Christ. We need to renew and make the message of salvation meaningful for our contemporaries. The Gospel of Christ's love saves us from the meaninglessness of the world and of history, from our moral failures and those of humanity, from death and sin, which is the deepest and most mysterious thing. And what our contemporaries feel the least.

For this reason, we also need a believing reading of the Bible that makes clear the History of Revelation, of the Covenant and of Salvation, which culminates in Christ (cf. Letter to the Hebrews 1,1). And do not limit yourself to punctual exegesis, which disperses the attention. The detailed philological study is only a previous task (which does not need faith, nor does it kindle it). 

Clarifying the causes of the post-conciliar crisis

The current internal debate in the Church calls for a fair and profound diagnosis of what has happened in order to understand the deep reasons for the crisis and to react accordingly. 

It is necessary to review the confrontation of scholastic Thomism of the 1940s with the nouvelle theologie. It arose amidst many misunderstandings and was quite foreign to the true thought and disposition of St. Thomas. But it is in danger of being prolonged.

In addition, there are two philosophical areas where the legacy of St. Thomas requires developments (which he would make). The relationship with the sciences, which is expressed in the Philosophy of Nature and in Metaphysics. Gilson claimed it in the last pages of The philosopher and theology.

Also the relationship with political thought. In short, discernment on modernity: the legitimacy and value of the rule of law, with human rights and religious freedom. This thread comes from Francisco de Vitoria. It is taken up by Maritain and many others. The Second Vatican Council assumes it and originates, by reaction, the schism of Lefebvre. 

The theology of the 19th (with Newman, Scheeben, Möhler and others) and 20th centuries (with so many interesting authors) is, without a doubt, a third golden age, together with patristics and scholasticism. And it is necessary to synthesize and incorporate it. The difficulty lies precisely in its richness and variety, and in the limits of what can be taught. 

We also need a revision of Liberation Theology, which discerns the past and projects itself into the future. Because it runs the risk that the preferential option for the poor, the most noble and Christian thing it has, becomes an illusory revolutionary nostalgia or an inoperative rhetoric. Political and moral (and theological) efforts are needed to build just societies with Christian inspiration. 

We have an immense heritage to inspire us and to engage in the evangelizing dialogue that we are engaged in today.

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ColumnistsMaria Candela Temes

A master of "making a mess

Alvaro, a master of "making a mess": although ALS took away his movement, he never lost his ability to make a racket, spread smiles and live with an unwavering love for life. His legacy is a hymn to joy and faith, even in the most difficult moments.

February 9, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
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Álvaro was a troublemaker. He always was, even before he was ill. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) robbed him of his movement, but not of his ability - to paraphrase Pope Francis - to "make a mess". Tell that to Don Enrico! To record the videos of his weekly homilies - entitled "The Gospel to the sick" - with the help of his friends Mariano and Marco, he would prepare the best "location" and the whole set for the staging, without taking into account that later the parish priest would go crazy looking for the image of the Madonna that had been moved or the blue chasuble without which he could not celebrate Mass. 

He was determined to redecorate the hall attached to the church where he spent most of the day receiving people and asked a friend to give him a painting. You had to see the faces of the other priests when the lady showed up with Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss". On another occasion, when a kind parishioner offered to bring her something from southern Italy, she did not think of anything better than asking for "sanguinaccio", thinking it would be similar to Spanish blood sausage, without suspecting that the good woman would have to deal in the black market because the sale of this macabre pork product has been forbidden since 1992. 

I can't forget when I went to see him in the middle of the Roman "ferragosto" and, when I asked him what he wanted me to bring as a snack, he asked me for some olives stuffed with anchovies. The illness, as we can see, did not spoil his appetite.

Hands up whoever went to visit him and found that he had given an appointment at the same time to two other people. Or whoever was left wandering the aisles of the church because an unexpected friend had arrived for a confession or a consoling chat. 

Last November 1st I went to the hospital where he was admitted for a medical operation and he asked me to give him a ride pushing the chair on the terrace. It was forbidden, but we both had fun with that little prank. He was then able to contemplate the green meadows surrounding that hospital and the horizon line, while the sunlight and the breeze hit his face. 

When he couldn't enjoy them in nature, he used to watch videos on YouTube of Turkish shepherds walking through the mountains with their flocks, or drone shots of Noja, the village on the Cantabrian coast where he spent the summers of his childhood. 

Alvaro was in love with life. In the homily he preached to his family on his 57th birthday, in 2021, he told us: "Love is the center of Christianity. We must love. We must love life. It was a preaching made flesh. And not just any flesh, but patient, which adds even more merit to his capacity for enjoyment. At times it was not easy. 

The last season, when ALS was already affecting his speech and breathing capacity, he had a harder time smiling. He even had his dark night. But he did not give up. He told his sister, who went to visit him in Rome from Madrid, fourteen days before he died: "I am tempted to let myself die, but I ask God for the grace to cling to life to give Him glory with my illness as long as He wants". 

Surely the most monumental tangle was to ask his brothers to bring his mother, ill with Parkinson's disease and recently convalescent, to the Eternal City last July, to say goodbye to her. He asked if there would be an 1% chance of making that trip happen, and to that 1% they "hung on". The ability to raise a ruckus either comes from the cradle or becomes contagious. 

Don Santiago, who has devoted himself body and soul to caring for him in recent months, in a message to the family written last Christmas, said that "as Alvaro has dedicated himself to making life difficult and giving himself to others, he is now reaping, in the affection of the people, a little of the fruits of what he has sown".

The cabin of the Marx Brothers

Mariano, who in addition to being a "filmmaker" of Alvaro's homilies is also a cardiovascular surgeon, commented that as a doctor it was difficult for him to accept the fact that his friend's illness had no cure. So he set out to make him smile, as the best alternative therapy. He and Marco more than achieved this goal the last time I saw Alvaro. The parish hall that morning was the closest thing to the Marx Brothers' stateroom: first Angelina, a nurse, arrived, accompanied by a podiatrist to give him a pedicure and manicure. 

Alessandro, another nurse, came to start the IV, improvising an IV drip with an upside-down hanger attached to a cassock hanger. Veronique, a new caregiver, who was on duty, tried to help by moving the oxygen cylinder. 

Another parishioner and friend, Giuliana, kept her company while recording the scene with her cell phone. Then Mariano and Marco arrived with the fixed idea of cutting her hair. Marco handed him the clippers while Mariano held the respirator. In the background we could hear The Barber of Seville. Giovanni, the sacristan, burst in with a mirror and placed it in front of Álvaro so he could see how it was looking. There we found his sister with her husband and cousin, not believing our eyes.

Anyone who had seen us from the outside would have thought we were crazy. But that day we robbed God of a piece of heaven, of that heaven in which Álvaro would enter -through the big door- just two weeks later. From there he will continue doing what he did best here on earth: a big mess. Surely Don Enrico has some advice to pass on to St. Peter. By the way, we got a Monet landscape to replace the Klimt. 

The authorMaria Candela Temes

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Culture

Timothy McDonnell: "Music is a companion to liturgy".

Professor and choir director Timothy McDonnell explains in this interview with Omnes the close relationship between Gregorian chant and the Catholic liturgy, two aspects he asks today's Catholics to delve into in order to enjoy and protect the treasure received by the generations that have lived in the Church over time.

Paloma López Campos-February 9, 2025-Reading time: 7 minutes
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Timothy McDonell is the director of Sacred Music at Hillsdale Collegewhere he directs the University Chapel Choir. Previously, Dr. McDonnell directed the graduate program in Sacred Music at The Catholic University of America. In addition, he was the choirmaster of the Pontifical North American College Choir at the Vatican before returning to the United States in 2008.

Thanks to his academic and professional work, Timothy McDonnell has deepened his understanding of the close relationship between Gregorian chant and the liturgy Catholic. Such a relationship that one cannot be understood without the other, so the director of sacred music encourages Catholics to restore Gregorian chant to its special place in the liturgy and to recognize its legacy.

How would you define Gregorian chant in musical and spiritual terms? What makes it unique within the Catholic liturgical context?

- This brings us to the heart of the matter, because all sacred music is special and reserved for sacred purposes. But Gregorian chant in particular has some special characteristics that I believe make it especially suitable for the Catholic liturgy and reflect the spirituality of this liturgy.

Among the characteristics I would list is directness, because Gregorian chant is a simple musical form, with only one musical line. So it has a certain simplicity, but at the same time it is a very refined music. It is music that has taken centuries to be created, but it retains that directness and simplicity in its expressiveness.

The other thing I would mention would be that it comes from a tradition, which I think is very important in a religious context because the premise of religion is that there is a transmission, that we pass on from Christ and his mission given to the apostles.

This idea of a musical tradition in the Church is a kind of symbol of that process of transmitting the treasure. And so music itself is a kind of metaphor for tradition in musical terms. For example, the different modes or tonalities in which Gregorian chant is composed are derived from ancient formulas for reciting and singing the Psalms.

And the third point I would make is that the liturgy itself is designed and coordinated perfectly with liturgical chant. Gregorian chant always refers to something outside of itself: to the liturgy, on the one hand, and to Sacred Scripture, on the other. So it is profoundly biblical music. In a way it embodies the chant of Scripture.

What has been the most profound influence of Gregorian chant on the evolution of the Catholic liturgy?

- The liturgy has gradually changed over time. This is an important idea because the liturgy and its music grew together. To give an example, between the seventh and ninth centuries Gregorian chant was composed by the clergy responsible for the creation of our liturgical calendar.

These clerical musicians chose liturgical texts, which themselves suggested a melodic content. In other words, the melody emerges from the text. And so when this changes the text, there is an influence on the liturgy.

The Second Vatican Council brought significant changes in the liturgy. How do you see the relationship between Gregorian chant and the liturgical reforms of that period?

- This is an incredibly important point. In fact, it is perhaps the most important consideration in terms of music and liturgy in our time. For if music is something that is passed down from generation to generation like a treasure, we have to understand liturgical reforms in the context of the reception of that treasure. So if we stray too far from what we learn from the musical treasure of the Church in the way we pursue liturgical reform, there's going to be too much of a disconnect with our tradition.

I think it is crucial that we understand that music provides us with a context in which to understand all the other ritual changes that have taken place. And I can give a couple of positive and perhaps negative examples of this.

There has been, for example, a process of recovery in the liturgy of the Divine Office around the hymns of the Divine Office. Because in the 17th century, there was a revision of the hymns that changed the original hymns, and all the texts were recreated. And we lost something very important because of those changes.

After the Second Vatican Council something wonderful happened, and that was that those hymns were restored. And so they became the official hymns of the Divine Office. This is a positive example where the recovery has taught us something about our past and we have had a kind of restoration.

But these things were not taken especially seriously by the generation that followed the Second Vatican Council and there was a lowering of ideals. And I think that was partly because of practical circumstances. There was a loss of energy and vigor to pursue that.

Now, the good news is that in the younger generations there is a growing interest in finding the energy to do what the Council called for with regard to restoring Gregorian chant and making it a central mode of prayer for the whole Church.

On the other hand, it should be noted that the prayer of the Mass has been made shorter in the reformist liturgy, yet the music is sometimes too long. So here is a case where music and liturgy are not compatible in a certain way. This is a challenge we have to face.

Another challenge in this regard is that there is a kind of politicization of the objectives of the Second Vatican Council. There is a "progressive" and a "conservative" side. This is something that the Council was not looking for, but people decided to politicize the liturgy and turn it into a political matter, instead of being the vessel of truth from which we learn our faith. However, I am hopeful that we will return to this idea that music is a companion to the liturgy and we can listen to this received tradition as we look at the prayer of the Church.

Do you think that this debate we have now in the Church about the Novus Ordo and the traditional Mass is going to affect prayer in the Church and Gregorian chant within the liturgy?

-There are many criticisms in this regard. There are those who think that those who support the traditional Mass are stuck and unrealistic. Honestly, I don't think that's what motivates people who come to the traditional Mass. I think in this rite they hear the voice of the Church in a special way and it moves them in a way that the Novus Ordo does not.

Anyway, I think that the Church is the same voice all the time. There is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only a now in which the Church is praying, it is Christ who prays today through the liturgy. He is here now praying with and as the Church, because he is the head. If we keep this in mind, perhaps the debate about past, present and future could calm down a bit.

As for this issue having an effect on prayer, Pope Benedict XVI had a very good idea on the subject when he said that the old form has to inform the new form in the liturgy. These two things have to be seen as compatible and not in opposition.

The music itself is a link between the Novus Ordo and the tradition. If we decide that we need a totally different music for a new liturgy, we will have lost some connection to this idea that we received the liturgy from the ancient Church.

Now, Gregorian chant is not as old as the prayer of the apostles, that is true. We don't really know where it comes from or when it begins. However, there are several theories that claim that Jewish prayer formulas influenced its development. Knowing this, if you could hear the way the apostles, who were Jewish, prayed, wouldn't you want to know more about it?

As an expert in this field, what challenges does Gregorian chant face in the context of the contemporary Church?

- During the last century and a half we can observe a kind of hatred for the past. I even think that some Catholics have realized that we should not be especially attached to the past, because then you are not living in the present and you are not facing the real challenges of our day. This inordinate attachment is not healthy, but neither is it healthy to feel hatred towards the past, because it is essential to understand who you are and where you come from.

In terms of liturgy and sacred music, the most important thing in understanding the liturgy is its history. And what is the history of the liturgy? The history of music. You have to know them together because music and liturgy were the same thing, they didn't develop independently.

In the 20th century this idea that music and liturgy are two different worlds took root. But historians show us that this is false and that one cannot understand the history of liturgy without understanding the history of music.

For all this, we have to lose the fear that if we look at our past we will somehow fail in our present. It is not a rational fear. If I do not understand and value the past, that history we have mentioned, I have nothing to carry forward. Therefore, I am forced to constantly invent reality.

We cannot forget that religion connects us with the past, we cannot be religious without carrying the past with us.

With this challenge in mind, we need to know that Gregorian chant is not only ancient, but regenerates over time. It is not stuck, but evolves. It is essential that musicians understand this idea and make it part of their education.

What steps can be taken to preserve the practice of Gregorian chant within the liturgy?

- I think it is important to recognize that Gregorian chant has multiple levels. There is a congregational level and then there is a more developed level, in which the congregation can participate but which requires more practice. Above that, there is a level of Gregorian chant that is reserved for more experienced people.

For me this is a beautiful thing, because it reflects the liturgy itself. In the liturgy there are things that only the "experts", the priests, can do. That is, liturgy is hierarchical, just like music.

What happened is that at the time of the Reformation that hierarchy was broken. Therefore, in order to move forward we have to recognize that Gregorian chant is hierarchical, just like the liturgy, and that is why we need specialized musicians. We also need to promote the practice of chant in the congregation so that they can sing things like the Credo, the Kyrie Eleison or the Agnus Dei.

Another aspect to consider about which there are different opinions is the openness to sing in the vernacular language. I think it is possible to translate musical pieces into other languages, but it takes a lot of discipline not to lose the original beauty.

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Evangelization

St. Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of trafficking victims

On February 8, the Church celebrates St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese woman enslaved as a child who, after her liberation, consecrated herself to Jesus Christ as a Canossian nun in Italy. She is the patroness of Sudan. Today she is invoked in a special way, as it is the 11th World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Human Trafficking. It is also the feast of St. Jerome Emilianus, patron of orphans.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 8, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

Born in Darfur, Sudan, in 1869, she was abducted by slave traders when she was still a child and sold in African markets, cruelly mistreated as a child, and then sold in African markets. slave. Bakhita, whose name means Fortunate, was freed by an Italian merchant, and through a married couple who were friends of his, already in Italy, she met Jesus, was baptized and professed as a Canossian nun for 51 years. The inhabitants of Schio, where she lived and died, discovered in their "little mother morenita" a great inner strength, based on prayer and charity.

In its Message for the XI World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Hunger and Poverty Human TraffickingPope Francis, who also dedicated to him a special message of thanksgiving, which takes place today, Pope Francis, who also dedicated to him a catechesis in 2023, he wrote: "Together - trusting in the intercession of St. Bakhita - we will succeed in making a great effort and creating the conditions so that trafficking and exploitation be outlawed and that respect for fundamental human rights always prevail, in the fraternal recognition of our common humanity".

Saint Bakhita pardoned to the traffickers, and forgiveness set her free, Pope Francis wrote. Thanks to the message of reconciliation and mercy Josephine Bakhita was beatified and named "Universal Sister" by St. John Paul II in 1992. In the ceremony St. Josemaría Escrivá was also beatified. St. Josephine Bakhita was canonized by St. John Paul II in October 2000. The Italian director Giacomo Campiotti directed the film Bakhita.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Education

The hidden price of pornography

Pornography fosters a culture of self-indulgence and instant gratification, often at the expense of the well-being of others. Many users are drawn into a pattern of consumption that prioritizes personal satisfaction over meaningful attachments.

Bryan Lawrence Gonsalves-February 8, 2025-Reading time: 5 minutes
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In today's digital age, pornography is more accessible than ever. It is presented as harmless entertainment, a form of self-expression or even an educational tool. However, beneath this appearance lies a deeper reality: pornography is not just adult entertainment, but an industry based on the exploitation, degradation and commodification of human intimacy. It alters perceptions of relationships, distorts expectations and fuels social detachment from authentic human connection.

Impact of pornography

Pornography fosters a culture in which individuals become objects of gratification rather than worthy individuals with inherent value. A young woman I met a few years ago, whose name I will not mention for reasons of privacy, shared with me her experience with a addicted partner to pornography. "I always felt like I was competing with an unattainable ideal," she says. "It made me question my worth."

The effects of pornography go beyond mere entertainment; they disrupt real-life relationships by creating unrealistic expectations and eroding trust. It reinforces canons of beauty unattainable and unrealistic sexual behaviors, leading many to feel inadequate in their relationships. Coupled with media-driven representations of perfection, it cultivates dissatisfaction and self-doubt, causing people to compare themselves to artificial standards rather than embrace real human connections. This influences social interactions, shaping expectations of appearance and behavior in ways that can damage trust, relationships and even mental health.

In addition, research suggests that excessive pornography consumption alters brain function. As is the case with substances addictiveThe drug triggers the release of dopamine, creating a dependency that translates into a need for more extreme content. This desensitization affects the ability to establish genuine emotional connections, leaving users feeling empty despite temporary gratification.

Overconsumption creates unrealistic expectations of intimacy, making authentic relationships seem unsatisfying by comparison. This creates a cycle in which personal relationships become strained, trust is eroded and authentic connection is replaced by digital gratification.

On a social level, pornography fosters a culture of self-indulgence and instant gratification, often at the expense of the well-being of others. Instead of valuing mutual love, respect and emotional intimacy, many users are drawn into a pattern of consumption that prioritizes personal satisfaction over meaningful bonds.

A silent epidemic among young people

More and more teenagers are getting into pornography before they fully understand human intimacy. Take, for example, the case of a high school student who, through a simple Internet search, stumbles upon explicit content. Lacking the emotional maturity to process what they see, they absorb unrealistic depictions of relationships in which domination, aggression and objectification are normalized. Over time, this shapes their expectations, leading to problems in their own interpersonal relationships.

Schools and parents may struggle to address the problem. While education focuses on responsible Internet use, many overlook the need to discuss the psychological and emotional impact of pornography. Without guidance, young minds adopt skewed perceptions of relationships, often believing that what they see on the screen represents reality. For example, adolescents who consume large volumes of explicit content may begin to view relationships through a transactional lens, expecting instant gratification without emotional connection. This distancing can make it difficult for them to establish healthy, meaningful relationships in the future.

In addition, the accessibility of pornography through smartphones and social networks means that even those who do not actively seek it out may be exposed to it through advertisements, pop-ups, or links shared by peers. Parents who assume their children are immune to this type of exposure often underestimate the pervasiveness of explicit content on the Internet. Without parental guidance, young people may turn to peers or unreliable sources of information, further exacerbating the problem.

One concrete step to address this crisis is to encourage open dialogue in families and schools. Parents who establish clear, age-appropriate conversations about privacy and respect help children develop a healthy understanding of relationships before they encounter harmful content.

Schools can integrate media literacy programs that teach students to distinguish between real-life relationships and the distorted representations seen in pornography. When teens gain knowledge, they are better prepared to navigate digital spaces responsibly and critically evaluate the media they consume.

The ethical cost: behind the scenes of the industry

The pornography industry is not limited to the production of consensual adult content, but is a multi-billion dollar enterprise with a dark undercurrent. Reports of coercion, trafficking and exploitation within the industry emerge frequently. Many people enter the industry in financial distress, while others are manipulated into performing on terms they never agreed to. In some cases, artists suffer long-term trauma and struggle with psychological repercussions long after leaving the industry.

Behind the scenes, some people, especially vulnerable young women, are lured with false promises of economic security and career opportunities, only to find themselves trapped in exploitative contracts. Others are forced to participate through threats or blackmail. Beyond direct exploitation, the industry has been linked to the dissemination of non-consensual content, such as revenge porn and leaked materials. The rapid dissemination of explicit material through digital platforms has made it almost impossible for some victims to reclaim their dignity and privacy once their images are circulated without consent.

Breaking the Cycle: A Call to Awareness

While society increasingly recognizes the harms of pornography, real solutions require proactive engagement. Education plays a crucial role: teaching young people dignity, respect and authentic love. Open conversations in families, schools and faith communities can help people understand that true intimacy is based on trust, not objectification.

In addition, digital accountability tools, such as Internet filters and screen time management, offer practical ways to limit exposure. Support groups and counseling provide a path to recovery for those struggling with addiction, offering hope that change is possible. 

At bottom, the fight against pornography is a fight for human dignity. A society that respects people does not condone their commodification. Just as we reject exploitation in other forms - human trafficking, child labor or abuse - we must also challenge an industry that profits by reducing people to objects of desire.

Change is possible, but awareness must come first. Counseling, support groups and family support are valid ways to overcome pornography addiction. It is possible to regain self-esteem, repair relationships and rediscover the beauty of authentic human connection, but to do so, awareness of pornography and its problems must be raised.

The impact of pornography is far-reaching, affecting minds, relationships and even social structures. The challenge before us is not only to resist temptation, but to foster a culture that values authentic love, respects human dignity and promotes relationships based on mutual care and respect. By addressing this issue head-on, we take a crucial step toward restoring the sacredness of intimacy and human connection.

The authorBryan Lawrence Gonsalves

Founder of "Catholicism Coffee".

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  • Fragility is our strength: a lesson from Giovanni Allevi
ColumnistsMiriam Lafuente

Fragility is our strength: a lesson from Giovanni Allevi

For Giovanni Allevi, emotion is the language through which we communicate with sincerity, undressing ourselves without fear of showing ourselves fragile and defenseless, because it is in fragility where our strength lies in a world dragged by reason towards extreme competitiveness.

February 8, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
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Allevi is a musician who, when he ends up exhausted on stage after having given his all in a piano concert, while listening to the applause of the audience, he pats the instrument with his thanks, as if not taking credit for what happened on stage.

I happened to run into him on a flight. I had him in front of my seat and I recognized him because his curly black lion's mane was sticking out of the back of his seat (he's a very tall guy). I couldn't resist my curiosity and I don't know how I did it, but I found myself chatting with him. I told him that I admired his talent and listened to his music. At the time, he would have been about 50 years old, but he seemed much younger in dress and dynamism.

A special sensitivity

The feeling he gave me was that of a normal guy, active, nervous, creative, charming, kind, an artist. Giovanni Allevi was coming back from MadridHe told me he was fascinated by the city, to record for a television program. It did not escape my notice that he was carrying one of those cell phones that were no longer in use (the ones that only serve to call and receive calls). I could not resist asking him the reason for this choice and his answer was beautiful: "I am a musician and I compose, I need inner silence. The electronic sound and the images on the screen distract me from my goal: inspiration. The music. I was shocked, but I understood the answer perfectly. I remember that he communicated with me with words, but also with his soul, I could understand very well what he wanted to say even though he didn't speak much.

When we arrived at Malpensa airport in Milan, everyone went their own way to pick up their bags. I was with my three young children and I was making sure that none of them got lost in the crowd. Suddenly, I saw a tall man with curly black hair approaching me to say goodbye: Allevi. He told me that I had beautiful children, I think he, at that moment, was missing his own. I was shocked, because I thought that celebrities rushed through airports so as not to be recognized by the masses. When, for professional reasons, he was away from his family, he felt a slight sense of guilt, like any good father. He compensated by living intensely the moments he spent with his children and dedicating some of his compositions to them.

Famous people -I also believed before that meeting with the musician- did not say goodbye to people they met casually an hour ago on an airplane trip. I noticed in him a great sensitivity that must be consubstantial to being a composer. I understood that he listens to silence and fills the space with melody.

Diagnosis

About two years after this meeting I learned from the media that in the summer of 2022, Giovanni Allevi announced that he was suffering from a tough disease: multiple myeloma. It is an incurable disease and his survival is between 3 and 4 years. The disease he suffers from has a serious prognosis because only 3 percent of patients are still alive after 10 years. He has a cancer that has led him to be admitted to the Milan Tumor Institute to receive the appropriate therapy. The musician recognizes that he is "heroically getting out of hell". This is a very expressive way of communicating what he is going through: multiple myeloma cells are abnormal plasma cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and form tumors in many bones of the body. He must be in a lot of pain: he has trouble maintaining the correct posture while playing the piano and his hands are shaking.

Giving up music

Giovanni Allevi is 55 years old, married to a pianist who is also his manager, Nada Bernardo, and they have two children: Giorgio and Leonardo. Of his private life not much more than this is known. Despite his fame, he has always kept well away from selling his intimacy. As a musician he only offers his gift, music. 

Now, tormented, with wounds and nightmares, his hands tremble... and, in his low hours, he also has to give up the greatest thing he has inside: music. When he feels a little better, he offers a concert to his audience. Life has hit him in body and soul, but he is happy when the piano is waiting for him.

She has an instagram account (you can tell she has been advised she should have one) and recently wrote to her followers, "My condition confirms to me that there is a world made of humanity, gentleness, authenticity and courage."

Fragility and music

A very special being, to whom life had prepared a hard test that he is bearing with courage. In addition to the gift of music, we now discover his great ability to show pain without fear. Allevi thinks that, as a composer, it is his music that he can offer us. He is aware of having received a gift, a gift: music. The same gift that now gives him hope and encouragement to LIVE. It seems to me that this Italian musician is an example that the gifts received are to serve and relieve others.

Fortunately, in music there are no winners or losers, only the desire to share emotions and experiences. For the pianist, emotion is the language through which we communicate with sincerity, undressing ourselves without fear of showing ourselves fragile and defenseless, because it is in fragility where our strength lies in a world dragged by reason towards extreme competitiveness.

The authorMiriam Lafuente

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  • Opus Dei responds to the accusations of the docuseries "Heroic Minute".
The World

Opus Dei responds to the accusations of the docuseries "Heroic Minute".

Opus Dei categorically rejects the approach of the MAX docuseries "Heroic Minute: I also left Opus Dei". According to the Work's communiqué, the production "does not represent the reality of Opus Dei", but presents the facts "in a biased way".

Paloma López Campos-February 7, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes
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Opus Dei has published a press release to respond to the accusations made in the MAX docuseries "Heroic Minute: I also left Opus Dei".

The platform defines this documentary as an investigation in which "women who formed part of the Opus Dei tell their experiences for the first time, denouncing the psychological, religious and economic abuses they have suffered". As the trailer explains, "Heroic Minute" promises to uncover, through the testimonies of thirteen women from diverse backgrounds, the "manipulation", "pressure" and "demands" that members of the prelature systematically suffer.

Recognition of errors by Opus Dei

Faced with these accusations, Opus Dei begins its communiqué by apologizing for the occasions in which members of the Work have caused "pain in others" and admitting that "the criticism of former members has facilitated an institutional reflection to improve and change ways of doing things".

Likewise, Opus Dei accepts some errors that it has tried to improve in recent years: "failures in the discernment processes; too demanding standards for living the vocational commitment; lack of sensitivity to understand the weight that this requirement meant for some people; eventual shortcomings in the accompaniment during the process of leaving.

The bias of "Heroic Minute".

However, the Work categorically rejects "the approach that the docuseries assumes", since it "does not represent the reality of Opus Dei", but rather presents the facts "in a biased way", pointing to the Work "as an organization of evil people whose motivation is to do harm".

This bias has also been denounced by some critics of the series, who doubt that an authentic journalistic investigation can be carried out based on the testimonies of 13 celibate women, which, taking into account the number of members of Opus Dei, do not even represent 10 % of the entire Work. An example of this is the published review by Ana Sánchez de la Nieta in Aceprensa.

False accusations in "Heroic minute".

The proof that the accusations are false, the statement continues, can be found both in the teachings of St. Josemaría and in "the experience of thousands of people who live or have lived an experience of fullness and development in Opus Dei, as a path of encounter with God in everyday realities."

Other accusations pronounced in "Heroic Minute" and rejected by the organization are "recruitment", "reduction to servitude" and "abusive system to manipulate people". The Work explains in the communiqué that "these statements are a decontextualization of the formation or vocation freely chosen by some women" and that it is all part of "a narrative" constructed by some people known for trying to present an image of Opus Dei "alien to an approach of faith and Christian commitment."

Healing protocols

In spite of everything, the Work understands that "any process of disengagement, when there is a personal commitment lived with intensity, generates pain and suffering. For this reason, it reiterates that "currently the majority of people who leave Opus Dei do so in an accompanied way, without severing the relationship".

The organization also explains in the communiqué the "healing and resolution protocols aimed at receiving any negative experiences that may have occurred, asking for forgiveness and making amends in appropriate situations".

Lack of dialogue on the part of the production company

Finally, Opus Dei denounces that during the four years in which MAX has been working on "Heroic Minute", "the production company did not contact the information offices of the Work, neither in Rome nor in Spain or in other countries". Only at the end of the recording did they ask for the intervention of the Prelate or an authorized person in conditions that, according to Opus Dei, "were not the usual ones for a series of these characteristics".

Faced with this situation, the Work "declined to participate in what was a product created from a previous framework and with a bias that only wanted to be confirmed". Opus Dei, therefore, points out that there was "no prior expressed desire for dialogue" on the part of the producer and complains that they were only offered "the possibility of a reply at the last moment".

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The Vatican

Pope's February video: "God continues to call young people even today".

This is the central message of the Pope's prayer intention in the video for the month of February 2025: "God continues to call young people even today". The theme of the intention is entitled "For Vocations to the Priestly and Religious Life". In the video, the Pope shares his personal story.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 7, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

"When I was 17 years old," Pope Francis points out in the video message made by the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network in collaboration with Vatican Media and archdiocese of Los AngelesI was a student and I worked, I had my projects. I didn't think at all about becoming a priest. But one day I entered the parish... and there was God waiting for me! begins by saying Pope Francis.

Open 'The Pope's VideoThe photos of his youth - at school, in the family, in church - then give way to scenes from the daily life of today's young people: times change, but the Lord's ability to speak to the heart of those who seek him does not change.

"Sometimes we don't listen to it."

"God continues to call young people today as well, sometimes in ways we never imagined. At times we did not hear it because we are very busy with our things, with our projects, even with our Church things."

"But the Holy Spirit He also speaks to us through dreams, and he speaks to us through the concerns that young people feel in their hearts," the Pontiff continued. "If we accompany their journey, we will see how God does new things with them. And we will be able to welcome his call in ways that better serve the Church and the world of today."

And the Pope encourages: "Let us trust in young people! And, above all, let us trust in God: because He calls each one of us! Let us pray that the ecclesial community will welcome the desires and doubts of young people who feel the call to live the mission of Jesus in life: be it priestly life or religious life".

"God calls each one". 

"The challenge, then, is that of trust in young people, in their ability to contribute significantly to the Church and to the world. In fact, in the video Pope Francis invites us to hope in young people and, above all, in God, 'because He calls each one of us,'" encourages the World Prayer Network.

"Our God is a God who takes seriously the lives and gifts of young people," said Archbishop José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles. "The mission of the Church," continues the bishop of the largest U.S. diocese, who contributes to the production of this video with the professionals of his digital team, "is to walk with young people to help them grow in their faith and work to transform this world into the Kingdom that God wants for his people.

"Examine one's vocation with freedom and respond with courage."

On the other hand, the international director of the Pope's World Prayer Network, Fr. Cristobal Fones, S.J., recalls that "trust in young people is essential to encourage them to freely examine their own vocation and to respond to it with courage. An approach to vocation ministry that truly values dialogue and accompaniment also accepts and welcomes the concrete concerns, questions and aspirations of the young person as an important component of the vocational process". 

"Moreover, the Pope tells us that, through the words of young people-sometimes even challenging or questioning-God can also indicate new paths for today's Church, and even offer us an occasion for our own conversion." 

The Pope's prayer intentions for the month of January was "For the right to education: Let us pray that migrants, refugees and those affected by wars may always see their right to education respected, education necessary to build a more humane world".

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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The Vatican

The Holy See definitively approves the statutes of Regnum Christi

After five years, the Holy See has definitively approved the statutes of Regnum Christi. From the headquarters of the general direction of the federation they affirm that "this approval represents a recognition by the Holy See that gives solidity and stability to the Federation".

Paloma López Campos-February 7, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes
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After five years, the Holy See definitively approves the statutes of Regnum Christi, which were presented in 2019 by the Federation and had been on trial since then.

From the headquarters of the general management of the organization, they affirm in a press release that "this approval represents a recognition by the Holy See that gives solidity and stability to the Federation".

These statutes are the result of a long journey of renewal that began in 2010. Aware that it was necessary to express more clearly the charism of the organization, the Federation began a process of deepening its spirit. Thus, on May 31, 2019, the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life canonically erected the Regnum Christi Federation and approved "ad experimentum" its statutes.

The statutes of Regnum Christi

Among the changes presented in 2019 were greater participation of the laity and new measures to prevent cases of abuse within the organization. However, the most significant change took place in the definition of the canonical structure, with the aim of finding a figure "that expresses the spiritual unity and apostolic collaboration of all, promotes the identity and legitimate autonomy of each consecrated reality, and allows the other faithful of Regnum Christi to belong to the same apostolic body in a canonically recognized way," as they explained in 2019.

For this reason, the statutes approved in 2019 state that "the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, the Society of Apostolic Life Consecrated Sisters of Regnum Christi and the Society of Apostolic Life Consecrated Laity of Regnum Christi are linked to each other through the Regnum Christi Federation".

The Holy See points out that all these changes are intended to help the members of the Federation "to promote the common charism and to foster collaboration in view of the mission entrusted to them by the Church".

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Evangelization

Blessed Pius IX, Pope, and St. Richard of Wessex, layman

On February 7, the Catholic saints' calendar celebrates Blessed Pius IX (1792-1878), the longest-serving Pope in the Catholic Pontificate, 31 years and 7 months, perhaps second only to St. Peter. St. Richard of Wessex, father of holy evangelizers of Germany.    

Francisco Otamendi-February 7, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

The years during which Pius IX governed the Church were years of great political turmoil in Italy. In 1848 he had to go into exile in Gaeta while in Rome the Roman Republic of Mazzini was established, which declared the fall of the temporal power of the Pope. In 1850 he was able to return to Rome, and years later he faced the consequences of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Earlier he had reconciled with the Protestant monarchies of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Blessed Pius IX, born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, worked to preserve the Papal States, which he lost; he promulgated the encyclical 'Quanta cura' with the famous 'Syllabus errorum', proclaimed the dogma of Immaculate Conception (1854) and convoked the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), where papal infallibility as Pastor of the universal Church in matters of faith and morals was defined. His brother Gabriel declared that John Mary considered himself to be "simply a priest"He also became archbishop, cardinal and pope. He was beatified in 2000 by St. John Paul II together with St. John XXIII.

As for St. Richard of Wessex, it is appropriate to cite the Englishman in this way, because there is another Richard in the saints' calendar, such as Bishop Richard of Wyche (April 3). Richard of Wessex was a man of prayer and the father of three sons who accompanied him in pilgrimage After his death, miracles were recorded at his tomb. A son of yours joined St. Boniface and became the first bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria. 

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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The Vatican

Pope urges bishops to publicize marriage nullity process

In the traditional audience to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Judicial Year, Pope Francis pointed out that, on the occasion of the latest reform, he urged the bishops to make the faithful aware of the abbreviated process of marriage annulment. Moreover, it is important "to ensure that the procedures are free of charge". The reform seeks "not the nullity of marriages, but the celerity of the processes".  

Francisco Otamendi-February 7, 2025-Reading time: 5 minutes

The inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota was the main act of the Holy Father last Friday, when he received at audience the prelate auditors, officials, lawyers and collaborators of the Tribunal, presided over by its dean, the Spanish archbishop Monsignor Alejandro Arellano Cedillo.

Before the speech of the Pope, he delivered a few words of greeting Monsignor ArellanoIn them, he recalled that "on Christmas Eve, after opening the Holy Door and giving the starting signal for the Jubilee Year, you firmly addressed the whole world: set out without delay to 'rediscover lost hope, renew it in us, sow it in the desolations of our time and of our world'".

"Sowers of hope".

"Holy Father," added the dean of the CourtWe feel directly challenged by the challenges of the present and the future, aware that the Roman Rota, as the Tribunal of the Christian family, is only a 'flap of the mantle' of the Church; nevertheless, it seems to us that it is not foreign to our hope that, by the touch of that mantle, through the administration of justice, wounded persons may find peace, in order to foster tranquillitas ordinis in the Church.

In this line, the dean said, among other things, that "this is our desire: to be sowers of hope for all wounded families, far from the Church or in difficulty, who have lost hope in justice, in mercy, in the love of God that resurrects man and restores his dignity".

Clarify the marital situation

The inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Court of the Roman Rota "gives me the opportunity to renew the expression of my appreciation and gratitude for your work. I cordially greet the Dean and all of you who serve in this Tribunal," the Pope began.

"This year marks the tenth anniversary of the two Motu Proprio 'Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus' and 'Mitis et Misericors Iesus', with which I reformed the process for the declaration of the nullity of marriage. It seems appropriate to me to take advantage of this traditional occasion to meet with you to recall the spirit that permeated that reform, which you applied with competence and diligence for the benefit of all the faithful".

The aim of the reform was to "respond in the best possible way to those who turn to the Church to clarify their marital situation (cf. Speech to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, January 23, 2015). 

That the faithful are aware of the process and the gratuity

"I wanted the diocesan bishop to be at the center of the reform. Indeed, it is up to him to administer justice in the diocese, both as the guarantor of the proximity of the tribunals and of vigilance over them, and as the judge who must decide personally in cases where nullity is manifest, that is, through the 'processus brevior' as an expression of the solicitude of the 'salus animarum,'" the Pontiff continued.

"For this reason, I have urged that the activity of the tribunals be incorporated into diocesan pastoral care, charging the bishops to see to it that the faithful are made aware of the existence of the 'processus brevior' as a possible remedy to the situation of need in which they find themselves," the Pope noted. "It is sometimes sad to note that the faithful are unaware of the existence of this path. Moreover, it is important 'that the gratuitousness of the procedures be assured, so that the Church [...] manifests the gratuitous love of Christ by which we have all been saved' (Proemium, VI)."

Tribunal: well-trained and qualified persons

In particular, Francis specifies, "the bishop's concern is to guarantee by law the constitution in his diocese of the tribunal, staffed by persons - clerics and laity - well trained and suitable for this function; and to ensure that they carry out their work with justice and diligence. Investment in the formation of these workers-scientific, human and spiritual formation-always benefits the faithful, who have the right to have their petitions considered with attention, even when they receive a negative response."

Concern for the salvation of souls

"Concern for the salvation of souls (cf. Mitis Iudex, Proemium) has guided the reform and must guide its implementation. We are challenged by the pain and hope of so many of the faithful who seek clarity about the truth of their personal condition and, consequently, about the possibility of participating fully in the sacramental life. For so many who 'have lived an unhappy marital experience, the verification of the validity or otherwise of marriage represents an important possibility; and these people must be helped to travel this path as smoothly as possible' (Address to the participants in the Course promoted by the Roman Rota, March 12, 2016)".

"To favor not the nullity of marriages, but the celerity of the processes."

The recent reform, the Holy Father concluded, "also wished to favor 'not the nullity of marriages, but the celerity of the processes, no less than a just simplicity, so that, because of the delay in the definition of the sentence, the hearts of the faithful who await the clarification of their state may not be oppressed for a long time by the darkness of doubt' (Mitis Iudex, Proemio)" (Mitis Iudex, Proemio)".

Indeed, "in order to prevent the saying 'summum ius summa iniuria' ('Excessive right, excessive injustice') (Cicero, De Officiis I,10,33) from occurring as a result of overly complex procedures, I have abolished the need for the trial of double conformation and have encouraged more rapid decision in cases where nullity is manifest, seeking the good of the faithful and wishing to bring peace to their consciences". 

All this, the Pope noted, "requires two great virtues: prudence and justice, which must be informed by charity. There is an intimate connection between prudence and justice, since the exercise of prudentia iuris aims at knowing what is just in the concrete case' (Speech to the Roman Rota, January 25, 2024)".

Discernment work

"Every protagonist in the process approaches the conjugal and family reality with veneration," the Pontiff stressed at the end of his reflection. "Because the family is a living reflection of the communion of love that is God the Trinity (cf. Amoris laetitia, 11). Moreover, spouses united in marriage have received the gift of indissolubility, which is not a goal to be attained by their own efforts, nor even a limitation on their freedom, but a promise of God, whose fidelity makes human beings possible". 

"Your work of discerning whether or not a valid marriage exists," the Pope told the prelate auditors, "is a service to the salus animarum, for it enables the faithful to know and accept the truth of their personal reality. Indeed, 'every just judgment on the validity or nullity of a marriage is a contribution to the culture of indissolubility, both in the Church and in the world' (St. John Paul II, Speech to the Roman Rota, January 29, 2002)".

In concluding, Pope Francis invoked upon all, "pilgrims in spem, the grace of joyful conversion and the light to accompany the faithful to Christ, who is the meek and merciful Judge. I bless you from my heart and I ask you, please, to pray for me. Thank you.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Culture

Cardinal Tolentino praises friendship in the face of ambiguous use of "love"

The Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, noted the "inflation of the word love" in today's society, to the detriment of friendship, which is "an inexhaustible path of humanization and hope," on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas at the San Damaso Ecclesiastical University.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 7, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes

In a act presided over by the Archbishop of Madrid and Grand Chancellor of the San Dámaso Ecclesiastical UniversityCardinal José Cobo, and presented by the Rector of the corporation, Nicolás Álvarez de las Asturias, the Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça praised friendship as a necessary asset for the academic community.

On the celebration of the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Cardinal Prefect of Culture and Education at the Holy See, pointed out that "the University would fulfill its mission well if one day it were remembered by those who were formed there, not only for the quality of teaching and research that they found, but also for the beautiful friendships that began there".

However, the reflection of the Portuguese cardinal, a poet as well as a theologian, went further, and constituted a diagnosis of today's society, with regard to the words love and friendship, under the title 'In Praise of Friendship: Rediscovering a Necessary Good'.

Centrality of reflection on friendship

"I hope you will not find it strange that I have chosen friendship as my academic argument, when there would seem to be a thousand more urgent and pertinent issues to propose to a university community in this historical and cultural period of accelerated change," he began. 

"In St. Thomas the centrality of reflection on friendship is evident, to the point of asking whether perfect beatitude in glory does not also require the company of friends. But the very history of the University would not be understood without the idea of societas amicorum".

"Massive use of the vocabulary of love": consequences.

The Cardinal went on to note that "it seems that our era only knows how to speak of love. As we witness the inflation of this word, its expressive force is clearly diminishing and it seems to have been hijacked by a monotonous and equivocal use. We know less and less what we are talking about when we speak of love. But this does not constitute a brake". 

With the same word, he added, "we designate conjugal love and attachment to a sports team, relationships between relatives and those of consumption, the deepest individual aspirations, but also the most frivolous. Everything is love. It is not by chance that the magnificent poetry of W.H. Auden, which the last century chose as one of its songs, is summed up in the question: 'The truth, please, about love'".

In his opinion, as he explained to a large audience at San Damaso, "the danger presented by the massive use of the vocabulary of love is that of losing ourselves in the indefinite, drowning in the limitlessness of subjectivity: we do not really know what love is; it is always everything; it is a task without limits; and this inextricable totality, all too often, is consumed in a disillusioned rhetoric. Friendship is a more objective, more concretely designed form that is perhaps more possible to experience." 

The same is true in the "religious universe".

"In the religious universe, unfortunately, the situation is not much different," Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça continued. "The term love suffers from an excessive use that does not always favor realism and the deepening of the paths of faith. The reference to love is dissipated in homilies, catechetical discourses, moral propositions: a path so varied that its meaning is diluted." 

"We have become accustomed to hearing the call to love, receiving it or reproducing it without much knowledge. I am convinced that an important part of the problem lies in the absence of reflection on friendship." 

"Friendship, a path of humanization and hope".

His argument continued in the same vein, skeptical of the indiscriminate use of the word love, and praising friendship. "We ambiguously call 'love' certain affective relationships and practices that would gain greater consistency if we thought of them as modes of friendship. Friendship is a universal experience and represents, for each person, an inexhaustible path of humanization and hope." 

Later, he quoted Raïssa Maritain, wife of Jacques Maritainwho composed a kind of autobiography recounting the personal experiences of his friends. "And it is true: friends are our best autobiography. But not only that: they expand it, they conspire to make it luminous and authentic (...). Friends bear witness to our heart that there is always a way". 

"Friendship is nurtured by the acceptance of limits."

"Friendship does not contain that pretension of possession that, many times, is characteristic of an exaggeratedly narcissistic love. Friendship is nourished by the acceptance of limits," added the cardinal. "Perhaps the great difference between love and friendship lies in the fact that love always tends toward the unlimited, while in friendship we face limitations lightly, we accept that there is a life without us and beyond us."

The Vatican Prefect for Culture and Education mentioned in his lecture Pope Francis. "It is of vital wisdom to embrace boundaries as multiple aspects and links of the same truth, according to what Pope Francis first enunciated in Evangelii gaudium and has often reiterated in his pontificate: 'The model is not the sphere, where every point is equidistant from the center and there are no differences between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all the partialities that in it maintain their originality' (EG n. 236)".

Universities, activate as "laboratories of hope".

In conclusion, he cited the recent note on Artificial Intelligence that his Dicastery has prepared together with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which reminds us that "human intelligence is not an isolated faculty, but is exercised in relationships, finding its full expression in dialogue, collaboration and solidarity. We learn with others, we learn thanks to others" (n. 18).

The document exhorted Catholic and ecclesiastical universities to become active "as great laboratories of hope at this crossroads of history." "I believe that we will achieve this best if we do it together, as masters of the friendship that constitutes a concrete expression of hope," he concluded.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Themes in Misa

I have been in Spain, the most Catholic country in Europe, for two years now, and I am confused by the eagerness of some people to turn the Liturgy into something that, in their view, reminds me of my Protestant childhood in a rented room in the neighborhood library.

February 7, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsLiturgical music or music in the liturgy?

I was born in St. Petersburg in 1994. In those years, in the most culturally "western" city of post-Soviet Russia, being "weird" was very common. My family was also "weird": we were fervent Protestants.

The community we frequented was a mixture of Evangelicals and Baptists. Every Sunday we had a meeting in a neighborhood library building. We sang, prayed, listened to sermons and talked with our peers, evangelized by American and English pastors.

Protestant liturgy

The "liturgy" of these meetings was quite simple: first, we hung large signs with the words "Jesus" and "God is faithful" on the walls of the rented assembly hall, then a musical group came on stage - it was their service to the community - with drums, bass, acoustic guitar, violin, flute and keys.

The lyrics of the songs were projected right there. The lyrics were simple, understandable for everyone and motivating, sometimes they even made us cry, either from joy or from feeling like forgiven sinners in the hands of God. They often played world hits of Protestant pop groups translated into Russian. Sometimes we clapped along with them.

Then came the meditation of the Word led by one of the pastors, the moment of "giving peace", - about 5-10 minutes a little uncomfortable, in which we asked ourselves how we were doing and if everything was going well -, followed by a symbolic remembrance of the Last Supper.

There were also retreats (retreats): weekends in cottages spent in silence, praying together, studying the Scriptures and many other activities. Thanks to this Protestant community many people began to read the Bible daily, to address Jesus in their own words and "not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ" (cf. Rom 1, 16).

Traditional" Christians

About the more "traditional" Christians, such as the Orthodox and Catholics, if mentioned at all, it was said that their ways of doing things were obsolete, did not respond to the needs of contemporary society and often preferred their archaic rituals to a living relationship with God.

A special comparison was made with the whole Orthodox tradition, the dominant Christian confession in Russia. They criticized the "idolatry" towards icons, long rites in an incomprehensible language (the Liturgy is celebrated in Church Slavonic), the strange clothing of the clergy and old women who scold you if you do not cross yourself when you enter the church or, if you are a woman, when you enter wearing pants or without covering your head. Most of these criticisms, besides not having much real foundation, are nothing more than isolated and punctual events, which have been taken to the extreme and have become stereotypes among people who have not spent a minute to be interested in the why of the things we Christians do.

Conversion to Catholicism

My family converted to Catholicism thanks to my father's intellectual restlessness when I was fourteen years old. My father became interested in early Christian history and one day he took us - my mother, my younger brother and me - to a nearby church. Besides not having to learn Bible verses by heart, being a recent convert from Protestantism, it is unnecessary to relearn how to pray; that same Jesus with whom you had spoken earlier in your personal prayer is in this box that Catholics call the Tabernacle. More than a conversion, it is an encounter.

From this encounter, all the "complexity" and "archaism" of the Liturgy - both Roman and Byzantine - began to seem to me a requirement of common sense. There, before the living Christ, one could not sing the same songs or do the same as in the Protestant community: everything I had done before, all the "modernity" and "clarity" of Protestant worship seemed inadequate. The presence of the living God demanded not "modernity", but "eternity"; not the "understanding" of language, but the "mystery", because God, being eternal, is something more than "modern", and being Mystery, is much more than one can understand.

The "temazos

I don't know what drives certain pastoral decisions, but I suppose that to someone who has encountered God in a Catholic temple, it is strange to see the Alpha and Omega hidden behind a sign - composed in "a current and understandable language" - of the pop genre. As if God cares more about fashions than people.

It seems that there are musical genres whose form is inseparable from the event to which they are dedicated. For example, singing "Cumpleaños feliz" or "Las Mañanitas" only makes sense in the context of the event for which they are intended. However, Mexicans would not think of changing their birthday song - either because it might be "difficult for others to understand" or because it is considered "old-fashioned". It is curious that something similar does not happen with music intended for events such as Mass, an event that has a much deeper meaning in the lives of Christians than a birthday.

I have been in Spain, the most Catholic country in Europe, for two years now, and I am confused by the eagerness of some people to turn the Liturgy into something that, in their opinion, reminds me of my Protestant childhood in a rented room of the neighborhood library: some signs, a stage, a backing entrance song, a sweet melismatics that touches the feelings, but does not help to order them; a "temazo" that says nice things, but whose genre condemns it to monopolize the limelight. "It's what people like. It attracts young people." That's what they used to say in my beloved Protestant community.

The authorYakov Druzhkov

Linguist and translator, PhD in philology from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (Moscow). 

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Evangelization

St. Paul Miki and companions martyred in Japan

On February 6, the Church celebrates St. Paul Miki and 25 companions martyred. After the arrival of St. Francis Xavier in Japan (1549-1551), Paul Miki, a Jesuit, was the first Japanese religious to be martyred. With him were crucified in Nagasaki two other Jesuits, six Franciscans and 17 lay people, some of them Spaniards.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 6, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

Saints Paul Miki (1564-1597), Juan de Goto and Diego Kisai are the first Jesuits who gave their lives to imitate the crucified Lord in Japan. Miki came from a well-to-do family near Osaka, and became a Christian when the family's conversion took place. At the age of 20 he enrolled in the Azuchi seminary, taken by the Jesuits, and two years later he entered the Society. He spoke very well and succeeded in attracting Buddhists to the Christian faith. He was only two months away from ordination when he was arrested. 

St. Francis Xavier had sown Christianity in Japan since 1549. He himself converted and baptized a good number of pagans. Later, entire provinces received the faith. It is said that in 1587 there were more than two hundred thousand Christians in Japan. This growth provoked reticence in some authorities, who feared that Christianity was the first step of Spain to invade the country.

They expelled the missionaries from Japan and the persecution intensified, ending with the crucifixion near Nagasaki of the Jesuits, Franciscans and Tertiaries (26) in 1597. The Franciscan saints were Pedro Bautista, Martin De Aguirre, Francisco Blanco, Francisco de San Miguel, Spaniards, Felipe de Jesus, born in Mexico, not yet ordained, and Gonzalo Garcia. The remaining 17 martyrs were Japanese, several catechists and interpreters. From the cross, Pablo Miki pardoned his executioners and delivered a sermon inviting people to follow Christ with joy.

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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  • Cardinal Lazzaro You and Prelate Ocáriz, on the centenary of St. Josemaría's ordination
Evangelization

Cardinal Lazzaro You and Prelate Ocáriz, on the centenary of St. Josemaría's ordination

On March 27 and 28, the centenary of the priestly ordination of St. Josemaría, founder of Opus Dei, which took place on March 28, 1925, will be celebrated in Saragossa. After the Archbishop of Saragossa, Msgr. Carlos Escribano, Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, and the Prelate of Opus Dei, Prelate Fernando Ocáriz, among other participants, will take part in the celebrations.  

Francisco Otamendi-February 6, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes

St. Josemaría Escrivá was ordained a priest on March 28, 1925 in Saragossa, in the church of the Seminary of San Carlos, by Bishop Miguel de los Santos Díaz Gómara. 

One hundred years have passed, and on the occasion of the centenary of his ordination to the priesthood, a series of events will take place in the Aragonese capital, in which will participate the Cardinal Lazaro You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, and the Prelate of Opus Dei, Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz.

About the program of eventsthe organizers, the Alacet Priests' Library, with the collaboration of CARF Foundation and Omnes, inform that first of all, the academic act will take place on Thursday 27th, which is reported below.

Eucharist, prayer vigil

At its conclusion, at 7:00 p.m., a Eucharistic concelebration will take place in the Basilica del Pilar for the priests who wish to attend.

Afterwards (8:00 p.m.), a prayer vigil for vocations will be held for seminarians, young people and families in the church of the Royal Seminary of San Carlos Borromeo, presided over by the Cardinal Lazzaro You.

On March 28, the anniversary day, there will be a solemn Eucharistic concelebration, also in the church of the Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo, in thanksgiving for the fruits of priestly holiness. Afterwards, a fraternal meal will be held in the Throne Room of the Archbishop's Palace.

Centennial stamp.

Academic event

The academic ceremony on the 27th will begin with welcoming remarks by Archbishop Carlos Escribano, Archbishop of Zaragoza, who currently presides over the Episcopal Commission for the Laity, Family and Life of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. 

Cardinal Lazzaro You, in addition to being Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, is also a member of the Dicasteries for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; for Bishops; for Evangelization; for Culture and Education; and of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. At the conference he will speak on the holiness and mission of the priest.

Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, born in Paris in 1944, has been prelate of Opus Dei since January 2017. He is a physicist and theologian, consultor to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1986 and to the Dicastery for Evangelization since 2022. In 1989 he joined the Pontifical Theological Academy. He will speak in Zaragoza on the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the priest.

Other speakers

Before, José Luis González GullónThe panel discussion will focus on St. Josemaría's seminary and ordination years. In the afternoon, there will be a round table discussion on the universal heart of the priest: from East to West, passing through the rural world.

The following will participate at the table Esteban AranazJorge de Salas, a priest from the Diocese of Tarazona, a missionary in China; Jorge de Salas, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei living in Sweden, judicial vicar of the diocese of Stockholm; and Antonio Cobo, a priest of the Diocese of Almeria in the Alpujarra.

Golden jubilee of priesthood in 1975

St. Josemaría celebrated his Golden Jubilee of priesthood on March 28, 1975, a year before his death in Rome. In mid-January, before crossing the Atlantic on a catechetical trip to America, he addressed a letter to the faithful of Opus Dei in which, as he transcribes Andrés Vázquez de Prada in his biography, he told them: 

"I ask you to be very united on that day, with a deeper gratitude to the Lord - it is Good Friday this March 28 - who has pushed us to participate in his Holy Cross, that is to say, of the Love that does not set conditions".

St. Josemaría He also asked them: "Join me in adoring Our Redeemer, truly present in the Holy Eucharist, in all the Monuments of all the churches of the world, on this Good Friday. Let us live a day of intense and loving adoration".

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Vocations

Marriage and "its" strength

In marriage, complaints are often not reproaches, but requests, which invites us to be strong and fight the complaining attitude, more typical of pettiness than of sanity and positivity.

Alejandro Vázquez-Dodero-February 6, 2025-Reading time: 4 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsArgüello: "The vocation most in crisis in Spain is marriage".

The Catechism of the Catholic ChurchIn its No. 1808, it states that "Fortitude is the moral virtue that assures firmness and constancy in the pursuit of the good in difficulties. It reaffirms the resolution to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude makes one capable of overcoming fear, even of death, and of facing trials and persecutions. It enables one to go so far as to renounce and sacrifice one's life to defend a just cause (...)".

Are we born strong or do we become strong? Rather the latter, especially in the case of human beings, who come into the world absolutely dependent on others for their survival. It is as one acquires experience of life - that is why it is a virtue, that is, a good operative habit - that one becomes strong.

We are interested in emphasizing what is stated in the above-mentioned point: the one who, having contracted a marriage, seeks the good, wants to preserve it in its authenticity and beautydoing whatever it takes to keep your marriage fresh, no matter what it takes, and becoming strong enough to face setbacks.

In prosperity and in adversity...

In the rite of canonical marriage, the future spouses commit themselves to remain faithful to each other in prosperity and adversity; in other words, they assume that their marriage will be difficult, that there will be suffering, but that they will still be faithful to their commitment of love.

In marriage storms appear, but after the storm clouds the sun reappears. That is why when sailors see the winds coming, they prepare themselves to fight against adversity with all their strength, because they know that they will always win in the end and the sea will become calm again; they sail against all odds in the hope that they will find a peaceful, navigable sea.

The same thing happens in marriage: after a setback, well managed, comes the overcoming, and that is where one recognizes the fruit of fidelity to the yes given at the time of contracting it; and that is where one recognizes the beauty of corresponding to love even at the cost of life's setbacks, putting effort and trust, hoping.

Unity and communication

The strength of marriage lies in its unity, in the fact that the spouses feel that they are a single reality. For that reason it is convenient to share - to communicate - the difficulties as if the problem of the other one was also with you. Ask him/her about its meaning, about what it represents, and try to put yourself in his/her place.

We may be able to make sounds, but communicating goes much further. We need to know how to express our ideas without hurting others, describing our point of view, starting with "I" and ending with "we", and expressing our feelings and affections.

Active listening, even more important and necessary than speaking, requires an apprenticeship: paying and maintaining attention, and making sure that the other feels listened to and taken into account. This is difficult, and it is often necessary to "do violence to oneself", from a position of strength, to achieve it.

In marriage it is important to learn to listen to feelings. Focus on what the spouse feels rather than what he or she says. In the sentence "John -a son- is unbearable; I can't take it anymore!", the important thing is not "John is unbearable", but "I can't take it anymore"; and before addressing John's problem, you have to empathize with your spouse's feeling: "You are right: there is no one who can stand it" What can we do?". And that exercise usually requires effort.

Respect, understanding, and care for the little things.

Respect is essential in itself. To take into account the questions and approaches of others, giving them at least the same value or more than one's own ideas. Not to impose one's thoughts, nor to transform one's opinions into dogmas.

Always prioritize the spouse. It is the one who gives meaning to the very existence of the marriage and of each of the spouses. Not to put the desires of others before those of one's own spouse, being prudent, and of course never taking sides against him or her or limiting oneself to "being neutral". Try to put yourself in the other's place. What it means to him or her. That costs...

Taking care of the smallest details of living together, with the constant sacrifice that this requires. We all know that the greatness of things is in the details. On the other hand, if you are careful with the small gestures, you will be preparing yourself for more challenging challenges, and that in marriage finds its space and is a guarantee of fidelity, which is happiness.

Serenity and good humor

Arguing in married life, which will sometimes be necessary, should always be done with serenity: it is appreciated by oneself and by the spouse with whom one has argued. It is a matter of applying a balance between reason and heart, something that often requires effort. 

If a spouse feels a strong emotion, it is best to let it flow without manipulating it and, when it has subsided, confront the cause of the disagreement.

And in any case, to laugh a little at life, without dramatizing, without absolutizing excessively. Laughing "with" and not "at" unites much more than we think. But sometimes it is difficult and it is necessary to make an effort to achieve it.

It has been proven that verbal complaints weaken us and infect others with negative attitudes. It is better to look for something positive and not to insist on things that do not provide solutions or do not help to lift our spirits.

Even so, when one hears complaints from one's spouse, one had better think that, in marriage, complaints are often not reproaches, but requests, which, again, invites us to be strong and fight the complaining attitude, more typical of pettiness than of sanity and positivity.

RelatedRelated NewsArgüello: "The vocation most in crisis in Spain is marriage".
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ColumnistsSantiago Leyra Curiá

Kant's moral formation

On the 300th anniversary of Kant's birth, we review some lesser-known facets of the first and most important representative of criticism and precursor of German idealism, courageous defender of freedom against political and religious powers.

February 6, 2025-Reading time: 7 minutes
RelatedRelated NewsLuther, Kant and St. John Henry Newman 

The recent biography by Manfred Kuehn (2024) reveals a Kant little known to the general public and who was an excellent host and devoted friend. Associated with the Enlightenment, he witnessed the birth of the modern world, and his thought is both an expression of a fast-paced era and a way out of its aporias, becoming one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and universal philosophy.

Kant's life spans almost the entire 18th century. His coming of age witnessed some of the most significant changes in the Western world-changes that still resonate today. It was the period during which the world we live in today originated. Kant's philosophy was very much an expression of and a response to those changes. His intellectual life reflected the most significant speculative, political and scientific developments of the time. His views are reactions to the cultural climate of his time. English and French philosophy, science, literature, politics and manners formed the fabric of his daily conversations. Even events as relatively distant as the American and French revolutions had a definite impact on Kant, and thus also on his work. His philosophy must be viewed in this global context.

Immanuel, who later changed his name to Immanuel, was the son of Johann Georg Kant (1683-1746), a master saddler in Königsberg, and Anna Regina Reuter (1697-1737), daughter of another saddler in the same city. Kant was the fourth child of the couple, although when he was born only a five-year-old sister survived. On the day he was baptized, his mother wrote in her prayer book, "May God keep him according to His Promise of Grace to the end of his days, for the love of Jesus Christ, Amen." The name imposed seemed to her to be a very good omen. This prayer was not only the expression of a pious longing, but it also responded to a real desire and expressed a very deep feeling. Of the five siblings born after Kant, only three survived early childhood.

Education received

The great philosopher always kept a deep appreciation for the education received from his parents, mainly through his life example. His family was affected by professional quarrels between different guilds: "... in spite of them, my parents treated their enemies with such respect and consideration and with such firm confidence in the future that the memory of this incident will never be erased from my memory, even though I was only a boy at the time".

Years later, his friend Kraus wrote: "Kant once remarked to me that when he looked more closely at the education in the house of a count not far from Königsberg... he often thought of the incomparably nobler training he had received at home from his parents. He was very grateful to them for that, adding that he had never heard or seen anything indecent in their house."

Kant had only good things to say about his parents. Thus, in a letter from later in his life he wrote: "Both my parents (who belonged to the artisan class) were perfectly honest, morally decent and disciplined. They did not bequeath me a fortune (but neither did they leave me debts). And, from the moral point of view, they gave me an absolutely superb education. Every time I think of this I am overcome with feelings of the most intense gratitude.".

His mother died at the age of forty, when the future philosopher was only 13 years old and was deeply affected. She died infected by the illness of a sick friend whom she cared for on her deathbed. Kant wrote years later that "her death was a sacrifice to friendship." When his father died in 1746, a nearly twenty-one-year-old Immanuel wrote in the family Bible: "On March 24 my dear father has left us with a peaceful death... May God, who did not bring him many joys in this life, allow him to share in eternal bliss.".

Kant and religion

Kant's parents were religious people strongly influenced by Pietism, a religious movement within the Protestant churches of Germany that was largely a reaction to the formalism of Protestant orthodoxy. Pietists stressed the importance of independent Bible study, personal devotion, the exercise of the priesthood among the laity, and a faith embodied in acts of charity. It usually involved insistence on a personal experience of radical conversion or rebirth and disregard for worldly success, which could often be precisely dated. The "old self" had to be overcome by the "new self" in a battle fought with the help of God's grace. Each believer was to form in his environment a small church of "true Christians.", different from the formal church that may have strayed from the true meaning of Christianity.

About the religious ideas of his parents, which would appear as the "demands of sanctity" in Kant's second "Critique," he also wrote: "Even if the religious ideas of that time... and the conceptions of what was called virtue and piety were not clear and sufficient, people were really virtuous and pious. One can say as many evils as one likes about pietism. But the people who took it seriously were characterized by a certain kind of dignity. They possessed the noblest qualities that a human being can have: that tranquility and gentleness, that inner peace which is undisturbed by any passion. No need, no quarrel could enrage them or make them anyone's enemy."

Education of children

In his "Lessons on Pedagogy" (1803) he will leave good ideas for the moral education of children, who must be taught the common duties towards oneself and towards others. Duties based on "a certain dignity that the human being possesses in his inner nature which dignifies him in comparison with all other creatures. It is his duty not to deny this dignity of humanity in his own person".

Drunkenness, unnatural sins and all kinds of excesses are for Kant examples of that loss of dignity by which we place ourselves below the level of animals. The action of "groveling"-drawing in compliments and begging for favors-also places us below human dignity. Lying should be avoided, for it "makes human beings the object of general contempt and tends to rob the child of his or her self-respect.", something that everyone should possess. And when a child avoids another child because he is poorer, when he pushes him or hits him, we should make him understand that such behavior contradicts the right of humanity.

In his "Metaphysics of morals". (1785) offers the example of a man who abandons his project of dedication to an activity that pleases him "immediately, though reluctantly, at the thought that if he were to pursue it he would have to omit one of his duties as a civil servant or neglect a sick father", and that in so behaving he was testing his freedom to the utmost degree.

Kant was horrified when he recalled his school years at the Collegium Fridericianum and, with some exception, said of his professors that "they would be incapable of lighting a fire with a possible spark of our mind about philosophy or mathematics, but would prove very good at putting them out.". Kant recognized that "it is very difficult for every individual to get out of that minority of age, which has almost become his nature... Principles and formulas, mechanical instruments of rational use - or rather abuse - of his natural endowments, are the shackles of a permanent minority of age"..

Faced with the rigorism of his teachers, he wrote in his lessons on anthropology that playing cards "cultivates us, tempers our spirits and teaches us to control our emotions. In this sense it can exert a beneficial influence on our morality.". Because of several unpleasant experiences with soldiers in his city, his concept of the military establishment was not very high.

In his work "The Only Possible Argument in a Demonstration of the Existence of God". (1763) Kant ends by stating that "it is absolutely necessary to be convinced that God exists; but that His existence has to be demonstrated, however, is not equally necessary.". And in his "Observations on the sentiment of the beautiful and the sublime". (1764) comments that "Men who act according to principles are very few, which is even very convenient, because these principles easily turn out to be wrong, and then the harm that results from this goes so much further the more general the principle is and the firmer the person who has adopted it" (1764).. Kant thought that at the age of forty the definitive character was acquired and he thought that the first and most relevant maxim to judge the character of a person is that of truthfulness with oneself and with others.

In a famous passage from the "Critique of Practical Reason". (1788) Kant says: "Two things fill the mind with admiration and respect, ever new and growing the more frequently reflection deals with them: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.".

He was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, which he saw as the first practical triumph of the philosophy that had helped to create a government based on the principles of an orderly and rationally constructed system. In his work "Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason." (1794) states that it may happen that "the person of the master of the only religion valid for all worlds is a mystery, that his appearance on earth and his disappearance from it, that his eventful life and his passion are pure miracles... that the very history of the life of the great master is itself a miracle (a supernatural revelation); we can give to all these miracles whatever value we wish, and honor even the envelope... which has set in motion a doctrine that is inscribed in our hearts...".

In 1799, when his weakness was not yet very evident, Kant affirmed to some of his acquaintances: "My lords, I am old and weak, and you must regard me as a child... I am not afraid of death; I shall know how to die. I swear to you before God that, if I feel death approaching during the night, I will join my hands and exclaim God be praised. But if an evil demon were to stand at my back and whisper in my ear: You have made human beings unhappy, then my reaction would be very different.". On February 12, 1804 Kant died at 11:00 a.m., two months short of his 80th birthday.

Being a man with errors, like everyone, St. John Paul II admired him for his defense of the dignity of the human person (never using the person as a means). He was an upright man and truly concerned about the foundations of morality. His most criticizable aspect is his gnoseology, which served as the basis for later subjectivism, although he himself was probably never a subjectivist, as is evident from some of his most famous sentences.

The authorSantiago Leyra Curiá

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Gospel

Listening and acting. Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Joseph Evans comments on the readings for February 9, 2025 which corresponds to the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Joseph Evans-February 6, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

There is a clear theme of call in today's readings. The first reading offers us the extraordinary revelation of God's glory that the prophet Isaiah received in the Temple of Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C. 

The second reading speaks to us of the appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples after the Resurrection, principally to the apostle Peter (Cephas). Finally, the Gospel gives us the first miraculous catch of fish, which for Peter was like a revelation of the power of Christ. 

However, in spite of the extraordinary character of these episodes, they were also very ordinary. Isaiah was exercising his priestly activity. Peter and his companions were performing the most mundane of tasks: mending their nets. 

Jesus enters his boat. He does not ask their permission. Once in it, he complicates Peter's life, asking him to "to move it away from the ground a little". It was only a small request, which interrupted the apostle's work. But it had a decisive effect: it forced Peter to listen. Jesus forces Peter to leave his work to listen to his preaching. Christ meets us and calls us in the midst of our work. But we too need to stop working to listen, to hear and reflect on the word of God.

After having listened to Jesus, the latter can issue Peter a challenge: "Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.". Christ always challenges us to get out of the shallow waters of our comfort and mediocrity.

Peter had had a fruitless night. But he had faith. His own failure did not discourage him. "Master, we have been struggling all night and have gathered nothing; but at your word, I will let down the nets.". Anyone trying to win souls for Christ will know this feeling. But a soul of faith does not give up. True to Jesus' command, it casts its nets again and again. Finally, such a great catch is caught that it brings with it the good problem of being temporarily unable to cope with so much abundance.

Before this miracle, Peter is overwhelmed. The power of God in Christ leaves him feeling totally sinful, as Isaiah had felt sinful at the sight of the divine glory. "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.", he says. To which Jesus replies: "Fear not; from now on you will be a fisher of men.". In other words, precisely because you recognize your unworthiness, I call you to the apostolate. The humble acceptance of our misery does not disqualify us from serving Christ. Rather, from this awareness, Our Lord calls us. 

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The Vatican

The Visitation of Mary and the Magnificat at the center of the Pope's catechesis

During today's Audience, Pope Francis encouraged us to place ourselves "in the school of Mary," who in the Visitation feels the impulse of love and goes out to meet others. He also considered the Magnificat of Our Lady as a "song of redemption" and urged us to pray also for "the displaced people of Palestine".    

Francisco Otamendi-February 5, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes

With a cold that prevented him from delivering the catechesis, having to leave the speech to an official of the Secretary of State, Pier Luigi Giroli, Pope Francis has resumed in the Audience This Wednesday the theme that will be developed throughout the Jubilee Year, 'Jesus Christ, our hope'. The reflection was based on the Gospel of St. Luke (1:39-42), with the title: "And blessed is she who believed" (Lk 1:45).

In a Paul VI Hall packed with pilgrims, the Pope's meditation focused on the Visitation of Our Lady to her cousin St. Elizabeth, the second joyful mystery of the Rosarioand in the Magnificat. 

The Pontiff encouraged us to ask today "the Lord for the grace to know how to wait for the fulfillment of all his promises; and may he help us to welcome Mary's presence in our lives. By placing ourselves in her school, may we all discover that every soul that believes and hopes 'conceives and begets the Word of God' (St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel according to St. Luke 2:26)".

For priests and consecrated men and women, and for the displaced people of Palestine

In his greeting to the Polish pilgrims, the Pope encouraged them "to pray for priests and consecrated men and women who carry out their ministry in poor countries, and to pray for the priests and consecrated men and women who work in the poorest countries of the world. war-tornespecially in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For many, this presence is proof that God always remembers them".

At the end, addressing the pilgrims in Italian, Francis again asked for prayers for "the martyred Ukraine, Israel, Jordan, so many countries that are suffering, and for the displaced people of Palestine. Let us pray for them," he prayed.

Requests to pilgrims 

The Successor of Peter asked the French-speaking pilgrims to "follow the school of Mary, cultivating a heart open to God and to our brothers and sisters"; to the English-speaking pilgrims, his wish that "the Jubilee be for you an occasion of spiritual renewal and growth in the joy of the Gospel"; to the English-speaking pilgrims, his wish that "the Jubilee be for you an occasion of spiritual renewal and growth in the joy of the Gospel"; To the German-speaking faithful, "may we too bring Christ to the men and women of our time"; to the Spanish-speaking faithful, who, like the Poles, made their presence felt, he asked them to "raise to God the song of the Magnificat, like Mary, recalling with gratitude the great things he has done in our lives".

The Pontiff exhorted the Chinese-speakers to "always be builders of peace"; the Portuguese-speakers to "learn from her the availability to serve those in need"; and the Arabs to "bear witness to the Gospel in order to build a new world with meekness, through the gifts and charisms they have received".

Adherence to Christ while visiting the tombs of the Apostles

Before praying the Our Father and giving the final blessing, the Pope personally read two other prayers. First, "I hope that the visit to the tombs of the Apostles will inspire a renewed desire for adherence to Christ and Christian witness in your communities.

In conclusion, he said: "As the Apostle Paul exhorts us, I urge you to be joyful in hope, strong in tribulation, persevering in prayer, and attentive to the needs of your brethren (cf. Rom 12:12-13).

Mary, the impulse of love

In his catechesis, and using the Virgin Mary as an example, the Pope encouraged the following go out to meet of others. "This young daughter of Israel does not choose to protect herself from the world, she does not fear the dangers and judgments of others, but goes out to meet others. When a person feels loved, she experiences a force that sets love in motion; as the Apostle Paul says, 'the love of Christ possesses us' (2Co 5:14), it impels us, it moves us."

"Maria She feels the impulse of love and goes to help a woman who is a relative of hers, but also an elderly woman who, after a long wait, welcomes an unexpected pregnancy, difficult to cope with at her age. But Our Lady also goes to Elizabeth to share her faith in the God of the impossible and her hope in the fulfillment of his promises". 

The Magnificat

The massive presence of the Easter motif, the Holy Father commented, "also makes of the Magnificat a song of redemption, which has as its background the memory of Israel's liberation from Egypt. The verbs are all in the past tense, impregnated with a memory of love that enkindles the present with faith and illuminates the future with hope: Mary sings the grace of the past, but she is the woman of the present who carries the future in her womb".

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Evangelization

St. Agatha, virgin and martyr of Catania

The Church celebrates on February 5 St. Agatha (Agatha), patron saint of Catania. She was a Christian martyr during the persecution of Emperor Decius (3rd century), after defending her virginity and her faith. Her name appears in the Roman Canon together with Felicity and Perpetua, (Agatha), Lucia, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia... 

Francisco Otamendi-February 5, 2025-Reading time: < 1 minute

Born into a Christian family, Agatha decided at a young age to consecrate herself to God, took a vow of virginity and received from the Bishop of Catania the red veilsymbol of the consecrated virgins. This represented her commitment to live a life of purity and service to God. The story of St. Agatha takes place between Catania and Palermo, which dispute her birthplace.

Coinciding with the persecution of Decius against the Christians, the proconsul Quincianus took notice of her beauty. When rejected, she was tortured with the tearing of her breasts and mutilated. Her prayers were heard and according to tradition, she was comforted with the apparition of St. PeterWhen Quinciano ordered that Agueda, wrapped only in the red veil of the bride of Christ, be burned in burning coals, an earthquake prevented it. She died in the cell.

The minutes of the martyrdom that a year later, there was a great eruption of the volcano Etna, and the lava flow was heading towards the city of Catania. Many people went to the tomb of Agatha to ask for her intercession, and her veil was placed in front of the river of lava. Miraculously, the lava stopped. Her relics are preserved in Catania, in the cathedral dedicated to her. The feast of St. Agatha is an institution in the city, and its primitive cult. It is named in Prayer I- .Roman Canon. 

The authorFrancisco Otamendi

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Integral ecology

Altruism and culture of care: a response to the anthropological crisis.

A conference at the University of Holy Cross, March 6-8, will explore the relevance of altruism and the culture of care. Professor Francesco Russo explains some specific aspects in this interview.

Giovanni Tridente-February 5, 2025-Reading time: 3 minutes
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In the context of a contemporary world marked to a large extent by individualism and anthropological crisis, the next academic proposal of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross - its XXVth Congress of Studies-will be dedicated to altruism. 

This act, which is part of a three-year research project on the culture of care, aims to explore the role of altruism in human existence, beyond reductionist interpretations that link it to simple acts of charity or utilitarian calculations.

The activity, which will take place from March 6 to 8, will include contributions from philosophers, neuroscientists, physicians, sociologists and economists, and is intended to take place within the framework of the cultural and educational challenge to which Pope Francis has often referred, inviting a profound rethinking of the relationship between the individual and the community. In this framework, OMNES interviewed Prof. Francesco Russo, Professor of Anthropology of Culture and Society and member of the conference organizing committee.

Why was this topic chosen for the congress?

- Because philosophy is not alien to its sociocultural context and today everyone agrees that we live in a society sick with individualism. That is why it is important to reflect on altruism in order to understand its role in human existence.

Philosophical reflection is necessary because it cannot be reduced to a superficial gesture of charity, nor can it be framed in what is called "effective altruism," according to a vision that derives basically from utilitarianism or egocentrism in search of mere emotional well-being. Altruism is the essential link between the self and the you, and is an essential human trait, involving compassion and empathy.  

Can you also explain this broader link to the so-called "culture of care" and how this can be a response to the anthropological crisis?

- The anthropological crisis to which you refer was pointed out in 2009 by Benedict XVI and recently highlighted on several occasions by Pope Francis. Faced with the problems to be confronted, political or sociological or economic solutions will not suffice if we do not realize that the identity and specificity of the human person are at stake. On Veritatis GaudiumPope Francis, in n. 6, invited scholars, in particular universities and ecclesiastical faculties, to become aware that "what is emerging before our eyes today is 'a great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge that will entail long processes of regeneration'".

For this reason, in the research project promoted by the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, we have involved 14 researchers from ten European and American university institutions to help re-found the culture of care, which constitutes the deep vocation of the human person, as Pope Francis himself recalled in his Message for the 2021 World Day of Peace: the care of the human being and its flourishing in the different dimensions of existence (such as, for example, relationships, the environment, the common good, the artistic heritage, the sacred). 

Is a dialogue between philosophy and the humanities on these issues possible?

- Dialogue is not only possible, but indispensable. Indeed, the conference will be attended not only by philosophers, but also by neuroscientists, physicians, sociologists, educationalists and economists. This interdisciplinarity is reflected not only in the main papers, but also in the forty or so communications that will be presented.

The human sciences, particularly neuroscience, are advancing considerably, but they do not capture the person in his or her corporeal-spiritual integrity: we are not just a biologically complex organism governed by a highly specialized brain. Otherwise, pain, freedom, compassion for others, dedication to others, the very search for the truth about our human condition and the meaning of our actions would remain without explanation or meaning. The rigor of science and the holistic vision of philosophical anthropology can and must confront and dialogue. 

You mentioned compassion and empathy - is there still a place for these feelings in today's technologized society?

- As for the sentimental sphere, the omnipresence of technology accentuates illiteracy, because it does not help us to understand, express and recognize our own and other people's feelings. On the other hand, compassion and empathy do not only involve the emotional plane, in the sense that they go beyond a passing state of mind. On the contrary, they are two existential attitudes that imply an openness of heart to the needs of others, an awareness of our constitutive relationality and a willingness to seek the good of others.

I like to emphasize that, providentially, the conference coincides with the Jubilee of Volunteering; we only realized this once the dates were set and we saw in it a confirmation of what I have mentioned: altruism is inherent to human nature, even if individualistic culture blurs its features and scope. 

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EditorialOmnes

"Sing to him the most beautiful hymn."

Singing is key in the worship of God, expressing faith and dedication. The Church has always valued it as a means of praise and transmission of faith.

February 5, 2025-Reading time: 2 minutes

If there is one thing the Word of God encourages us to do, it is to sing: "Sing! 

The saved people sing and dance. It does so in the middle of the desert, when Mary, the sister of Moses, encouraged to sing "to the Lord, exalted conqueror". Dance David "with all their enthusiasm, singing with zithers and harps, with tambourines, sistrums and cymbals."Mary intones a rhythmic psalmody, the Magnificat, at the gates of Elizabeth's house; Christ himself laments the unbelief of the people with a musical comparison: "we have sung to the sound of the flute and you have not danced.". 

– Supernatural music is intimately linked to the deepest human emotions and there is God. Worshipping God with songs and dances shows this total surrender of man: that movement that is born from the depths of the heart and manifests itself physically. 

It is not in vain that music is said to be the language of the angels, created for the eternal adoration and praise of God. God sings and creates; he creates by singing and there are those who imagined the creation of the world as a musical composition following the powerful image of C. S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Men and women of all times have sung of their deepest aspirations and desires, their clearest loves, their beginning and end. The Church too, as the people of God, has sung of the center of his love since its origins: "the musical tradition of the universal Church constitutes a treasure of inestimable value which stands out among other artistic expressions, mainly because sacred chant, united with words, constitutes a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy". affirms the Sacrosanctum Concilium. 

In a masterful, and not uncontroversial, article by Marcos Torres published in Omnes on October 9, 2024, the author points out how "to such an extent has religious music been important in the transmission of the truth of the contents of the faith, that the Church through apostolic succession has always taken care to discern and verify the concrete expressions and forms of the various musical creations.". Expressions ranging from liturgical music, proper to the celebration of the Eucharistic sacramental mystery, to the new musical movements linked to adoration (worship). 

Music, as a profoundly human and divine expression, is a privileged vehicle to worship God and transmit faith, to incarnate love and to love the God who became man and who, surely, also danced and sang.

The authorOmnes

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