Pope Francis has asked for forgiveness for the behaviour of Catholics against other Christians.
He made the comment after walking through the Holy Door of the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls with an Orthodox metropolitan and an Anglican archbishop.
“As Bishop of Rome and Pastor of the Catholic Church, I want to beg for mercy and forgiveness for un-Gospel-like behaviour on the part of Catholics against Christians of other churches,” the Pope said at a prayer service concluding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
“We ask most of all for forgiveness for the sin of our divisions, which are an open wound on the body of Christ. “At the same time, I ask all my Catholic brothers and sisters to forgive if, today or in the past, they were hurt by other Christians,” he said. “We cannot erase what happened, but we do not want to allow the burden of past faults to continue to poison our relationships.”
As is customary, Pope Francis led the service at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, which tradition holds is the burial site of the Apostle. Orthodox Metropolitan Gennadios, representing the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury, joined the Pope in prayer at St Paul’s tomb at the start of the service.
St Paul and countless martyrs throughout the centuries gave their lives for their faith and now enjoy “full communion in the presence of God the Father”, the Pope said. He prayed that the martyrs would sustain today’s Christians with their prayers and example.
The Pope told the ecumenical gathering that the path to Christian unity was about drawing closer to Christ and finding each other there.
Children need a mother and a father, says Italian cardinal
Italy’s bishops are united in reaffirming the rights of children to be raised by both a mother and a father, according to Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops’ conference.
The family “does not exist for society or the state, but society and the state exist for the family”, he said at a meeting of the bishops on January 25.
On January 28 the Italian Senate began debating legislation that would grant legal recognition to heterosexual or homosexual unions while not defining the unions as marriage.
Italians are divided on the legislation, with rallies for and against the bill. Thousands of same-sex marriage supporters marched in cities across Italy in favour of the legislation on January 22. With the support of the Italian bishops’ conference, supporters of traditional family life took part in a “Family Day” rally in Rome’s Circus Maximus on January 30.
“Children have a right to be raised by a mother and a father. The family is an anthropological fact, not ideological,” Cardinal Bagnasco said. The Italian bishops are united in reaffirming the “beauty, centrality and uniqueness” of the family, he said.
Mass on altar of snow goes viral
A Mass celebrated for students stuck on a snowbound motorway in Pennsylvania for 22 hours went viral last week.
Five hundred students were returning from the March for Life in Washington when Storm Jonas hit. While stuck they built an altar out of snow. Fr Patrick Behm of Le Mars said the Mass was “one of the highlights of my time as a priest”.
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