FILE: Pope Francis greets staff and students of the Alphonsian Academy in Rome, telling them that moral theology must get its “hands dirty” with concrete issues. (Photo: Vatican News/Facebook)
MANILA – Pope Francis urged everyone to work hard to achieve peace, saying human strength alone is not enough for it to be achieved.
“May the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to the Prince of Peace, and cuddled him with such tenderness in her arms, obtain for us from heaven the precious gift of peace, which cannot be fully pursued with human strength alone,” he said in his New Year’s Day message from the Vatican on Friday (Manila time).
Considerations on the Nativity scene in Saint Peter’s Square
At the center of Saint Peter’s Square, a metallic tensile structure dominates the scene, hastily decorated with a tubular light, underneath which stand, disturbing as totems, a few horrible statues that no one endowed with common sense would dare to identify with the characters of the Nativity. The solemn background of the Vatican Basilica only serves to augment the abyss between the harmonious Renaissance architecture and the indecorous parade of anthropomorphic bowling pins.
It matters little that these atrocious artifacts are the fruit of students of an obscure Abruzzo art institute: whoever dared to put together this affront to the Nativity did so in an era that, besides creating countless monstrosities of pseudo-art, did not know how to make anything beautiful or that merits to be preserved for posterity. Our museums and modern art galleries are overflowing with creations, installations, and provocations born fro
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3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
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as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.
All Christian should argue for the integrity of every individual person made in the image of God, and that the gospel, if we re going to be faithful to that gospel and faithful to biblical anthropology, requires us to be engaged as advocates for the sanctity of human life wherever we encounter it.