During the whirlwind trip on Saturday, Francis found time to visit a housing project, Muslim families and elderly people.

He also spoke with clergy and religious, had lunch at a prison and finished off by meeting newly confirmed young people.

Thousands of people turned up to hear him speak at the housing project.

The project is in an area of acute poverty where many migrants live.

Francis told his audience not to stand back but " to go toward everyone, in the peripheries, including non-Christians and non-believers."

He then stopped at three apartments, one home to a Muslim immigrant family from Morocco.

"It was very emotional. It was like having a friend in the house," they said.

He also dropped in on an elderly Italian couple in their 80s, both of whom have major health problems.

Later in the day, when he met with the clergy and religious at the cathedral of St. Mary of the Nativity, he told them not to worry about the challenges that come with their ministry.

Neither should they be concerned about the increasing number of empty convents.

Instead, he said they should focus on the core of their mission: bringing Christ to his people.

Finally, Francis met with newly confirmed young people, parents, god-parents, catechists, teachers and volunteers.

Among various topics, he discussed education, formation and bullying.

Source

• Reuters
• Crux
• ABC News
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Italy 24

The Vatican press office announced that the papal pastoral visits to Milan and other Italian dioceses next year were postponed.

The reason cited is the demands on the Pope's schedule during the jubilee year of mercy.

The visit to Milan will happen in 2017, the Vatican stated.

It has been noted that last year Francis fell ill shortly before two planned meetings with Cardinal Scola.

And by 2017, the Italian media has observed, the cardinal will have turned 75 and will thus be required to submit his resignation to the Pope.

Therefore his continuing as archbishop in Milan beyond this point will be at papal discretion.

Francis's apparent reticence to grant Cardinal Scola a meeting could also be seen as a symbol for everything the Pope is trying to change about the Church in Italy.

This includes the Vatican's historic cosy relationship with conservative politicians.

Global Pulse editor Robert Mickens said: "The Pope does not like the idea of the Church being in bed with politicians or politics."

"The Italian hierarchy is very . . . political and tied in to business and politics. Scola represents that kind of Church," Mickens said.

Cardinal Scola was seen by some as having reached a tacit agreement with Italy's former centre-right prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

In this alleged agreement, the Church in Italy would not be a leading voice on social justice issues and, in exchange, Berlusconi would respect the Church's views against abortion and other policies.

In Florence last month, the Pope urged the Italian hierarchy to stop clinging to conservatism and fundamentalism as a response to the problems the Church is facing.

In October, the Pope appointed two centre-left clerics known as social activists to two of the most important archdioceses in Italy: Bologna and Palermo.

For years, Cardinal Scola was seen as a close ally of Pope Benedict XVI.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Catholic World News
• Image: The Guardian

As believers and non-believers alike almost brought Milan to a halt as they bid farewell to their popular pastor, his final interview, to his fellow Jesuit, Fr George Sporschill, was released as his final spiritual testament.

How do you see the situation of the church?

The church is tired, in the Europe of well-being and in America. Our culture has become old, our churches and our religious houses are big and empty, the bureaucratic apparatus of the church grows, our rites and our dress are pompous.

Do these things, however, express what we are today? ...

Well-being weighs on us. We find ourselves like the rich young man who went away sad when Jesus called him to be his disciple. I know that we can't let everything go easily. At least, however, we can seek people who are free and closest to their neighbor, like Archbishop Romero and the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador.

Where are the heroes among us who can inspire us?

By no means do we have to limit them by the boundaries of the institution.

Who can help the church today?

Father Karl Rahner often used the image of the embers hidden under the ash.

I see in the church today so much ash under the embers that often I'm hit with a sense of impotence.

How can we liberate the embers from the ash, to reinvigorate the fires of love?

For the first thing, we have to seek out these embers.

Where are the individuals full of generosity, like the Good Samaritan?

Who have faith like the Roman centurion?

Who are enthusiastic like John the Baptist?

Who dare the new, like Paul?

Who are faithful like Mary Magdalene?

I advise the Pope and the bishops to seek out twelve people outside the lines for administrative positions, people who are close to the poorest, who are surrounded by young people, and who try new things. We need to be with people who burn in such a way that the Spirit can spread itself everywhere.

What tools do you recommend against the exhaustion of the church?

I recommend three very strong ones.

The first is conversion: the church must recognize its errors and follow a radical path of change, beginning with the pope and the bishops.

The pedophilia scandals compel us to take up a path of conversion.

Questions about sexuality, and all the themes involving the body, are an example. These are important to everyone, sometimes perhaps too important.

We have to ask ourselves if people still listen to the advice of the church on sexual matters.

Is the church still an authoritative reference in this field, or simply a caricature in the media?

The second is the Word of God. Vatican II gave the Bible back to Catholics.

Only those who perceive this Word in their heart can be part of those who will help achieve renewal of the church, and who will know how to respond to personal questions with the right choice.

The Word of God is simple, and seeks out as its companion a heart that listens. ...

Neither the clergy nor ecclesiastical law can substitute for the inner life of the human person. All the external rules, the laws, the dogmas, are there to clarify this internal voice and for the discernment of spirits.

Who are the sacraments for? These are the third tool of healing.

The sacraments are not an instrument of discipline, but a help for people in their journey and in the weaknesses of their life.

Are we carrying the sacraments to the people who need new strength?

I think of all the divorced and remarried couples, to extended families. They need special protection. The church upholds the indissolubility of matrimony. It's a grace when a marriage and a family succeed ...

The attitude we hold towards extended families determines the ability of the church to be close to their children.

A woman, for instance, is abandoned by her husband and finds a new companion, who takes care of her and her three children. This second love succeeds.

If this family is discriminated against, not only is the mother cut out [from the church] but also her children.

If the parents feel like they're outside the church, and don't feel its support, the church will lose the future generation.

Before communion, we pray: "Lord, I am not worthy ...' We know we're not worthy ... Love is a grace. Love is a gift.

The question of whether the divorced can receive communion ought to be turned around. How can the church reach people who have complicated family situations, bringing them help with the power of the sacraments?

What do you do personally?

The church is 200 years behind the times.

Why doesn't it stir?

Are we afraid?

Is it fear rather than courage?

In any event, the faith is the foundation of the church. Faith, trust, courage.

I'm old and sick, and I depend on the help of others. Good people around me make me feel their love. This love is stronger than the sentiment of distrust that I feel every now and then with regard to the church in Europe.

Only love defeats exhaustion. God is love.

Now I have a question for you: What can you do for the church?

Sources

• Interview in Italian
• NCR translation
• Reuters
• Image: Salt and Light

That instinct seemed to be the principal subtext to Benedict XVI's June 1-3 outing to Milan.

Formally, Benedict made the short trip north to attend the seventh "World Meeting of Families," a Vatican-organized event held every three years to celebrate marriage, youth and the family. In context, however, the trip also offered an opportunity for the Catholic rank and file to embrace Benedict amid one of the greatest trials of his papacy, the mushrooming Vatileaks scandal.

That, at any rate, is how Vatican officials have touted what happened. In an interview with Italian TV, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State (and, according to many analysts, the principal target of the leaks), referred to the "extraordinary display of love for the pope and ... support for him and his magisterium" witnessed in the streets of Milan, as well as among the more than 1 million people who turned out for Sunday Mass at Bresso Park.

Bertone said it was significant that such affection, including "frenetic" applause for the pope wherever he went, poured out "in this particular moment" — and by that, of course, he meant the current atmosphere of scandal. Continue reading

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: thestar.com

Scola's criticism is considered especially significant, given that his own background as a young Italian priest was in the Communion and Liberation movement. Continue reading

Lt Col Christoph Graf, vice commander of the Swiss Guards, told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, that it was "a spontaneous act of charity and solidarity". Continue reading

Traditional family values are the key to navigating modern society Pope Benedict told attendees, urging them to focus less on making money and more on the family.

"Utilitarian concept of work, production and the market", which "brings in its wake ferocious competition, strong inequalities, degradation of the environment, the race for consumer goods, family tensions," lamented the pope.

In the course of a Q&A session the Pope recalled his own childhood in Germany in a house filled with music, big Sunday lunches and shared liturgical readings to strengthen the family faith.

Responding to a question about his youth from a young Vietnamese girl during a meeting with families on Saturday night, the pope said "if I try to imagine a little how it will be in heaven, it seems to be the time of my youth, of my childhood."

"In a word, we were one heart and one soul, with many shared experiences, even if the times were difficult," the pontiff said.

Benedict urged parents to watch over their children and, in a world dominated by technology, transmit to them, with serenity and trust, reasons for living, the strength of faith, and point them towards high goals.

In particular, he encouraged parents to support their children in their fragility.

The pope twice reached out to divorced catholics.

Acknowledging the difficulty divorced catholics have in approaching the sacraments, he encouraged them to remain united to their faith communities and said diocese should do more to include them in the life of the Church.

Demonstrations were planned during the papal visit, with communists due to rally against the promotion of a single heterosexual family model, followed on Sunday by a gay, lesbian and transgender rally. Heavy security was seen in the city, Reuters reporting some 15,000 policemen were deployed to keep protestors away.

Sources

• The Star
• China Post
• The Australian
• New Ross Standard
• Image: World Meeting of Families

The leaked letters expose a failed effort by Bertone to take control of an important Catholic university and hospital system. The aftermath, also documented, shows Pope Benedict siding with the local bishops in the attempt to centralise church power in the Vatican.

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is a Milan-based organisation but with outposts around Italy, is the largest private university in Europe. It has 1,400 faculty members and some 7,000 employees.

The university is controlled by the Giuseppe Toniolo Institute of Superior Studies whose president is the Archbishop of Milan, the then Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi.

Bertone's letter ordered Tettamanzi to step down and was proposing to replace him with the powerful Cardinal Angelo Scola, whom some see as a leading candidate to succeed Pope Benedict, however after Tettamanzi met with Benedict on April 30, 2011 no changes were made.

Allen predicts there will be more revelations, however for three reasons sees the this revelation as significant.

• It is rare that Benedict would side against his longtime friend Bertone and shows Benedict's support and esteem for Bertone is not limitless.
• The popular perception is Rome is trending towards centralisation and it is rare for pope to side with local bishops, particularly when Scola is also a close friend of Benedict.
• This latest round of Vati-leaks shows the scandal is not over, and material is continuing to be leaked, or as Allen advances, has been leaked in bulk and is being selectively rolled out by media outlets.

Sources

• NCR
• Image: KonserVat

The 69-year-old Scola is a theologian like Benedict and is considered one of his closest advisers among Italian prelates. He is known for his outreach to Muslim and Orthodox Christian communities, according to the Washington Post.

Scola made the announcement himself in Venice, saying "it's not easy for me to give you this news. I accepted the decision of the pope because he's the pope."

Gerry O'Connell speaks to the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola - son of a socialist truck driver and a profoundly Catholic mother. He is also a leading intellectual in the Italian Bishops' Conference and one of the more creative and original thinkers in the College of Cardinals.

Read Gerry O'Connell's interview with the new archbishop of Milan.

Source

• Image: Practice Random Acts of Beauty