Pope Francis meets with the Metropolitan Agathanghelos, Director General of the Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece, and a Delegation of the Theological College of Athens. He thanks them for two decades of cooperation between the Church of Greece and the Catholic Committee for Cultural Collaboration.

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Pope Francis addresses participants in a Vatican summit on the climate crisis, and encourages the international community to leverage the regenerative power of nature to move toward climate resilience.

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In an interview with Vatican News, the former Superior of the Mission ‘sui iuris’ in Afghanistan, the last priest to have been in the country, Fr. Giovanni Scalese, discusses Pope Francis' appeal for those suffering from massive floods, and suggests it helps break down a 'wall of silence' that has thus far left the country 'abandoned' and 'forgotten.'

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Vatican News is in Lisbon, where The Imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca and the Patriarch of Constantinople are speaking at an interreligious convention.

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Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has been shot and injured in an apparent assassination attempt outside the capital Bratislava. The motives of the gunman were not immediately clear, but the attack comes after a period of political turmoil in the Eastern European nation.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While it is easy for people to love what is good and beautiful or to be generous and heroic for an ideal, Pope Francis said Christian love embraces what is not lovable, it offers forgiveness and blesses one's enemies.

This "greater love," which comes from God, "drives us where humanly we would not go: It is the love for the poor, for those who are not lovable, for those who do not care for us and are not grateful," he said at his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square May 15.

"It is love for what no one would love, even for one's enemy," he said in his main catechesis.

This "great selfless love" includes love for "the poor, the sick and the helpless, such as unborn children," he said in brief remarks to visitors from Poland, who had brought a bell, known as "The Voice of the Unborn," which will be taken to Kazakhstan. He also greeted representatives of the Yes to Life Foundation, which started the initiative.

The bell serves as a reminder of "the need to protect human life from conception to natural death," the pope said.

In his main audience talk, the pope continued his series about vices and virtues by reflecting on the "theological" or New Testament virtue of charity or love. Of the three -- faith, hope and love -- "the greatest of these is love," according to St. Paul the Apostle.

Many people consider themselves to be good people who love their family and friends, when in reality they may know very little about the love of God, he said.

"Christians are capable of all the forms of love in the world: they too fall in love, more or less as it happens to everyone. They too experience the benevolence that is felt in friendship. They too feel love for their country and the universal love for all humanity," the pope said.

"But there is a greater love, a love which comes from God and is directed toward God, which enables us to love God, to become his friends, and enables us to love our neighbor as God loves him or her, with the desire to share the friendship with God," he said.

Love is charity, he said. And "we immediately realize that it is a difficult, indeed impossible love to practice if one does not live in God."

"Our human nature makes us love spontaneously what is good and beautiful. In the name of an ideal or a great affection we can even be generous and perform heroic acts. But the love of God goes beyond these criteria," he said.

"So much love is needed to forgive. Christian love blesses those who curse while we are used to responding to insults and curses with another insult and curse," he said.

"Love is the 'narrow gate' through which we will pass in order to enter the kingdom of God," he said. "We will not be judged on generic love, but precisely on charity, on the love we concretely had."

 

Scientists, regional and local leaders, and experts from universities around the world meet in the Vatican for a Summit entitled, "From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience," promoted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

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Dymphna was born in Ireland sometime in the seventh century to a pagan father and devout Christian mother. When she was fourteen, she consecrated herself to Christ and took a vow of chastity. Soon afterward, her mother died and her father - who had loved his wife deeply - began to suffer a rapid deterioration of his mental stability. So unhinged was Dymphna's father, Damon, that the King's counselors suggested he remarry. Though he was still grieving for his wife, he agreed to remarry if a ...

Pope Francis pens the preface of the book "Justice and peace will embrace", a collection of reflections published ahead of his pastoral visit to the Italian city of Verona, in which he reaffirms that we are all called to be artisans of peace in our daily life.

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Pope Francis blesses the "Voice of the Unborn" bell, which will be taken to Kazakhstan, and will serve as a reminder of the importance of protecting human life from conception to natural death.

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