Father Vyacheslav Grynevych gave Pope Francis with a cross made out of broken glass and rubble from destroyed buildings in Kyiv on Feb. 21, 2023. / Photo courtesy of Father Vyacheslav Grynevych Rome Newsroom, Feb 23, 2023 / 04:45 am (CNA). Father Vyacheslav Grynevych vividly remembers the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine one year ago.The Catholic priest woke up to a phone call: “Father, wake up because the war has started.”“I understood that my life would never be the same as before,” Grynevych said.As the executive director of the Catholic charity Caritas-Spes, Grynevych soon found himself coordinating humanitarian efforts from a basement bomb shelter in Kyiv, also taking in 36 other people, mostly children, and their pets within the first week of the war.In the past year, Grynevych and his team at Caritas Internationalis have worked tirelessly to provide food, shelter, protection, and health and psychological support to 3 million people within war-torn Ukraine.A few days ahead of the Ukraine war anniversary, the Catholic priest was able to speak one on one with Pope Francis at his Vatican residence to share with the pope updates on the Church’s humanitarian efforts on the ground.Grynevych presented Pope Francis with a cross made out of broken glass and rubble from destroyed buildings in Kyiv in an emotional moment during their meeting.“I wanted to share with him the stories, the places that we see, the eyes of people,” Grynevych said.In an interview with CNA in Rome on Feb. 22, the priest shared that he saw how much the pope was pained to hear about the experience of Ukrainians during the last year of war.Father Vyacheslav Grynevych gave Pope Francis with a cross made out of broken glass and rubble from destroyed buildings in Kyiv on Feb. 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Father Vyacheslav Grynevych“He [Pope Francis] listened and then he said, ‘Please tell everybody that I try to do everything that I can do, everything that I can do.’ And he repeated this a few times.”Grynevych also gave the pope a copy of meditations on the Way of the Cross written by Ukrainians who tell their personal stories of victims of war as they relate to Christ’s passion. The Stations of the Cross will be livestreamed from a bomb shelter in Kyiv on Feb. 24.“Every day has become a station of the holy cross,” the priest said.Sewing broken hearts back togetherCaritas-Spes, operated by Ukraine’s Latin rite Catholic Church, is one of two organizations affiliated with Caritas Internationalis in Ukraine. The other, Caritas Ukraine, is overseen by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, to which the majority of Ukrainian Catholics belong.Tetiana Stawnychy, the president of Caritas Ukraine, told CNA that the anniversary of the invasion marks a moment when “the lives of millions of people just changed overnight.”Tetiana Stawnychy, president of Caritas Ukraine, delivering humanitarian aid in Lviv, Ukraine. Credit: Caritas UkraineStawnychy shared the story of a woman who was displaced twice by the war: “She said, ‘The second time my heart

Pope Francis greets pilgrims before his general audience Feb. 26, 2020. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA. Vatican City, Feb 23, 2023 / 02:45 am (CNA). The Vatican said Thursday that Pope Francis is suffering from a heavy cold.The Feb. 23 message said that due to a “strong cold,” the pope distributed copies of his speeches at two morning appointments rather than read them aloud as usual.Francis still took part in the two audiences: the first with young priests and monks from Eastern Orthodox Churches and the second with a delegation from the German NGO and nonprofit Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.The Vatican did not indicate in the morning whether there would be further changes to Pope Francis’ Feb. 23 schedule due to being under the weather.The Vatican later said at noon Rome time that Pope Francis’ last appointment of the day, a meeting with the YMCA Italy, had been canceled.It also confirmed that other meetings went forward as planned.The pope met with the former president of the Communion and Liberation movement, Father Julián Carrón; the director of the World Food Program, David M. Beasley; and Father Pasquale Spinoso.Pope Francis also had a meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints, to approve the advancement of the beatification causes of five servants of God and a miracle attributed to the intercession of one venerable.Pope Francis in an audience with young priests and monks of the Eastern Orthodox Churches on Feb. 23, 2023. Vatican Media.On the afternoon of Feb. 22, the pope celebrated Ash Wednesday Mass at the fifth-century Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill.It was his first time returning to the basilica since the start of Lent in February 2020.Pope Francis’ schedule was also impacted by a cold in late February and early March 2020.He was seen coughing and blowing his nose during his general audience and Ash Wednesday Mass Feb. 26, 2020.Francis later canceled several appointments in favor of working from the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta guesthouse, where he lives. The Vatican said a few days later that the pope had tested negative for COVID-19 and was suffering from a “common cold.”This story is developing.

Pope Francis arrives at the Paul VI Hall for his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA Vatican City, Feb 22, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA). Pope Francis said Wednesday that Lent is a good time to examine ourselves in the light of truth, to let go of distractions like overbooked calendars, and to improve our relationships with God and others.“Let us set out on the path of fasting and use these 40 days to take stock of ourselves, to free ourselves from the dictatorship of full schedules, crowded agendas, and superficial needs, and choose the things that truly matter,” the pope said on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22.“This,” he said, “is the favorable time to be converted, to stop looking at ourselves and to start looking into ourselves.”Pope Francis marked the start of the season of Lent, the penitential period before Easter, with Mass at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill.Unlike years prior, Francis did not take part in a penitential procession from the nearby Church of St. Anselm before the Mass. The pope entered Santa Sabina in a wheelchair, which he has used regularly for almost one year since developing a problem with a ligament in his knee.Cardinals, bishops, priests, the Benedictine monks of St. Anselm, the Dominican friars of Santa Sabina, and laypeople took part in the procession, which began with a brief moment of prayer at St. Anselm church. Catholics inside and outside the churches sang the Litany of the Saints as the procession prayerfully walked the roughly 1,000 feet between the two churches.Pope Francis said at Mass that we should ask ourselves: “How many distractions and trifles distract us from the things that really count? How often do we get caught up in our own wants and needs, lose sight of the heart of the matter, and fail to embrace the true meaning of our lives in this world?”“Lent is a time of truth, a time to drop the masks we put on each day to appear perfect in the eyes of the world. Lent is a time, as Jesus said in the Gospel, to reject lies and hypocrisy: not those of others, but of ourselves. Look them in the face and grapple [with them],” he said.The Mass marked Pope Francis’ first time returning to the fifth-century Roman Basilica of Santa Sabina since February 2020.In 2021, Francis celebrated the Ash Wednesday Mass for a small group of people in St. Peter’s Basilica because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrated the Mass in place of Francis, whose knee problem had worsened in that period.The Ash Wednesday custom of the pope visiting the Church of St. Anselm before walking in procession to the Basilica of Santa Sabina for Mass was started in 1961 by St. John XXIII.The Basilica of Santa Sabina is the mother church of the Dominicans and the first of the Lenten station churches. It is also Rome’s oldest church to still have its

Pope Francis speaks during his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA Vatican City, Feb 22, 2023 / 03:00 am (CNA). Pope Francis said Wednesday that the traditions of the Church should not be based on opinion or ideological leanings but on whether they favor the proclamation of the Gospel.“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” he said Feb. 22.Francis asked: When there are ideological divisions in the Church, such as an identification as conservative or progressive, “where is the Holy Spirit?”“Be careful,” he warned. “The Gospel is not an idea; the Gospel is not an ideology. The Gospel is a proclamation that touches the heart and makes the heart change. You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club.”Pope Francis arrives at the Paul VI Hall for his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNAThe pope’s weekly general audience took place in a full Paul VI Hall on Ash Wednesday, the first day of the penitential Lenten season.Speaking to pilgrims from around the world, he said, “Every choice, every use, every structure, and tradition [of the Church] is be evaluated on the basis of whether they favor the proclamation of Christ.”“In this way the Spirit sheds light on the path of the Church, always. In fact, he is not only the light of hearts; he is the light that orients the Church: he brings clarity, helps to distinguish, helps to discern,” he said. “This is why it is necessary to invoke him often; let us also do so today, at the beginning of Lent.”To illustrate his point, Pope Francis recalled “a pivotal moment” from the early Church, recounted in the Acts of the Apostles.The apostles were worried about what to do with pagans who became Christian, but were not part of the Jewish people: “Were they or were they not bound to observe the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law?”Pope Francis listens to a Scripture reading during his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNATo resolve this problem, the apostles gathered in what was called the Council of Jerusalem, the first Church council in history, he explained. The apostles “might have sought a good compromise between tradition and innovation: some rules are observed, others are left out,” he said, but what they did instead was “adapt to the work of the Spirit.”“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”Pope Francis asked everyone to think about whether they pray often to the Holy Spirit, or if they only

Chart showing asteroids named after Jesuits. / Br. Robert Macke S.J./Vatican Observatory St. Louis, Mo., Feb 21, 2023 / 17:00 pm (CNA). The Vatican Observatory announced this week the naming of four newly-discovered asteroids after notable Catholics, including Pope Gregory XIII, who began the tradition of papal astronomers and observatories.Christopher Graney, a scientist at the Vatican Observatory, said in a press release that the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union published its latest batch of named asteroids in early February. The newly-named asteroids include “560974 Ugoboncompagni,” which honors Ugo Boncompagni (1502–1585), Pope Gregory XIII. Gregory commissioned the astronomer Father Christopher Clavius, SJ — who also has an asteroid named after him — to reform the calendar in the 16th century, leading to his namesake Gregorian calendar, still in use today.The other three names honor Jesuit priests who work or worked at the Vatican Observatory.“562971 Johannhagen” honors Jesuit Father Johann Hagen (1847–1930), director of the Vatican Observatory from 1906 to 1930. “551878 Stoeger” honors Father Bill Stoeger, SJ (1943–2014), a cosmologist and theologian at the Vatican Observatory. Finally, “565184 Janusz” honors Jesuit Father Robert Janusz (b. 1964), currently on the staff of the observatory.The naming process for asteroids can take decades, Graney said. After the asteroid’s discovery, it is given a permanent designation number once the object’s orbit is determined well enough that its position can be reliably predicted far into the future.“At this point, its discoverer is invited to suggest a name for it. Names of pets or names of a commercial nature are not allowed,” Graney continued.“Names of individuals or events principally known for political or military activities cannot be used until 100 years after the death of the individual or the occurrence of the event,” he said. “Naming rights cannot be purchased. Proposed names are judged by the WGSBN, which is comprised of 15 professional astronomers from around the world with research interests connected with minor planets and comets.”Graney noted that Catholic priests have in the past and continue to exert an influence on the world of astronomy. Jesuit Father Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671), for example, developed the system of lunar nomenclature that is still used today. When the Apollo 11 mission landed in the lunar “Sea of Tranquility” in 1969, the name “Tranquility” came from Riccioli, Graney said.More than 30 asteroids now bear the names of Jesuits, Graney said. Asteroids Johannhagen, Stoeger, and Janusz join several others already named for Vatican Observatory astronomers, including 302849 Richardboyle, 119248 Corbally, 14429 Coyne, 4597 Consolmagno, 23443 Kikwaya, and 11266 Macke.With roots dating to 1582, the Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest active astronomical observatories in the world. Its headquarters are in Castel Gandolfo, a town just outside Rome and the location of the summer residence of the popes. Pope Leo XIII formally refounded the present observatory in 1891. The Vatican Observatory also operates the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, located in rural Arizona about 200 miles southeast of Phoenix.

A Traditional Latin Mass. / Andrew Gardner via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0). Rome Newsroom, Feb 21, 2023 / 07:07 am (CNA). The head of the Vatican’s liturgy office said Tuesday that dispensations from two of the rules in Traditionis custodes can only be granted by the Vatican, not by the diocesan bishop.The Feb. 21 rescript (a form of official clarification in response to a question or request) from Cardinal Arthur Roche said Pope Francis had confirmed that a dispensation to use or erect a parish church for the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in a diocese is “reserved in a special way to the Apostolic See.”Permission for a priest ordained after July 2021 to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass can also only be granted by the Vatican, the document states.The rescript says that Roche’s office, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, exercises the authority of the Holy See to uphold or dispense from these two obligations.“Should a diocesan bishop have granted dispensations in the two cases mentioned above he is obliged to inform the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which will evaluate the individual cases,” Roche said.Rumors of new restrictions against the Traditional Latin Mass have circulated for weeks. Pope Francis published the motu proprio Traditionis custodes, which restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, in July 2021. In December 2021, the Vatican issued an explanatory note and “responsa ad dubia” (“answers to doubts”), responding to questions about some of the legal provisions of Traditionis custodes and further restricting its celebration.

Father Marko Rupnik / Credit: Centroaletti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Rome Newsroom, Feb 21, 2023 / 06:40 am (CNA). The Society of Jesus said Tuesday it will open a new internal procedure on Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik after receiving abuse accusations with a “very high” degree of credibility against the artist.According to a Feb. 21 statement on the Jesuit website, the accusations the religious order received span from 1985 to 2018 and include claims of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse, and abuse of conscience.Rupnik, 68, has been informed of the accusations but has refused to meet to discuss them with the order, the statement said.The order said the internal procedure is in the beginning stages, but possible results could include further restrictions on Rupnik’s ministry up to and including his dismissal from religious life.During the internal procedure, the Slovenian priest’s ministry will remain under restrictions, the Society of Jesus said. Going forward, Rupnik also is barred from performing any public artistic activity, especially in religious environments.In mid-December, the Jesuits invited any alleged victims of Rupnik to contact their investigative team.Rupnik’s superior, Jesuit Father Johan Verscheuren, told the Associated Press and La Repubblica that 14 women and one man came forward to share their stories.“Many of these persons have no knowledge of each other and the facts narrated concern different periods,” the Jesuit statement said.The first complaints against Rupnik became public last year in early December after Italian websites published stories with reports that Rupnik had abused consecrated women in the Loyola Community.In the nearly three months since then, reports of alleged abuse by Rupnik with then-young women under his spiritual guidance have continued to be published, using aliases for the women’s names.In a statement dated Dec. 2, 2022, the Jesuits said the order had put Rupnik under restrictions for a complaint received in 2021.The Jesuits later confirmed that Rupnik had incurred an automatic or “latae sententiae” excommunication for absolving an accomplice in confession of a sin against the Sixth Commandment. The excommunication was lifted by the Vatican in May 2020, the same month it had been officially declared.According to a timeline published by the Jesuits in December 2022, the order received the first allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Rupnik in October 2018. At least one other allegation was received by the order in 2021.Rupnik has been ordered not to leave Lazio, the Italian region where Rome is located. He also cannot hear confessions, give spiritual direction, or lead the Ignatian spiritual exercises. He also is prohibited from engaging in public activities without the permission of his superior.

Pope Francis with the Pontifical Academy for Life on Feb. 20, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media Rome Newsroom, Feb 20, 2023 / 10:00 am (CNA). Pope Francis told the Pontifical Academy for Life on Monday that it faces an enormous task in evaluating the ethics of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and human enhancement.The pope asked the academy on Feb. 20 to “ensure that scientific and technological growth is reconciled more and more with a parallel development … in responsibility, values, and conscience.”The rapid acceleration of new technologies can produce significant consequences for human life and the environment “that are not always clear and predictable,” Francis said.“It is paradoxical, for example, referring to technologies for enhancing the biological functions of a subject, to speak of an ‘augmented’ man if one forgets that the human body refers back to the integral good of the person and therefore cannot be identified with the biological organism alone. A wrong approach in this field actually ends up not ‘augmenting’ but  ‘compressing’ man,” he said.The Pontifical Academy for Life is meeting in Rome this week for its 28th General Assembly Feb. 20–22.In addition to the in-person meeting, the academy is hosting a free online webinar on “Emerging Technologies and the Common Good” with speakers scheduled to discuss technological convergence in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and the cognitive sciences.“Over these days you will reflect on the relationship between the person, emerging technologies, and the common good: It is a delicate frontier, at which progress, ethics, and society meet, and where faith, in its perennial relevance, can make a valuable contribution,” Pope Francis said.“In this sense, the Church never ceases to encourage the progress of science and technology at the service of the dignity of the person and integral human development.”In his speech to the academy, Pope Francis also warned that “technology cannot replace human contact.” He said that it is a “bad temptation” to make “the virtual prevail over the real.”“It is evident that the technological form of human experience is becoming more pervasive every day: in the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial,’ ‘biological’ and ‘technological,’ the criteria with which to discern what is human and of technology become increasingly difficult. Therefore, a serious reflection on the very value of man is important,” he said.During the general assembly, the academy will award the 2023 Guardian of Life Award to Magdalen Awor, a midwife from Uganda who works with the Italy-based nongovernmental organization Doctors with Africa CUAMM to provide medical training in South Sudan.St. John Paul II founded the Pontifical Academy for Life in February 1994 to study and provide information and training about the principal problems of law and biomedicine pertaining to the promotion and protection of life.Venerable Jérôme Lejeune, a French pediatrician and geneticist who opposed the use of prenatal testing for the purposes of carrying out elective abortions, was the academy’s first president, though he died from lung cancer just a few weeks after its founding.Pope Francis greets Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of

Pope Francis met with members of a film foundation established by the Italian bishops’ conference on Feb. 20, 2023. / Vatican Media Vatican City, Feb 20, 2023 / 06:10 am (CNA). A good movie has the power to inspire wonder and to evangelize by reflecting the beauty of God’s creation, Pope Francis told filmmakers at the Vatican on Monday.“Dear friends, the world troubled by war and so many evils needs signs, works that inspire wonder and that reveal the wondrousness of God who never ceases to love his creatures and to be amazed by their beauty,” Pope Francis said in a message to an Italian film foundation on Feb. 20.“In an increasingly artificial world, where man has surrounded himself with the works of his own hands, the great risk is to lose a sense of wonder. I share this reflection with you, entrusting you with the task to reawaken wonder.”In an audience at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope met with members of Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo, a film foundation established by the Italian bishops’ conference in 1947 to promote Christian values in entertainment. For more than 75 years, the foundation has supported filmmakers through education, workshops, reviews, and film festivals.Pope Francis met with members of a film foundation established by the Italian bishops’ conference on Feb. 20, 2023. Vatican MediaPope Francis gave a short off-the-cuff speech to the group about how creating a film that is a “work of beauty” can be “a great expression of God.”“Beauty is that work of the Holy Spirit which creates harmony out of everything,” he said.The pope also distributed a written message to the foundation members in which he described how God, after creating the sky, the earth, the stars, and all living things, became “a spectator of his work” after his creative actions. “He contemplates what he has created and expresses his judgment: He ‘saw that it was good,’” Pope Francis said, quoting the Book of Genesis.“In this sacred page, dear friends, directors, actors, women and men who work in cinema, we can also find the meaning of your cultural work,” he said.

Pope Francis greets the crowd at his Angelus address on Feb. 19, 2023. / Vatican Media Vatican City, Feb 19, 2023 / 06:30 am (CNA). Instead of acting out of self-interest or convenience, the Lord challenges us to love others in excess “without calculation,” Pope Francis said on Sunday.Speaking from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on Feb. 19, the pope reflected on what it means to “love your enemies,” as Jesus commanded in Sunday’s Gospel.“Brothers and sisters, the Lord invites us to step out of the logic of self-interest and not to measure love on the scales of calculations and convenience. He invites us not to respond to evil with evil, to dare to do good, to risk in giving, even if we receive little or nothing in return,” he said in his Angelus address.The pope underlined that this “extraordinary love” has the power to slowly transform conflicts and “heal the wounds of hatred.”“Jesus’ words challenge us. While we try to remain within the ordinary with utilitarian reasoning, he asks us to open ourselves up to the extraordinary … a freely-given love,” Francis said.He added: “It is normal for us to love those who love us, and to be friends of those who are friends to us; yet Jesus provokes us by saying: if you act in this way, ‘what more are you doing than others?’”Pope Francis noted the extraordinary “imbalance of love” in Jesus’ decision to “embrace the cross.”“God loves us while we are sinners, not because we are good or able to give something back to him,” he said.“Brothers and sisters, God's love is a love always in excess, always beyond calculation, always disproportionate. And today he is also asking us to live in this way, because only in this way will we truly bear witness to him,” he added.The pope acknowledged that it is not easy to love like Christ, but “it is possible because God loves us while we are sinners, not because we are good or able to give something back to him.”“Let us pray to Our Lady, who by answering God her ‘yes’ without calculation, allowed him to make her the masterpiece of his grace,” he said.After praying the Angelus prayer in Latin with the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis urged people to offer “concrete charity” to those who suffer because of war, poverty, and natural disasters.“The love of Jesus asks us to let ourselves be touched by the situations of those who are suffering. I am thinking especially of Syria and Turkey, of the many victims of the earthquake, but also of the daily dramas of the dear Ukrainian people,” he said.Pope Francis also expressed his closeness to the people of New Zealand, where 11 people have died and thousands remain missing after a cyclone struck the country last week.“Brothers and sisters, let us not forget those who suffer and let our charity be an attentive and concrete charity,” he said.