“Being close to the created world is a way of being close to the creator, and that’s why sciences played such an important role in the apostolates of the Jesuits,” said the director of the Vatican Observatory.

San Antonio’s archbishop said it was important to be with the people suffering to remind them they are not alone, to give families the support they need, and to show them “love, love, love.”

“With a heart shattered over the massacre at the elementary school in Texas, I pray for the children and adults who were killed and for their families,” the pope said.

The 90-year-old cardinal was detained May 11 under China’s national security law for “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces,” but he has not been charged with that.

A Vatican-approved Chinese bishop remains in detention more than one year after his arrest for allegedly violating the communist country’s repressive regulations on religious affairs.

U2 frontman Bono joined Pope Francis for the launch of the Scholas International Educational Movement and its environmental project.