“Christ, in his abandonment, stirs us to seek him and to love him and those who are themselves abandoned. For in them we see not only people in need, but Jesus himself, abandoned.”
Pope Francis, recovering from bronchitis, delivered a forceful Palm Sunday homily asking us to remember the “many abandoned Christs” in our own time, or those who experience suffering and solitude.
Ahead of the U.S. theatrical release of “In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis,” America spoke with Gianfranco Rosi about his ideas for the documentary and how the film is a modern-day Stations of the Cross.
I was pleasantly surprised to realize that amid all the polarization and turmoil found online among Catholics, we can still come together to pray for an old man who happens to be our pope.
“If those full seminaries had forged holy pastors, and the traditional formation imparted to them (were) solid and true, we wouldn’t have to mourn so many scandals today,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, said.
The director of the Vatican press office, Matteo Bruni, said that “last evening, Pope Francis had dinner, eating a pizza, together with those who have assisted him in these days in hospital.”