Subject: VISnews140312   
   From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt    
      
      
    VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 49   
   DATE 12-03-2014   
      
   Summary:   
    - FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF POPE FRANCIS' PONTIFICATE   
    - NOTICE   
      
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   FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF POPE FRANCIS' PONTIFICATE   
   Vatican City, 12 March 2014 (VIS) -; Tomorrow, 13 March, will be the   
   first anniversary of the election of Pope Francis to the See of St. Peter.   
   These 365 days of his papacy have been characterised as a "time of   
   mercy", as described by the Pope himself. During these twelve months of   
   intense activity, the Pope "from the end of the earth" who asks us   
   to pray for him, has started out on a new way of working that, with a slow but   
   sure pace, has drawn renewed attention to issues not only of an ecclesiastical   
   nature. The "priest of the world", as his special secretary Msgr.   
   Alfred Xuereb calls him, "has not wasted a minute! He works tirelessly   
   and, when he feels the need to take a moment's pause, he closes his eyes and   
   does nothing: he simply sits and prays the Rosary".   
   To commemorate this first anniversary, the director of the Holy See Press   
   Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., gave an interview with Vatican Radio in   
   which he reflects on this year and its "great impulse to a journeying   
   Church".   
   "The most important aspect of this first year is without doubt the great   
   attention, the great attraction of the people -; I say the people,   
   meaning not only practising Catholics, but everyone in this world -; the   
   great attention for this Pope, for his message. It is something that I think   
   and hope is very deeply rooted in the heart of the people, who have felt   
   touched by a word of love, attention, mercy, closeness, proximity, in which   
   through the man, the Pope, the love of God arrives".   
   "The Church truly seems to be a journeying people. This is her most   
   characteristic aspect: a sense of great dynamism. The Pope has given a great   
   impulse and journeys with a Church that seeks God's will, that seeks her   
   mission in today's world for the good of all, truly going out to the   
   peripheries, to the ends of the world", he continues, adding that there   
   are "manifestations of attention, therefore, that come from places, from   
   atypical organs of the press", that "mean that his message reaches   
   its target".   
      
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   NOTICE   
   Vatican City, 12 March 2014 (VIS) -; We inform our readers that tomorrow,   
   Thursday 13 March, the first anniversary of the election to the pontificate of   
   the Holy Father Francis, no bulletin will be transmitted. The service will   
   resume on Friday, 14 March.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
   For more information and to search for documents refer to the site:   
   www.wisnews.org and www.vatican.va   
      
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   Information Service may be reproduced wholly or partially quoting the   
   source:  V. I. S. - Vatican Information Service.   
   http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/vis/vis_en.html   
      
      
      
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