VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 216   
   DATE 04-12-2014   
      
   Summary:   
   - Audience with the President of Mozambique: Church's fundamental contribution   
   to development   
   - Francis receives the volunteers of the FOCSIV   
   - St. Peter's Square prepares for Christmas   
   - Audiences   
   - Other Pontifical Acts   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
      
   Audience with the President of Mozambique: Church's fundamental contribution   
   to development   
      
   Vatican City, 4 December 2014 (VIS) - Today in the Vatican Apostolic Palace   
   the Holy Father Francis received in audience the president of the Republic of   
   Mozambique, Armando Emilio Guebuza, who subsequently met with Cardinal   
   Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Msgr. Antoine Camilleri,   
   under secretary for Relations with States.   
      
   During the cordial discussions the good relations between the Holy See and the   
   Republic of Mozambique were highlighted. In this context, reference was made   
   to the fundamental contribution of the Catholic Church to the development of   
   the country through her educational and healthcare institutions, and her   
   important role in the promotion of peace and national reconciliation.   
      
   Finally, attention turned to various regional challenges, such as disarmament   
   and the struggle against poverty and social inequality.   
      
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   Francis receives the volunteers of the FOCSIV   
      
   Vatican City, 4 December 2014 (VIS) - The image of a Church at work in the   
   service of those in difficulty is promoted by the Federation of Christian   
   Organisations for International Volunteer Service (FOCSIV), which seeks to   
   combine the accumulated experience of its members with the dimension of   
   voluntary service to the poor in the style of the good Samaritan and according   
   to Gospel values. Starting from their Christian identity, they are "volunteers   
   in the world", offering many development projects to offer concrete responses   
   to the "scandals" of hunger and war. Pope Francis emphasised these   
   characteristics in his address to two thousand members of the federation in   
   the Vatican's Paul VI Hall this morning.   
      
   "Your work alongside men and women in difficulty is a living announcement of   
   the tenderness of Christ, Who walks alongside humanity in all times", affirmed   
   the Pope. "There is a great need to bear witness to the value of gratuity: the   
   poor must not become an opportunity for profit! The face of poverty is   
   changing nowadays, and there are those among the poor who are developing   
   different expectations: they aspire to be protagonists, they are organised,   
   and above all they practise that solidarity that exists between those who   
   suffer, between those who are left behind. You are called upon to perceive   
   these signs of the times and to become an instrument of service to assist in   
   enabling leadership among the poor. Solidarity with the poor means thinking in   
   terms of community, of the priority of the life of all above the appropriation   
   of goods by the few. It also means combating the structural causes of poverty:   
   inequality, unemployment and homelessness, and the denial of social and   
   working rights. Solidarity is a way of making history with the poor, avoiding   
   supposedly altruistic works that reduce others to passivity".   
      
   Among the main causes of poverty, Francis did not neglect to mention the   
   existence of an economic system that exploits natural resources. "I think in   
   particular of deforestation, but also of environmental disasters and the loss   
   of biodiversity. It is necessary to reaffirm that creation is not property   
   from which we can derive pleasure and dispose of as we please, and much less   
   the property of just a few. Creation is a marvellous gift that God has given   
   us for us to take care of and use for the benefit of all, with respect. I   
   therefore encourage you to continue in your commitment to ensuring that   
   creation remains the patrimony of all, to be handed on in all its beauty to   
   future generations".   
      
   Many of the countries where the FOCSIV works are at war, and the Pope   
   emphasised that working for the development of the people also means   
   cooperating in building peace, "seeking with tenacious perseverance to disarm   
   minds, to draw closer to people, to build bridges between cultures and   
   religions. Faith will help you to do this even in the most difficult   
   countries, where the spiral of violence no longer seems to leave space for   
   reason. A sign of peace and hope is your activity in refugee camps, where you   
   encounter desperate people, faces marked by abuse, children who hunger for   
   food, freedom and a future. How many people in the world flee from the horrors   
   of war! How many people are persecuted for their faith, forced to abandon   
   their homes, their places of worship, their homelands, their loved ones! How   
   many broken lives! How much suffering, how much destruction! Faced with all of   
   this, a disciple of Christ cannot step or turn away, but instead seeks to take   
   care of this suffering humanity with evangelical closeness and acceptance".   
      
   The Pope reiterated his concerns for migrants and refugees, who "seek to flee   
   from hard living conditions and dangers of every type", and insisted on the   
   need for collaboration between "institutions, NGOs and ecclesial communities,   
   to promote itineraries of harmonious co-existence between different peoples   
   and cultures. "Migratory movements require adequate forms of reception that do   
   not leave migrants at the mercy of the sea and bands of unscrupulous   
   traffickers. At the same time, there is a need for active collaboration   
   between States to regulate and effectively manage such phenomena".   
      
   Finally, Francis thanked the volunteers of the Federation who, for more than   
   forty years, have shown themselves to be "true witnesses of charity, workers   
   of peace, builders of justice and solidarity", and, encouraging them to   
   continue in their progress, he invited them to find time each day for a   
   personal encounter with God in prayer. "It will be your strength in moments of   
   greatest difficulty, disappointment, solitude and incomprehension".   
      
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   St. Peter's Square prepares for Christmas   
      
   Vatican City, 4 December 2014 (VIS) - The 25 and a half metre-tall white fir   
   tree that will decorate St. Peter's Square this Christmas arrived in the   
   Vatican this morning. From Passo dell'Abbate, in the Italian province of   
   Fabrizia, Calabria, its peculiar characteristic is its double or "twin" trunk:   
   two trunks joined together as one.   
      
   The ceremony of the lighting of the tree will take place on 19 December at   
   4.30 p.m. and will coincide this year with the illumination and unveiling of   
   the nativity scene. Entitled "Il Presepe in Opera" ("The Nativity Scene in   
   Opera") and composed of around 25 life-size terracotta statues, it is a gift   
   from the "Verona for the Arena" Foundation and will be inspired by the   
   operatic works for which the city is famed, with the intention of promoting   
   Italian opera throughout the world. This also provides the basis for the title   
   of the display, which is a play on the double meaning of the word "opera" in   
   Italian: it is "at work", in the sense that its message is universal and   
   active, and also based on the material used to stage the operatic work "The   
   Elixir of Love" by Gaetano Donizetti.   
      
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   Audiences   
      
   Vatican City, 4 December 2014 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in   
   audience:   
      
   - Cardinal Severino Poletto, archbishop emeritus of Turin;   
      
   - Archbishop Michael W. Banach, apostolic nuncio in Papua New Guinea and the   
   Solomon Islands;   
      
   - Archbishop Giovanni d'Aniello, apostolic nuncio in Brazil;   
      
   - Juan Pablo Cafiero, ambassador of Argentina to the Holy See, on his farewell   
   visit.   
      
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   Other Pontifical Acts   
      
   Vatican City, 4 December 2014 (VIS) - The Holy Father has appointed Rev.   
   Patrick Michael O'Regan as bishop of Sale (area 44,441, population 405,000,   
   Catholics 120,340, priests 39, permanent deacons 5, religious 34), Australia.   
   The bishop-elect was born in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia in 1958 and   
   was ordained a priest in 1983. He holds a licentiate in liturgy and   
   sacramental theology from the Institut Catholique, Paris, and has served in a   
   number of pastoral roles, including deputy parish priest in Lithgow, Cowra and   
   Orange, vice dean of the Cathedral of Bathurst, parish priest in Wellington   
   and Layney, diocesan administrator and chancellor of the diocese of Bathurst.   
   He is currently dean of the Cathedral and vicar general of the same diocese.   
      
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