Gallagher: Pope Francis does not serve the church less effectively despite the disease

The secretary of the Vatican for relations with the states, the archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, celebrated a mass for the health of Pope Francis, who continues admitted to the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital in Rome. In it, he affirmed that, despite the disease, the Pontiff continues to serve “the Church and humanity, although it does so in another way.”

“In this moment of human fragility, humanity is not less effectively, although it does so otherwise,” said the English archbishop in the homily of the Eucharist that celebrated Thursday afternoon in the Church of the Gesù of Rome, of the Society of Jesus, to which the Pontiff belongs.

In the celebration, which took place in the spiritual heart of the Jesuits in Rome, several ambassadors participated before the Holy See to pray for the prompt recovery of the bilateral pneumonia.

Archbishop Gallagher focused his homily in the divine love that “constantly flows” of God “through the transfer of Jesus and seeks our response.”

Thus, he pointed out that God’s love finds in believers “miseries, our sins, and acquires the quality of mercy.”

As reported Vatican News, The archbishop also emphasized the importance of Lent as “a favorable moment to deepen this path.”

The important thing, he said, is that at this time liturgical “let’s let ourselves love for God, so that spiritual rebirth opens new spaces and new horizons of hope, freedom and peace.”

On the other hand, Archbishop Gallagher pointed out that today’s world is in danger of focusing more on death than in life.

“Our own times are witnesses of the threat that evil becomes increasingly significant, and darkness sometimes seems to prevail even over light,” he said.

In this way, he gave as an example what happens in countries where war is lived, as in the “martyred Ukraine, in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in other places of conflict.”

However, he considered that the spiritual rebirth in Lent “can lead us to the path of the encounter,” although he assured that obstacles are never missing.

“Unfortunately, there are those who constantly feed a culture of death,” said Archbishop Gallagher.

Thus, he commented that by embrace “the perverse logic of hatred, domination and, therefore, war, at all levels”, the world becomes “a theater of clashes between ethnicities and civilizations, cultures and religions.”

In this regard, he made it clear that Christians, on the other hand, “are called to spread the values ​​of love, justice and peace.”

“Blessed are those times and places where people sit around the same table and deposit their confidence in the power of reason and consciousness, having as a horizon the ineffable value of human dignity,” said Archbishop Gallagher.

Diplomacy disconnected from the “miserable human interests”

In his homily, before some of the ambassadors of the 183 countries with which the Holy See maintains diplomatic relations, he emphasized that the world needs a type of diplomacy that is “disconnected from the miserable human interests to work freely in favor of the common good, cooperating together to ensure for all the supreme goods of justice and peace”.

Archbishop Gallagher also recalled the numerous invitations made by Pope Francis over his 12 years of pontificate to embrace the logic of the encounter and fraternity.

“Egocentrism becomes a cage that prevents us from being a blessing to others,” he said.

In this way, he explained that there is “a huge difference between the one that gives life to others, leaving them a hand to save them, and the one who, on the other hand, kills, depriving the other of the necessary help to survive.”

Archbishop Gallagher remembered ambassadors before the Holy See that humanity needs “a superior light that guides our decisions and helps us carry them out.”

“It is precisely in prayer, which is also made of silence, where we must learn to listen to the voice of consciousness, which is not an arbitrary judgment, but the voice of the Lord that resonates in the inner sanctuary of the mind and heart,” he explained.

Thus, he claimed the legacy of all those “who have fought for human dignity, who have fought against dictatorships, tyranny and injustices, even if they did not always share the Christian faith or a religious faith.”

“They did it in the name of consciousness, recognizing in it that superior voice that indicates the right path,” he added.

The prelate concluded his homily inviting diplomats to “come in silence” in the “interior sanctuary of consciousness”, especially during Lent.

After thanking the prayers that are raised every day for the health of Pope Francis, he entrusted his physical conditions, afflicted by bilateral pneumonia, to the Virgin Mary.