Sunday Times 2
Pope requests his visit be pastoral and simple
View(s):MANILA (United Catholic News Agency) – Church leaders in the Philippines will seek to limit expenses for Pope Francis’ January visit to the country to US$1.5 million.
The move is in response to concerns from the Vatican over the potential cost of the visit in a country where millions of its citizens live below the poverty line.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle has said Pope Francis himself requested that his visit be “pastoral and simple”.
“It’s important that we follow the request of the Vatican not to make the visit expensive,” said Father Anton Pascual, chairman of the media relations committee for the papal visit.
The pope wants people to donate to victims of recent calamities rather than spend money on his visit, the priest said.
Fr Pascual, however, said the Church “is open to accepting donations from individuals, families, and institutions to help with expenses for the [pope]‘s visit”.
Father Marvin Mejia, secretary-general of the Catholic bishops’ conference, said there are “many aspects of the papal visit that need funding”. But, he said, the pope’s visit should not be a “fundraising event”.
“The bishops are donating [money] from their own pockets, from their own personal account, not from the dioceses. There are no fundraising activities in the dioceses,” Fr Mejia said.
Archbishop John Du of Palo said there will also be no “VIP meetings” with Pope Francis when he visits Leyte province, which was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan last year.
The prelate said the pope wants to be with the poor, not VIPs and politicians.
Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive in Manila on January 15 following a visit to Sri Lanka and will depart for Rome on January 19.
| Doomsday pope warns man’s greed will destroy world ROME, Nov 20, (AFP) – Pope Francis warned on Thursday that planet earth would not forgive the abuse of its resources for profit, urging the world’s leaders to rein in their greed and help the hungry — or risk a doomsday scenario in which nature would exact revenge. “God always forgives, but the earth does not,” the Argentine pope told the Second International Conference on Nutrition (CIN2) in Rome, a three-day meeting aimed at tackling malnutrition, a global scourge which afflicts poor and rich alike. “Take care of the earth so it does not respond with destruction,” he warned representatives from 190 countries gathered for the conference organised by the UN food agency (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) in the Italian capital. The 77-year old, a staunch defender of the poor and downtrodden, said the world had “paid too little heed to those who are hungry.” While the number of undernourished people dropped by over half in the past two decades, some 805 million people were still affected in 2014. “It is also painful to see the struggle against hunger and malnutrition hindered by ‘market priorities’, the ‘primacy of profit’, which reduce foodstuffs to a commodity like any other, subject to speculation and financial speculation in particular,” Francis said. “The hungry remain at the street corner… and ask for a healthy diet. We ask for dignity, not for charity,” he said. The pope has in the past launched several scathing attacks on those who get rich through market speculation, particularly the practice of betting on the price of food commodities which can inflate prices and see poor families go hungry. He urged the world’s population to have “mutual respect, instead of fighting between themselves, damaging and impoverishing the planet.” While he praised the work of the FAO and WHO in getting the delegates to adopt a “Rome Declaration on Nutrition” and “Framework for Action”, he called on those drawing up “rules and technical measures” not to lose sight of the hungry man “fighting for survival”. “Feed the hungry, save life on the planet,” Francis said at the end of his speech which was met with a standing ovation. The declaration focuses on improving access to healthy food but also the growing problem of inactive over-eaters. Two billion people suffer from deficiencies in nutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc — a condition known as “hidden hunger” by experts — while 42 million children and 500 million adults are overweight or obese. |