VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 113
DATE 20-06-2014

Summary:
- CORPUS DOMINI: LIVING THE EXPERIENCE OF FAITH MEANS BEING NOURISHED BY THE
LORD
- THE CHURCH DOES NOT ABANDON THOSE WHO FALL INTO THE VORTEX OF DRUG ABUSE
- RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION, MORE WIDESPREAD TODAY THAN 1700 YEARS AGO
- POPE FRANCIS TO VISIT ROME'S GEMELLI HOSPITAL
- AUDIENCES
- OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

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 CORPUS DOMINI: LIVING THE EXPERIENCE OF FAITH MEANS BEING NOURISHED BY THE
LORD
 Vatican City, 20 June 2014 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon, on the Solemnity of
Corpus Domini, Pope Francis celebrated Holy Mass in the square of St. John
Lateran, the cathedral basilica of Rome. He commented in his homily that human
beings not only suffer from physical hunger, but hunger also for life, love and
eternity, for the manna that God gave to the people of Israel in the desert and
which the Eucharist symbolises.
 Referring to Moses' phrase: "The Lord your God ... fed you with manna which
you did not know", Francis spoke about the history of the chosen people, whom
God led out of Egypt and their condition of slaves to guide them to the
promised land. However, once established there, the Israelites enjoyed
prosperity and were in danger of forgetting their past of famine and despair.
Moses urged them to return to the essentials, to the experience of total
reliance on God, when their survival was entirely entrusted to His hands".
 "As well as physical hunger, man also suffers from another form of hunger that
cannot be sated with ordinary food. It is a hunger for life, a hunger for love,
a hunger for eternity. Manna is the sign ... that prefigured the food that
satisfies this profound hunger present in man. Jesus gives us this nourishment
- or rather, He Himself is the living bread that gives life to the world. His
Body is the true food in the form of bread; His Blood is the true sustenance in
the form of wine. It is not a simple form of nourishment to sate our bodies,
like manna; the Body of Christ is the bread of the last times, able to give
life, eternal life, because the substance of this bread is Love".
 The Eucharist communicates "God's love for us: a love so great that it
nourishes itself; it is a gratuitous love, always available to every person who
hungers or who is in need of regeneration. To live the experience of faith
means allowing oneself to be nourished by the Lord and to build our existence
not on material goods, but on a reality that does not perish: the gifts of God,
His Word and His Body".
 "If we look around ourselves", continued the bishop of Rome, "we realise that
many forms of sustenance are offered to us, that do not come from the Lord and
seemingly offer more satisfaction. Some sate themselves with money, others with
success and vanity, others with power and pride. But the food that truly
nourishes and sates us is only that which comes from the Lord! The food that
the Lord offers us is different from the others, and it may perhaps be less
appetising than other delicacies the world offers us. We dream of other meals,
like the Hebrews in the desert, who missed the meat and onions they ate in
Egypt, but forgot that they ate those meals at the table of their slavery. In
that moment of temptation, they retained the memories of that food, but it was
a diseased memory, a selective memory".
 "The Father says to us: 'I have fed you with manna which you did not know'.
Let us restore our memory and learn to recognise the false victuals that delude
and corrupt, because they are the fruit of selfishness, self-sufficiency and
sin: poisoned foods. Soon, in the procession, we will follow Jesus, truly
present in the Eucharist. The Host is our manna, through which the Lord gives
Himself to us. And we turn to Him with trust: Jesus, defend us from the
temptations of the worldly food that enslaves us; purify our memory, so that we
may not be imprisoned by selfish and worldly selectivity, but become instead
the living memory of Your presence throughout the history of Your people, a
memory that becomes a 'memorial' of your gesture of redeeming love".
 Following the Eucharistic celebration, the Holy Father led the procession
along Via Merulana up to the basilica of St. Mary Major, where he imparted his
solemn blessing with the Most Holy Sacrament.

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 THE CHURCH DOES NOT ABANDON THOSE WHO FALL INTO THE VORTEX OF DRUG ABUSE
 Vatican City, 20 June 2014 (VIS) - This morning the Pope received in audience
the participants in the 31st International Drug Enforcement Conference, which
took place in Rome from 17 to 19 June. He thanked them for their work "in
combating this most serious and complex problem of our time", expressing his
hope that they will accomplish their goals: a more effective coordination of
anti-narcotics policies, better sharing of relevant information and the
development of an operative strategy aimed at fighting the drug trade.
 In his address, the Holy Father commented that "the scourge of drug use
continues to spread inexorably, fed by a deplorable commerce which transcends
national and continental borders. As a result, the lives of more and more young
people and adolescents are in danger. Faced with this reality, I can only
manifest my grief and concern".
 "Let me state this in the clearest terms possible", he continued: "the problem
of drug use is not solved with drugs! Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil
there can be no yielding or compromise. To think that harm can be reduced by
permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem.
Attempts, however limited, to legalise so-called 'recreational drugs', are not
only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to
produce the desired effects. Substitute drugs are not an adequate therapy but
rather a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon. Here I would reaffirm
what I have stated on another occasion: No to every type of drug use. It is as
simple as that. No to any kind of drug use. But to say this 'no', one has to
say 'yes' to life, 'yes' to love, 'yes' to others, 'yes' to education, 'yes' to
greater job opportunities. If we say 'yes' to all these things, there will be
no room for illicit drugs, for alcohol abuse, for other forms of addiction".
 "The Church, faithful to Jesus' command to go out to all those places where
people suffer, thirst, hunger and are imprisoned, does not abandon those who
have fallen into the trap of drug addiction, but goes out to meet them with
creative love. She takes them by the hand, thanks to the efforts of countless
workers and volunteers, and helps them to rediscover their dignity and to
revive those inner strengths, those personal talents, which drug use had buried
but can never obliterate, since every man and woman is created in the image and
likeness of God".
 "The example of all those young people who are striving to overcome drug
dependency and to rebuild their lives can serve as a powerful incentive for all
of us to look with confidence to the future", Francis concluded, encouraging
the members of the Conference to carry on their work with constantly renewed
hope.

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 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION, MORE WIDESPREAD TODAY THAN 1700 YEARS AGO
 Vatican City, 20 June 2014 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father received the
participants in the International Congress organised by the Department of Law
of the Maria SS. Assunta University of Rome (LUMSA) and the School of Law of
the St. John's University on the theme: "religious freedom according the
international law and the global conflict of values", held in Rome on 20 and 21
June. Francis remarked that the theme of religious freedom has recently become
the subject of intense debate between governments and the various religious
confessions, and added that the Catholic Church, in this field, has a long
history of supporting religious freedom, culminating in the Vatican Council II
Declaration "Dignitatis humanae".
 "Every human is a 'seeker' of truth on his origins and destiny. In his mind
and in his 'heart', questions and thoughts arise that cannot be repressed or
stifled, since they emerge from the depths of the person and are a part of the
intimate essence of the person. They are religious questions, and religious
freedom is necessary for them to manifest themselves fully". Francis emphasised
that "reason recognises that religious freedom is a fundamental right of man,
reflecting his highest dignity, that of seeking the truth and adhering to it,
and recognising it as an indispensable condition for realising all his
potential. Religious freedom is not simply freedom of thought or private
worship. It is the freedom to live according to ethical principles, both
privately and publicly, consequent to the truth one has found". The Pope
described this situation as the "great challenge of the globalised world, a
sickness, in which weak thought even reduces the general ethical level, in the
name of a false concept of tolerance that ends up persecuting those who defend
the truth on humanity and its ethical consequences".
 "Legal systems, at both national and international level, are therefore
required to recognise, guarantee and protect religious freedom, which is a
right intrinsically inherent in human nature, in man's dignity as a free being,
and is also an indicator of a healthy democracy and one of the main sources of
the legitimacy of the State". He added, "religious freedom ... favours the
development of relationships of mutual respect between the different
Confessions and their healthy collaboration with the State and political
society, without confusion of roles and without antagonism".
 He underlined that it is incomprehensible and troubling that people continue
to suffer discrimination, restriction of their rights and even persecution for
professing their faith. "Nowadays, persecution of Christians is stronger than
it was in the first centuries of the Church, and there are more Christian
martyrs than in that time. This is happening 1700 years after the edict of
Constantine, which granted Christians the freedom to publicly profess their
faith". Pope Francis concluded by expressing his hope that the Congress would
demonstrate in depth and with scientific rigour the reasons that oblige legal
systems to respect and defend religious freedom.

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 POPE FRANCIS TO VISIT ROME'S GEMELLI HOSPITAL
 Vatican City, 20 June 2014 (VIS) - Next Friday, 27 June, on the feast day of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the 90th Catholic University Day, the Holy Father
will visit the Roman "Agostino Gemelli" Hospital, celebrating its 50th
anniversary, and the faculty of medicine and surgery of the Catholic
University.
 He will arrive at 3.30 p.m. and, after visiting the hospital facilities, will
celebrate Mass in the square outside the faculty. He will be the fifth pontiff
to visit the Roman Athenaeum, thus maintaining a close friendship of fifty
years' standing.

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 AUDIENCES
 Vatican City, 20 June 2014 (VIS) - The Holy Father received in audience:
 - Fra' Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military
Order of Malta, and entourage.
 - Archbishop Nicolas Henry Marie Denis Thevenin, apostolic nuncio in
Guatemala.
 - Archbishop Savino Bernardo M. Cassaro Bertollo, emeritus of Puerto Montt,
Chile.

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 OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
 Vatican City, 19 June 2014 (VIS) - The Holy Father has appointed Bishop
Mitchell Thomas Rozanski, auxiliary of the archdiocese of Baltimore, U.S.A., as
bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts (area 7,306, population 871,000,
Catholics 248,800, priests 181, permanent deacons 85, religious 362), U.S.A. He
succeeds Bishop Timothy Anthony McDonnell, whose resignation from the pastoral
care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy
Father.

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