VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis prayed that the hopes for peace strengthened by the meeting of the leaders of North and South Korea will not be dashed, and he urged Catholics during the month of May to pray the rosary for peace.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in made a “courageous commitment” April 27 to ongoing dialogue to achieve “a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons,” Pope Francis said April 29 after leading some 30,000 people in praying the “Regina Coeli.”
“I pray to the Lord that the hopes for a future of peace and more brotherly friendship will not be disappointed and that the collaboration may continue bringing good fruits for the beloved Korean people and the whole world,” the pope said.
Noting that May is a month the Catholic Church dedicates to Mary in a special way, Pope Francis told the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square that he would begin the month with a visit to Rome’s Shrine of Divine Love and lead a recitation of the rosary there.
“We will recite the rosary praying particularly for peace in Syria and the whole world,” the pope said. “I invite you to spiritually join me and to prolong for the whole month of May praying the rosary for peace.”
Love is a miraculous force that helps the parents of sick children focus on the beauty of their children’s lives and keeps the flame of hope for a cure alive, Pope Francis told an Italian couple and a group of their supporters the next day.
Members of the group, known as “Una Vita Rara” (“A Rare Life”), had just completed a relay run of more than 430 miles to Rome from Monticelli Brusati in northern Italy to raise awareness about Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome.
Davide Boniotti, the son of Rosita and Giorgio Boniotti, was diagnosed with the syndrome 15 years ago, when he was less than 1 month old.
Pope Francis’ meeting April 30 with Davide, his parents and about 60 supporters came just two days after he addressed hundreds of renowned researchers, physicians, health care executives and entertainers attending a three-day conference about new medical technology, the future of medicine and practical steps to promote health and health care treatment around the world.
Pope Francis told the Boniotti family and members of their association that in every meeting he has with families of someone with a rare disease, he sees the pain of their suffering and exhaustion, but even more, he sees “the desire of the families to come together to face this reality and do something.”
Choosing “A Rare Life” for the name of the association, the pope said, “expresses Davide’s reality, and yours with him, but in a positive way.”
“The negative exists, we know,” the pope told them. “It’s a daily reality.”
“But this name means that you know how to look at the positive, which is that every human life is unique and that even if a disease is rare, life is even more so,” the pope said.
“This positive gaze is a typical ‘miracle’ of love,” the pope said. “It knows how to see the good even in a negative situation (and) it knows how to safeguard a small flame in the midst of a dark night.”
Addressing the international “United to Cure Conference” April 28, Pope Francis had said that as scientists learn more about human life and about disease, it is becoming clearer that individuals must do more to respect the sacredness of every human life and to protect the environment.
“Human health needs to be considered in a broader context, not only in relation to scientific research but also to our ability to preserve and protect the natural environment” and to show concern for each person, “especially those experiencing social and cultural hardships that endanger both their health and their access to adequate care,” the pope said.
“While the Church applauds every effort in research and application directed to the care of our suffering brothers and sisters, she is also mindful of the basic principle that ‘not everything technically possible or doable is thereby ethically acceptable,’” Pope Francis reminded participants at the conference, co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Citing Blessed Paul VI, the pope insisted that progress, whether in medicine or in economic development, can be measured only by how it helps all people.
Pope Francis did not mention the case of Alfie Evans, the British toddler who died just a few hours earlier after months of court battles between his parents and the doctors caring for him. But he told participants, “The problem of human suffering challenges us to create new means of interaction between individuals and institutions, breaking down barriers and working together to enhance patient care.”
Throughout the conference, physicians and researchers insisted on the importance of disease prevention, particularly through lifestyle choices, especially highlighting the dangers of smoking and obesity, but also looking at the role environmental degradation plays in causing disease.
“Prevention involves taking a farsighted look at human beings and the environment in which we live,” the pope said. “It means aiming for a culture of balance, whose essential factors – education, physical activity, diet, the protection of the environment, respect for the ‘health codes’ practiced by the various religions, timely and precise diagnosis and so many others – can help us to live better, with fewer health risks.”
Although a healthy curiosity can lead to new discoveries, too much curiosity can open the door to dangerous things that harm the soul, Pope Francis said in his homily April 30 during morning Mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae.
New technologies in the virtual world and innovations in communications such as cellphones can lead children to “find so many awful things” because “there isn’t a discipline in that curiosity,” the pope said.
“We must help young people to live in this world” so their desire to know may not become compulsive curiosity, which would make them “prisoners to this curiosity,” he said.
The pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading in which one of the disciples asks Jesus how he will reveal himself to the world.
“I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you,” Jesus replies.
A healthy curiosity like that of the disciples, the pope said, begins at childhood and it is a “good curiosity because it is a curiosity that (helps a person) grow, develop and have more autonomy.”
However, he said, there are other curiosities that develop later in life that are not so good, such as “sticking your nose into other people’s lives.”
“Some may say that (gossip) is a woman’s thing. No, gossiping is a heritage of women and men,” he said.
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