APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO CUBA, TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND VISIT TO THE UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS (19-28 SEPTEMBER 2015) HOLY MASS WITH BISHOPS, CLERGY AND RELIGIOUS OF PENNSYLVANIA HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia Saturday, 26 September 2015   This morning I learned something about the history of this beautiful Cathedral: the story behind its high walls and windows. I would like to think, though, that the history of the Church in this city and state is really a story not about building... Read more

By Radio Vaticana Pope Francis has declared 1 February as the feast day of Blessed Benedict Daswa beatified 13 September 2015 in South Africa. Cardinal Angelo Amato, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints presided over the beatification ceremony of Tshimangadzo Samuel Bendict Daswa in Tshitanini, Thohoyandou, Limpopo, South Africa. Cardinal Amato read out the decree from Pope Francis describing Daswa as a layman, a family man and an educator who gave heroic witness of the Gospel. "We grant that the venerable servant of God, Tshimangadzo Samuel Benedict Daswa, a... Read more

One of the initiatives that SportsLeader conducts in the United States to educate and evangelize is the Rosary Rally. We asked Lou Judd from SportsLeader to explain it for us. SportsLeader was founded in 2004 by Paul Passafiume and Joe Lukens. Our hope was always to transform the culture of sports through virtue. Our four pillars are: virtue, mentoring, ceremony and Catholic Identity. The SportsLeader Rosary Rally fits under our Catholic Identity pillar and our hope is that the event can help coaches, athletes and their families to grow in their Catholic faith through prayer. Last year... Read more

On Sunday 26th July, Pope Francis launched the registration to next year’s World Youth Day in Poland by becoming the first person to sign up. You too can sign up at register.wyd.va Dear brothers and sisters, today registration opens for the 31st World Youth Day, which will be held next year in Poland. I wanted to open the enrolment personally and for this reason I asked a girl and a boy to stand next to me, so they would be with me at the moment that the registration opens, here before you. There, on this electronic device I have now enrolled in the Day as a pilgrim. Being celebrated during... Read more

Program of the Seminar   The fourth International Seminar of the Church & Sport Section, organized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity was held last May 14th and 15th. The dicastery has dedicated an important part of its work to organizing meetings and seminars led by the professionals and experts that occupy various sports positions to make the work efficacious and enduring. The dicastery is aware of the need to leave a foundation for future generations. “Coaches: educators of persons” was the title of the seminar. Its end was to develop and better understand the important role... Read more

From Sunday 26 July, exactly one year before the start of World Youth Day in Krakow, it will be possible to register online at: register.wyd.va Read more

We present the volume containing the proceedings of the meeting organized by the Women’s Section in December 1996 and published in the Laity Today Review, number 40. The Logic of Self-Giving International Meeting “Women” Rome 1996 CONTENTS Preface – H.Em. James Francis Cardinal Stafford, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity The Address of John Paul II – Woman brings to society and to the Church her ability to nurture human beings The International Meeting “Women” – Lucienne Sallé A Panorama of the Round Table: Being a Woman at the dawn of the Third Millennium Women faced with... Read more

Never forget beauty: the beauty of life, the beauty of sport, that beauty which God has given us. Sport is a very suitable path for this discovery, to open ourselves, to go outside of our own walls and get in the game. This is how we learn to participate, to overcome, to struggle together. And all this helps us to become active members of society and also of the Church; and it helps society itself and the Church to overcome all forms of discrimination and exclusion. With this words, the Holy Father greeted on 19 June, in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican a delegation of 150 disabled athletes... Read more

As many already know, one of the aims of the Pontifical Council for the Laity is to promote the study of specific issues relating to sport, particularly from the ethical point of view, especially when there is a chance to collaborate with other Christian confessions. The Pontifical Council for the Laity is then proud to support the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at York St John University, York, UK which will host an Inaugural Global Congress on Sports and Christianity (IGCSC), from the 24th until the 28th August, 2016. The significant increase in academic research activity and practical... Read more

On the 10th of June in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, His Eminence Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, presided the Eucharistic celebration opening the Third Worldwide Priests’ Retreat organized by the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal (ICCRS) and by the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships (CFCCCF) on the theme: “Called to sanctity for the new evangelization”. During the homily, first of all, Cardinal Rylko invited all more than thousand priests, coming for the occasion from the five continent and... Read more

In the night of Sunday, June 14th 2015, Fr. Pasquale Foresi passed away. He was 86 years old. Father Foresi was the first priest member the Focolare Movement (the Work of Mary), and also it’s first Co-President, working with Chiara Lubich. Father Foresi was born into a Christian family on July 5th 1929 in Livorno (Italy). A communiqué from the Focolare Movement says this: “He met Chiara Lubich in Trento in December 1944. From then onwards he would be by her side and share the responsibility for the Focolare Movement. Prior to this he had recognised a call to priesthood and studied for several... Read more

Bicycles to move the world. There are a lot of non profit organizations that provides bikes for people in developing countries in need of transportation to get to work or to school. Today we bring to you one example of how to help other people through sports. This article was originally published in the World Bank agency website in february 2015, written by Leszek J. Sibilski*. Mr. Sibilski also collaborates with the Church & Sport Section on promoting sport as a mean to develop peoples.   “I’ve seen some of the highest performance bicycles in the world, but I believe the most... Read more

Pope Francis on Friday May the 8th, met the members of the Italian Tennis Federation, and used the encounter to speak about sport as an “educational experience.” “There are three paths - three fundamental pillars - for children and young people: Education – in the school and in the family –, sport and work,” said Pope Francis. “When we have all three - school, sport  and work - then there exists the conditions to develop a full and authentic life, avoiding those dependencies that poison and ruin existence,” he said. The Pope said the Church is interested in sport because the Church is... Read more

Pope Francis  met on Thursday 7 May with members of S.S. Lazio, the Rome sports club which is most famous for the Serie A football team of the same name. The sports club was founded in 1900 to provide access to sports activates to all levels of society, since other clubs at the time were aimed at the wealthy. “I encourage you, therefore, to continue to be welcoming, to value different talents,” Pope Francis. May your sports club always be an open house, where you are able to experience brotherhood and harmony among people.” Pope Francis then spoke about their Latin motto, taken from... Read more

On 13 March 2015, 500 days before World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow, the countdown began with the launch of a virtual prayer marathon. The website www.mayfeelings.com/prayforwyd/ contains a virtual map that shows us that people all over the world are joining in prayer for that huge event that brings youth together from all over the world to celebrate their faith. It coincided that Cardinal Rylko was in Krakow to meet with the Local Organising Committee for WYD 2016 on March 11 and 12 (501 days before WYD 2016 – see photo!). Cardinal Rylko reminded the team that “the grace of God is greater than... Read more

We would like to share an article written byThomas Wurth, Founding Director of Varsity Catholic within FOCUS.  The article was originally published in faithandathletics.com on February of 2015.   Pope Francis – the man in white, Time Magazine’s 2013 Man of the Year, a media sensation, the Vicar of Christ – has some things to say about sport. He has given, to date, 10 addresses on various occasions, and I am posting a 3-part series highlighting just some of his comments. This first post is focused on a few of these comments our Holy Father made on the function of sport for... Read more

On March 6th 2015 the Pontifical Council for the Laity granted to CICIAMS a decree confirming its recognition as an international association of the faithful and approving its statutes. The International Catholic Committee of Nurses and Medico-Social Assistants (CICIAMS) has its origins in a meeting of Catholic nursing associations in Basle (Switzerland) in 1928, and was born as an association in Lourdes (France) in 1933. CICAMS has as its members national associations of nurses and health care workers across several continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas). Its work with the Holy See... Read more

In the 20th Anniversary of the Publication of the Letter of John Paul II to Women written with occasion of the World Conference of the United Nations on Women at Beiging, we publish again a study by the Women’s section with the title “Safeguarding the human being created as man and woman”. Read more

Continuing his catechesis on the  family, Pope Francis has reflected on elderly people and on the vocation that corresponds to this stage in life. On March 4, 2015 at the Wednesday Audience, he started by saying: “Elderly are a wealth not to be ignored” denouncing once again that throw-away culture present in our society that involves the elderly, who are considered a burden, “dead wood”. Then, he remembered some of the visits, when he was archbishop in Buenos Aires, done to old people’s homes there: “I spoke with each person and I frequently heard this: “How are you? And your children?... Read more

Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko One year ago, on 8 March 2014, Angeles Galino Carrillo died in Madrid at the age of 98. Angeles was born in Barcelona on 17 August 1915. She was a woman of faith who opened up new paths and left her mark on the history of humankind. Angeles Galino pioneered women's presence in the Spanish university. Her vocation to education developedas she took part in the great educational movement in Spain in the early twentieth centuryinspired by Saint Pedro Poveda (1874-1936), founder of the Teresian Association and canonised by Saint John Paul II in 2003. As a lay person and as... Read more