Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ who is a confidant of Francis, told Herder Correspondenz magazine that whoever the next pope is, "He will continue to move forward."

Spadaro - both Jesuit journalist and theologian says Francis does not have an abstract theological reform programme and a list of actions to be ticked off during his time in office.

That's not to say Francis hasn't achieved any reforms at all during his seven years as pope.

For Francis, true reform involves discernment and "it is in this spirit of searching that he proceeds, listening and meditating."

Unlike bureaucrats, Francis makes his decisions during his morning devotions in his chapel, and not at his desk, Spadaro says.

What's more, when he has an idea for reform, instead of going ahead and putting it into practice straight away, Francis prefers to pray about it and wait for spiritual confirmation.

If Francis does not receive the backing of the Holy Spirit for a reform idea, he does not consider the proposal mature.

But in those cases, Francis also does not foreclose on further discussions on the issue and does not exclude anything, Spadaro says.

Instead, Francis says "Let us go forward, let us continue to think about it! But he does not make a final decision."

Spadaro says the relationship between Francis and his predecessor as Pope, Benedict XVI is marked by mutual respect and solidarity.

That mutual esteem, however, often comes under threat from certain circles in the Church who try to instrumentalise the emeritus pope and play him off against the reigning one.

"Traditionalist or hyper-conservative media distort Benedict's teaching authority. One must feel sorry for him above all, because in this way his reputation is in some way soiled."

Though Spadaro is one of the most-sought after interpreters of the current pontificate, he insists he is neither Francis' advisor nor his ghostwriter.

Source

• Novena
• Image: Crux Now

The article in the Argentine issue of La Civiltà Cattolica by editor-in-chief Fr Antonio Spadaro and Argentine Presbyterian pastor Marcelo Figueroa, says Trump's team uses "a selective interpretation of the Bible to demonise migrants and the Muslims.

"Within this narrative, whatever pushes toward conflict is not off limits", they said.

"It does not take into account the bond between capital and profits and arms sales. Quite the opposite, often war itself is assimilated to the heroic conquests of the ‘Lord of Hosts' of Gideon and David."

Spadaro and Figueroa warn this could lead to "pastors who seek a biblical foundation for [conflict] using the scriptural texts out of context."

The article also says some American Catholics want "walls and purifying deportations" while forming an "ecumenism of hate" with Evangelical Protestants.

Spadaro and Figueroa call these Catholics "integralists" who "condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict" where God's law (as interpreted by the integralists) rules the state.

The integralists' vision is "not too far apart" from Islamic fundamentalism, their article says.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• Independent
• NBC
• Image: Catholic News Agency

Francis will visit the camp while he is in Poland for World Youth Day.

He will follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who also visited Auschwitz.

In 2006, Benedict XVI questioned God amid what he described as a "stupefied" silence: "Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?"

"I pray to God not to allow a similar thing ever to happen again," he said.

According to Fr Antonio Spadaro, who edits a Jesuit-run journal in Rome and is a confidante of Francis, the current Pope, like John Paul II and Benedict XVI before him, "finds this to be a mandatory, one could say fundamental, stop".

As with Benedict, during his visit Francis will share an interreligious prayer with leaders of the local Jewish community.

Fr Spadaro believes that just as the German pontiff questioned God during his visit to Auschwitz, Francis is bound to question humanity, as he did in 2014, when he visited the Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem, in Israel.

"Adam, where are you?" Francis asked at the time.

"Adam, who are you? I no longer recognise you. Who are you, o man? What have you become? Of what horror have you been capable? What made you fall to such depths?"

"In Auschwitz he will ask this question again to remind men and women that what was done here is incomprehensible," Fr Spadaro told Crux, minutes after a visit to the extermination camp.

On the other hand, the priest added, "in the relationship with God, Auschwitz is the icon of a world that doesn't know mercy".

More than 1 million Jews from all over Europe, 150,000 Poles, 25,000 gypsies, 15,000 Soviets and 25,000 prisoners from other ethnic groups were deported to Auschwitz in World War II.

Of these, 1.1 million were killed, and 90 per cent of those killed were Jews.

Sources

• Crux
• Image: The Observer