“I think Mexico got him to do it because Mexico wants to keep the border just the way it is, because they’re making a fortune and we’re losing”, Mr. Trump said.
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They have also been commissioned to hear confessions at St Peter’s Basilica today, Ash Wednesday. The pope said many people abandon confession because priests scolded them or pried for embarrassing details.
Recalling the day’s Gospel passage, in which the Pharisees and scribes condemn Jesus and his disciples for not observing traditions, the pope reminded the Capuchins that confessors are called to be “great forgivers in the confessional”.
Their mission was echoed in the day’s second reading from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, in which he proclaims, “We are ambassadors for Christ” with God working and speaking through them, imploring people to “be reconciled with God”.
“It’s not easy to go before another person, knowing he represents God, and confess one’s sins”, he said.
More than 700 of the 1,142 missionaries specially appointed by the pope attended the Mass. Dressed in white vestments and purple stoles, the men received the pope’s mandate to preach about God’s mercy and special authority to pardon even those sins reserved to the Holy See.
Francis is scheduled to hold a cross-border Mass Feb. 17 in Ciudad Juárez, at a spot less than a football field away from the U.S.
The pope repeated the story of a former Capuchin provincial who was sent to a shrine as a confessor after his retirement. “Forgiveness is a seed, a caress of God”.
“The biblical message is very clear: courageously open yourselves to sharing; this is mercy”, the Pope said.
The most important part of our mandate as members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, as set out by Pope Francis, is to do “everything possible to ensure that crimes such as those which have occurred are no longer repeated in the Church”.
“Usury is a grave sin before God”, he said, and he noted that, many times, people in desperation “end up committing suicide because they can’t do it, and they don’t have hope”.
No matter what the sin is that’s been confessed, “every missionary is called to remember their own sinful existence and humbly place themselves as a channel of God’s mercy”, he said.
He called on confessors to have “an attitude of respect and encouragement” when encountering a person’s shame.
“It’s supposed to be a year of forgiving and welcoming people to the church”, Stawarz said.
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“It would have meant the Pope going to Georgia, an Orthodox country, while the local Church’s Patriarch was at the Synod assembly in Crete”, the website commented.
