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The Special Envoys of the Observatory at the Vatican
The atmosphere inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican is grave, solemn. Always to know more about the day of the Consistory. Around the imposing building that leads the square with the name of the same saint, the first popes, priests, bishops and cardinals circulate in ceremonial robes. There, the most important of the archbishops or cardinals is just one more. Some parade, others arrive on foot carrying in their hands the dresses that they will bring to the party, and hurry to the entrance of the church, where they mingle with the ambbadadors who parade in robes and to the guests of honor who try to discover
D. António Marto, bishop of Leiria-Fátima and one of the 14 bishops chosen by Pope Francisco for the dignity of cardinal, lies outside the diplomatic frenzy generated in the accesses to the basilica. He already wears the new red coral dresses – the ones he says he'll rarely wear – and with the news that he was awarded to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome . This is because all cardinals, even as bishops of their dioceses, are called to the diocese of Rome to be closer to the Pope and are badigned to one of their many churches. "Perhaps because it is a Marian church, dedicated to Our Lady", suggests D. António Marto at the entrance to the basilica, before greeting the Portuguese bishops who came to Rome on purpose to attend consistory
D. António Marto in the company of Portuguese bishops who went to the Vatican for the Consistory. JOÃO PORFÍRIO / OBSERVADOR
The celebration, this one, is relatively simple. At the appointed time, a song, and Pope Francis enters the basilica to begin the celebration. He descends the central corridor of the church sharing greetings and blessings and sits in his chair to hear the first of the new cardinals – the Patriarch of the Chaldeans, Louis Raphael I Sako – send him a message of gratitude. by choice. The text gave the motto to what would be the message of the whole celebration. "The appointment of Cardinal is not a prize," said the new cardinal, who on behalf of the 14 chosen chose the dimension of availability for the service.
This is the dimension that Pope Francisco sought to highlight in a homily think of the new cardinals, strong men of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. A lawyer of a profound reform of the Church that begins in the power structures of the Church itself, Pope Francisco has seized every opportunity to carry out this reform. This consistory is further proof of this, especially since it includes cardinals who advocate reforms or who come from faraway regions of Italy and Europe, reducing the relative weight that The West still has today in the government of a church spread over all continents. 19659007] Pope Francis left several messages to the new cardinals. JOÃO PORFÍRIO / OBSERVADOR
"What good is it to win the whole world if it is corroded inside? What good is it to win the whole world, if they live all prisoners? Asphyxiating intrigues that dry up and make the heart and the mission sterile In this situation, as we have observed, one can already glimpse the intrigues of the palace, even in the ecclesiastical curia ", referring to the Biblical episode in which reveal some fragilities of the disciples: "Look for the first places, jealousy, envy, intrigues, adjustments and agreements". And already there was warning, in the first paragraphs of the address of the pope: beware of the temptations of corruption, "even in ecclesiastical curia."
But the pope, who does not speak in a few words, went further who wants the new cardinals, whom he hopes to be strong collaborators in the reform of the Catholic Church. "The conversion of our sins, our selfishness is not and will never be an end in itself, but aims primarily to grow in fidelity and willingness to embrace the mission, and this so that At the hour of truth, especially in the difficult times of our brethren, we are clearly willing and able to accompany and welcome each of us and not become great repellents because that we have short opinions or, worse, we think and discuss among ourselves which will be the most important, "he said.
Francis left another message to any bishop who thinks elevation to the cardinalate is a promotion. "Jesus, before bowing before the cross, was not afraid to prostrate himself before the disciples and wash his feet.It is the highest decoration that we can get, the most great promotion that can be given to us: to serve Christ in the faithful people of God, hungry, forgotten, detained, sick, addicted, abandoned, in concrete people with his stories and his hopes, with his desires and his disappointments, with his suffering and his wounds. "In the background, in the existential peripheries, as the Pope has been repeating for five years
D. Marto well knows, and he often insists on these ideas in his speeches. It would not have been very difficult for him to hear, understand and accept all the messages that the Pope had for the new members of the cardinal of the college.With the thirteen new Cardinals, the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima swore fidelity to the Pope and his successors legitimate cessors, prayed the Catholic Creed and queued to go up on the altar and receive the red cape, symbol of the cardinalate. At that time, he felt "a weight that he had not felt before," he later confessed to Portuguese journalists at the Vatican, at the end of the celebration
D. António Marto a few moments before receiving the cardinal's cap from the hands of Pope Francisco. JOHN PORFÍRIO / OBSERVER
"As we approach to be invested, we feel a burden.It seems that you have not felt it before, but you feel a burden inside saying like this: "You are going to take on a new mission." But then you get there, at this celebration, in the presentation of the insignia, we greet the Pope and he is satisfied, "said D. António Marto later. In the basilica was a large delegation from Portugal. Fathers of the different parishes of the diocese of Leiria-Fátima, members of the diocesan institutions and the sanctuary of Fatima, presidents or relatives of Dom António Marto, were all there
Among the Portuguese delegation, pride and pride were breathed, but still without hiding the strangeness when seeing D. António Marto in the middle of this ceremonial, with these robes and with these traditional protocols of the Vatican. "D. Antonio is not nothing like these things," he says. But the red suits him well, he adds. Nobody hides pride. The Minister of Justice, Francisca Van Dunen, also did not represent the Portuguese government at the celebration – and for the first time visit to the Vatican: "This is obviously a great honor for Portugal" . Or the rector of the Sanctuary of Fatima, Father Carlos Cabecinhas, who joins with joy the responsibility to strengthen the connection between the sanctuary and the Pope, who is "in the DNA of Fatima".
D. António Marto in Paul VI Hall, near St. Peter's Basilica, where he received the greetings of the guests. JOÃO PORFÍRIO / OBSERVADOR
The celebration ended quietly and the new cardinal immediately went to the Paul VI Hall, near St. Peter's Basilica, where he had more fun. an hour to greet all those who wished to direct to him. Previously, it was time to visit Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. "It was good." With difficulty, he told us that what he could do for us now was to pray, "commented the Cardinal to the press, before sitting down for a long time. greetings This Friday, the Cardinal is participating for the first time in a celebration on St. Peter's Square with the College of Cardinals, of which he is now a member.
