2014-03-19 07:31:06

First anniversary of Pope’s installation: CDF official looks back at that day


(Vatican Radio) The Installation Mass for Pope Francis took place one year ago on March 19th 2013 in St. Peter’s Square before a crowd of nearly 200,00 people that included leading cardinals and dozens of world leaders. In his homily at the Installation Mass, the new Pope appealed for the protection of human life and the environment and said tenderness is not a sign of weakness.

Monsignor John Kennedy is a senior official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was among those present at the Installation ceremony that took place on that sunny St. Joseph’s feast day. He told Susy Hodges that the gestures and words of Pope Francis at his Installation Mass were already a clear pointer to the tone of his papacy.

Listen to the full interview with Monsignor Kennedy: RealAudioMP3

Monsignor Kennedy says it wasn’t just the words of his homily at the Installation Mass “that gave a clue to the Pope’s future plans for the Church which we’ve all experienced over the past year but it was also his first gestures.” Among those actions he singled out when the Pope stepped down from his open-topped vehicle before the Mass to go and bless and kiss a disabled man in the crowd lining his route. “Who could forget that gesture,” he asked, describing it as an act of “humility, love and outreach.”

Monsignor Kennedy believes that gestures such as these really strike a strong chord among Catholics. “The faithful really respond to these gestures, they are really important for people, they’re his way of reaching out to people and they feel he has a special connection to them and consequently they then have a special connection to him.”

One example of that sense of connection, says Monsignor Kennedy, is the enormous interest in Pope Francis’ meditations at his morning Mass which are eagerly read by so many people around the world. “He’s trying to get his message out there in a very impassioned way.”








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