Francis, who has made straight talk and simplicity a hallmark of his papacy, made his unscripted comments in answers to questions by four people at a huge international gathering of Catholic associations in St. Peter’s Square.

But he outdid himself in passionately discussing everything from the memory of his grandmother to his decision to become a priest, from political corruption to his worries about a Church that too often closes in on itself instead of looking outward.

“If we step outside of ourselves, we will find poverty,” he said, repeating his call for Catholics to do more to seek out those on the fringes of society who need help the most,” he said from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica

“Today, and it breaks my heart to say it, finding a homeless person who has died of cold, is not news. Today, the news is scandals, that is news, but the many children who don’t have food – that’s not news. This is grave. We can’t rest easy while things are this way.”

The crowd, most of whom are already involved in charity work, interrupted him often with applause.

“We cannot become starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous Christians and seek out those (who need help most),” he said.

To laughter from the crowd, he described how he prays each day before an altar before going to bed.

“Sometimes I doze off, the fatigue of the day makes you fall asleep, but he (God) understands,” he said.

CRISIS OF VALUES

Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, said the world was going through not just an economic crisis but a crisis of values.

“This is happening today. If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy and people say ‘what are we going to do?’ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing. This is our crisis today. A Church that is poor and for the poor has to fight this mentality,” he said.

Many in the crowd planned to stay in the square overnight to pray and prepare for Francis’ Mass on Sunday, when the Catholic Church marks Pentecost, the day it teaches that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles.

On Saturday morning, Francis met German Chancellor Angela Merkel and discussed Europe’s economic crisis.

Apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless “dictatorship of the economy” earlier in the week, Merkel, who is up for re-election in September, later called for stronger regulation of financial markets.

On Thursday, Francis appealed in a speech for world financial reform, saying the global economic crisis had made life worse for millions in rich and poor countries.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Called “Argentina – The Gaucho, Tradition, Art and Faith,” it opened on Friday in the Braccio Carlo Magno exhibition space under the square’s left colonnade.

But the pope, who is expected to visit it privately, had nothing to do with bringing a taste of his homeland’s celebrated cowboy culture to the Vatican.

“It was providence that an Argentine pope was elected in March,” said Maria Pimentel, one of the Argentine curators. “It was decided in August, 2012, before Pope Benedict resigned.”

“But we are so happy to have an Argentine pope. He knows all about the gauchos,” she said at the opening.

The exhibition includes more than 200 paintings, drawings, ponchos, textiles, photographs, musical instruments and artefacts – many more than a hundred years old – recounting the lives and frontier culture of the horsemen and cattle herders.

“Most of these are from private collections and many have never left Argentina before,” Pimentel said.

The collection abounds with silver, fittingly so because Argentina derives from “argentum,” the Latin word for silver which inspired the European explorers who named it when they heard the area was rich in the precious metal.

One section of the exhibition looks like it descended from equestrian heaven. There are intricately carved silver bridles, silver spurs, silver stirrups, silver bits, silver reins and silver headgear.

There are silver Madonnas and gold chalices, a testimony to the popular religious culture of the area.

One section hosts a collection of “facons,” the large, all-purpose silver knives with intricately carved sheaths which the gauchos kept tucked into colorful sashes behind their backs as they rode.

Also displayed are intricate silver and gold “mate,” cups with silver straws from which the gauchos would drink a tea made from yerba leaves rich in caffeine and nutrients.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez gave Pope Francis a silver mate when she met him at the Vatican several days after his election.

Original photographs, many from the late 1800s, document the daily lives of the gauchos – from herding, to playing guitars to passing the long nights, to posing in their Sunday best with silver-laden horses and multi-colored ponchos.

The exhibition will remain at the Vatican until June 16 and then move to the city of Loreto in Italy’s central Marche region, where it will open on July 4 and close on September 1.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

Ernst von Freyberg told the bank’s employees of the changes,
which should be in place by the end of the year, this week,
according to Vatican Radio.

He also said the bank, formally known as the Institute for
Works of Religion (IOR) and dubbed the world’s most secretive
bank by Forbes magazine, had also hired an auditing firm to make
sure it meets international standards against money laundering.

Vatican Radio did not name of the firm.

Freyberg was appointed in February to take the place of
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi who was fired last May.

Gotti Tedeschi said he was dismissed because he wanted more
transparency but the board, made up of international financial
experts, said he had neglected basic management responsibilities
and alienated staff.

His abrupt departure, along with the arrest of Pope
Benedict’s butler for stealing confidential papal documents,
came during a leaks scandal that shook the Vatican last year and
contributed to Benedict’s decision to resign.

The Vatican has been trying to shed its image as a murky
financial centre since 1982, when Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s
Banker” because of his links to the Vatican, was found hanging
from London’s Blackfriars Bridge.

Calvi was head of the Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy’s largest
private bank, which collapsed in a fraudulent bankruptcy. The
Vatican bank owned part of the Ambrosiano.

In July, a European anti-money laundering committee said the
Vatican Bank failed to meet all its standards on fighting money
laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

The report by Moneyval, a monitoring group of the 47-nation
Council of Europe, found the Vatican had passed only nine of 16
“key and core” aspects of its financial dealings.

The Vatican has vowed to make changes to meet the standards,
and will present a progress report on the Moneyval
recommendations at the end of the year, a Vatican official said.

The bank itself will be audited by the Vatican’s internal
regulator, its Financial Information Authority, or FIA, the
official said.

Earlier this month, in another move towards transparency,
the Vatican’s FIA signed a memo of understanding with FinCen,
the U.S. agency that tracks suspicious financial transactions.

In 2010, Rome magistrates froze 23 million euros ($33
million) held by the IOR in an Italian bank.

The Vatican said at the time that its bank was merely
transferring its own funds between its own accounts in Italy and
Germany. The money was released in June 2011 but the
investigation continues.

Pope Francis, who was elected in March to succeed Benedict,
could enact a major restructuring of the bank or even eventually
decide to close it, Vatican sources have said. But the prospect
of total closure is remote.

The bank primarily handles funds for Vatican departments,
Roman Catholic charities and orders of priests and nuns around
the world.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

“Money has to serve, not to rule,” he told ambassadors in
the first major speech about finance since his election in March
in which he also urged states to take greater control of their
economies and protect the weakest.

The economic crisis had created fear and desperation,
diminished joy of life and increased violence and poverty as
more people struggled to get by in “undignified” ways, the pope
said.

There was a “need for financial reform along ethical lines
that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit
everyone,” he added.

“We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf
of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money
and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking
any truly humane goal,” he said.

The reference was to the Book of Exodus in the bible, when
the Israelites worshipped a golden calf while Moses was at the
top of Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments.

While Francis’ predecessor Benedict also called for changes
in economic systems, he did so in often dense intellectual
language. Francis seemed to be expressing very personal views
forged from his experience with the poor in Latin America.

Francis, who has said he wants the 1.2 billion-member
Catholic Church to defend the poor and be more austere itself,
urged more state control over economies.

“While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially,
that of the majority is crumbling,” he said.

“This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the
absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus
deny the right of control to states, which are themselves
charged with providing for the common good,” he added.

MARKET “TYRANNY”

Speaking of financial markets he said: “A new, invisible and
at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally
and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules.”

In many cases, the value of people was judged by their
ability to consume, he added.

The pope’s comments add to growing expressions of concern
about a global economic malaise that has left millions out of
work or hanging on to insecure, short-term jobs.

Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos
Aires, said his pontificate would side with the poor on social
and economic issues.

“The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope
has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the
poor, to respect them, to promote them,” he said.

Francis, who will visit a slum during his trip to Brazil in
July, urged “those in power to be truly at the service of the
common good of their peoples” financial leaders “to take account
of ethics and solidarity”.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Andrew
Heavens)

Ernst von Freyberg told the bank’s employees of the changes, which should be in place by the end of the year, this week, according to Vatican Radio.

He also said the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and dubbed the world’s most secretive bank by Forbes magazine, had also hired an auditing firm to make sure it meets international standards against money laundering.

Vatican Radio did not name of the auditing firm.

Freyberg was appointed in February to take the place of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi who was fired last May.

Gotti Tedeschi said he was dismissed because he wanted more transparency but the board, made up of international financial experts, said he had neglected basic management responsibilities and alienated staff.

His abrupt departure, along with the arrest of Pope Benedict’s butler for stealing confidential papal documents, came during a leaks scandal that shook the Vatican last year and contributed to Benedict’s decision to resign.

The Vatican has been trying to shed its image as a murky financial center since 1982, when Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s Banker” because of his links to the Vatican, was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge.

Calvi was head of the Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy’s largest private bank, which collapsed in a fraudulent bankruptcy. The Vatican bank owned part of the Ambrosiano.

In July, a European anti-money laundering committee said the Vatican Bank failed to meet all its standards on fighting money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

The report by Moneyval, a monitoring group of the 47-nation Council of Europe, found the Vatican had passed only nine of 16 “key and core” aspects of its financial dealings.

The Vatican has vowed to make changes to meet the standards, and its bank will be reviewed again in July.

Earlier this month, in another move towards transparency, the Vatican’s internal regulator, its Financial Information Authority (FIA), signed a memo of understanding with FinCen, the U.S. agency that tracks suspicious financial transactions.

In 2010, Rome magistrates froze 23 million euros ($33 million) held by the IOR in an Italian bank.

The Vatican said at the time that its bank was merely transferring its own funds between its own accounts in Italy and Germany. The money was released in June 2011 but the investigation continues.

Pope Francis, who was elected in March to succeed Benedict, could enact a major restructuring of the bank or even eventually decide to close it, Vatican sources have said.

The bank primarily handles funds for Vatican departments, Roman Catholic charities and orders of priests and nuns around the world.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

A brief Vatican statement did not say where O’Brien, once
Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, was going, or spell out
why he was quitting Scotland.

But it will be hoping the announcement draws a line under an
affair that has added to a sense of crisis in the Catholic
Church as it continues to deal with separate scandals over
sexual abuse of children by priests.

The cardinal resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and
Edinburgh on February 25 after three priests and one former
priest in Scotland complained about incidents of sexual
misconduct dating back to the 1980s.

O’Brien initially rejected the allegations published in a
British newspaper and said he was seeking legal advice. But he
later apologised for the misconduct.

The Vatican said on Wednesday his departure had been decided
“in agreement with the Holy Father,” stopping short of saying if
Pope Francis had ordered O’Brien to go.

O’Brien would leave Scotland for “several months for the
purpose of spiritual renewal, prayer and penance,” the Vatican
added.

He would be leaving for the same reasons that he decided not
to participate in the conclave that elected Pope Francis on
March 13, the statement said, without going into further detail.

At the time, O’Brien said he had ruled himself out of the
conclave to avoid focusing media attention on himself.

Earlier this month Scottish media reported that Catholic
leaders in Scotland had asked the Vatican to take action against
O’Brien because his continued presence there would cause further
scandal.

When he apologised for unspecified acts of sexual misconduct
with adults, O’Brien said he had “fallen below the standards
expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”.

He also promised he would play no further part in the public
life of the church in Scotland.

“Any decision regarding future arrangements for His Eminence
shall be agreed with the Holy See,” the Vatican added.

O’Brien’s temporary exile, self-imposed or not, makes him
the most prominent Churchman to withdraw for “penance” since
2006, when Pope Benedict ordered Father Marcial Maciel, founder
of the Legionaries of Christ order of priests, to retire to a
life of “prayer and penitence”.

Maciel had for years contested accusations that he had
abused seminarians and young men but Benedict forced him out
when a Vatican investigation concluded the allegations were
true.

Maciel died in 2008 and a year later the Legionaries were
forced to admit that he had led a double life. Apart from having
abused seminarians, Maciel secretly fathered children with at
least two women, used drugs, and misused donations.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

The Vatican’s “culture minister,” Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, wants to change that perception and so for the first time the Holy See will have its own pavilion this year at the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale, a sacred cow of modern art.

But don’t expect anything that looks remotely religious or liturgical at the world-class exhibition, which started in 1985 and takes place every two years in the gardens and in a converted industrial area on the Venice lagoon.

“We are not sending any altar pieces,” joked Ravasi, whose formal title is president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Instead, Ravasi’s department and the Vatican Museums have awarded three contemporary art commissions, handing them out with a theme and permission to let the artists’ imaginations run free – with no strings, moral or otherwise, attached.

“They were not given specific themes such as Mary or Jesus but asked to reflect on the first 11 chapters of Genesis because they are essentially a portrait of humanity,” Ravasi said in his Vatican office.

Genesis recounts the creation of man and woman, the fall from grace and expulsion from Eden, the killing by Cain of his brother Abel, the Great Flood and the chance for humanity to start anew when the waters receded and the rainbow appeared.

The three commissions were given to Italy’s Studio Azzurro cooperative, Australian-born American painter Lawrence Carroll and famed Czech photographer Josef Koudelka, each produced works on the themes of “creation”, “uncreation” and “re-creation”.

“These are sentiments that can be shared not only by believers, Roman Catholics, but by members of other faiths and non-believers,” said Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums.

“There is no person who in his or her lifetime has not experienced high times, times of falling, depression, defeat, and times of having to get back up and start hoping again,” he said. “These three elements are universal.”

CREATION, DESTRUCTION, REBIRTH

The works have no outwardly religious content. Indeed, they would look more at home in a white-walled gallery in New York’s Soho than even the most modern of Catholic churches.

One of the works inspired by the theme of creation is a multi-media work that shows a tangle of outreached hands on video screens while the viewer hears the sounds of children and animals.

Koudelka’s 18 photos, some of them as large as 2.6 meters (8.5 feet) by 1 meter (3.3 feet) shows the destruction brought about by war and environmental neglect.

Koudelka became famous in photography after taking pictures of the Soviet invasion of then-Czechoslovakia in 1968. The negatives were smuggled out to the West and became symbols of resistance. He later fled to the West and joined Magnum Photos.

One of Carroll’s works in the re-creation section is a large panel with electrical wires and light bulb sockets, some of them empty and some with light bulbs in them.

“It’s vital that we have a dialogue between people and cultures and religions. I think it’s great that the Vatican is doing this,” Carroll said.

Asked how he felt about being put alongside the some of the great artists the Church has commissioned over the centuries, he said “I’m delighted”.

While there are some modern works of religious art in the Vatican Museum, the Vatican is mostly known for its Renaissance masterpieces such as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and ancient Egyptian and Roman treasures.

Ravasi said he hoped the Vatican’s new initiative would be a “seed” for the Church’s future collaboration with contemporary artists, reminiscent of the times when it commissioned works from masters such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Giotto.

Ravasi’s department in the Vatican has been holding gatherings called “The Courtyard of the Gentiles” to promote dialogue among believers, non-believers, atheists and secular humanists. He said he sees the Church’s reaching out to contemporary artists as an extension of this dialogue.

“Art and faith, art and religion, can be very productive,” he said.

The cost of the Vatican pavilion at the Biennale, which opens this year on June 1 and lasts six months, is about 750,000 euros ($973,700) and is entirely covered by Italian corporate sponsors. ($1 = 0.7703 euros)

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

The Vatican seemed at pains not to allow the first canonisations of Francis’ two-month-old papacy to be interpreted as anti-Islamic, saying the deaths of the ‘Otranto Marytrs’ must be understood in their historical context.

The 800 were killed in 1480 in the siege of Otranto, on the southeastern Adriatic, by Ottoman Turks who sacked the city, killed its archbishop and told the citizens to surrender and convert.

When they refused, the Ottoman commanding officer ordered the execution of all men aged 15 or older, most by beheading.

“While we venerate the Otranto Martyrs, we ask God to sustain the many Christians who, today, in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence and give them the courage to be faithful and to respond to evil with good,” Francis said before more than 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square.

He did not mention any countries, but the Vatican has expressed deep concern recently about the fate of Christians in parts of the Middle East, including Coptic Christians who have been caught up in sectarian strife in Egypt.

A booklet handed out to participants said the “sacrifice” of the Otranto Martyrs “must be placed within the historical context of the wars that determined relations between Europe and the Ottoman Empire for a long period of time”.

HEALING MIRACLE

Francis’ predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, in 2006 that was perceived by Muslims as equating Islam with violence.

Benedict said at the time he had been misunderstood. He is now living in retirement in a Vatican convent, after stepping down in February.

Roman Catholic sainthood requires that two miracles be attributed to those who are being made saints – one before beatification, and another before canonisation.

In the case of the 800 Italians, the requirement for the first miracle was waived because they were killed “in hatred of the faith”.

The miracle approved for their canonisation was that of a nun who had cancer which, according to the Church, was healed after she prayed at a memorial to the martyrs in Otranto.

At Sunday’s ceremony, Francis also proclaimed Colombia’s first saint, a nun who died in 1949, and canonised a Mexican nun who died in 1963.

At the end of the Mass, he made his first appeal as pope against abortion, saying life must be “respected from the moment of conception” and throwing his support behind an Italian group promoting legal protection for embryos.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

The Vatican seemed at pains not to allow the first canonizations of Francis’ two-month-old papacy to be interpreted as anti-Islamic, saying the deaths of the ‘Otranto Marytrs’ must be understood in their historical context.

The 800 were killed in 1480 in the siege of Otranto, on the southeastern Adriatic, by Ottoman Turks who sacked the city, killed its archbishop and told the citizens to surrender and convert.

When they refused, the Ottoman commanding officer ordered the execution of all men aged 15 or older, most by beheading.

“While we venerate the Otranto Martyrs, we ask God to sustain the many Christians who, today, in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence and give them the courage to be faithful and to respond to evil with good,” Francis said before more than 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square.

He did not mention any countries, but the Vatican has expressed deep concern recently about the fate of Christians in parts of the Middle East, including Coptic Christians who have been caught up in sectarian strife in Egypt.

A booklet handed out to participants said the “sacrifice” of the Otranto Martyrs “must be placed within the historical context of the wars that determined relations between Europe and the Ottoman Empire for a long period of time”.

HEALING MIRACLE

Francis’ predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, in 2006 that was perceived by Muslims as equating Islam with violence.

Benedict said at the time he had been misunderstood. He is now living in retirement in a Vatican convent, after stepping down in February.

Roman Catholic sainthood requires that two miracles be attributed to those who are being made saints – one before beatification, and another before canonization.

In the case of the 800 Italians, the requirement for the first miracle was waived because they were killed “in hatred of the faith”.

The miracle approved for their canonization was that of a nun who had cancer which, according to the Church, was healed after she prayed at a memorial to the martyrs in Otranto.

At Sunday’s ceremony, Francis also proclaimed Colombia’s first saint, a nun who died in 1949, and canonized a Mexican nun who died in 1963.

At the end of the Mass, he made his first appeal as pope against abortion, saying life must be “respected from the moment of conception” and throwing his support behind an Italian group promoting legal protection for embryos.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

(Pope Francis (R) and the Coptic Orthodox leader Tawadros II pose during a private audience in the pontiff’s library at the Vatican, May 10, 2013. REUTERS/Andreas Solaro/Pool)

At the Vatican on Friday not one, not two, but three popes were inside the tiny city-state’s walls at the same time.

Coptic Pope Tawadros II and Catholic Pope Francis, each addressing the other as “Your Holiness”, prayed together for reconciliation among communities and nations without mention of events in Egypt. Tawadros has previously denounced a wave of anti-Christian attacks there.

A short walk from where they met in the Apostolic Palace, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is living out his retirement in a convent in the Vatican gardens. There were no plans for Tawadros, making his first trip outside Egypt since his election in November, to meet Benedict.

The tall, black-robed Tawadros is the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the largest Christian Church in Egypt. He is only the second Coptic pope in history to visit the Vatican.

In their public speeches, neither Francis, 76, nor Tawadros, 60, made direct mention of the recent sectarian violence in Egypt between majority Muslims and Christians, who make up about 15 percent of Egypt’s population of 84 million.

Francis spoke of an “ecumenism of suffering” among Christians and in joint prayers afterwards in a Vatican chapel both leaders heard a prayer for “all countries and communities which are victims of conflict and violence” and for “peace and harmony without discrimination and injustice”.

Attacks on churches and sectarian tensions increased after the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt following the 2011 uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, although Christians had demonstrated alongside Muslims for his removal.

Christians in Egypt have long complained of discrimination in employment and treatment by the authorities and have called for changes in laws to make it as easy to build or renovate churches as it is for mosques.

In an rare interview last month, Tawadros told Reuters that Egypt’s Christians feel neglected by Muslim Brotherhood-led authorities, who proffer assurances but have taken little or no action to protect them from violence.

“There is a sense of marginalization and rejection, which we can call social isolation,” he said.

Christianity is believed to have been brought to Egypt by the evangelist Mark in the first century.

Tawadros invited Francis to visit Egypt, but he would need a parallel invitation from the Egyptian government to made such a trip.

via Three popes in Vatican as Egypt’s Coptic leader visits Francis | Reuters.