The Dialog

By TheDialog

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has named Argentine Bishop Mario Aurelio Poli as his replacement in Buenos Aires.

Archbishop Poli, 65, was auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires under Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, for six years before being named bishop of Santa Rosa in 2008.

“He’s someone who was very close to Bergoglio,” said Norberto Padilla, constitutional law professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and a church observer.

The new archbishop, he added, “is close in style.”

Buenos Aires is one of the largest archdioceses in Latin America, and its leader wields influence in Argentine affairs. Pope Francis led the diocese for 15 years, during which time put a priority on serving the poor and sent priests to minister in the shanties surrounding the cities.

Pope Francis also criticized Argentine governments for corruption, their populist politics and positions on social issues such as same-sex marriages, placing him at odds with current President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Padilla said.

Archbishop Poli, who moves from the provincial Diocese of Santa Rosa, 400 miles southwest of Buenos Aires in La Pampa province, is known for his work with the poor, but not making strong political pronouncements, Padilla said.

“He’s not identified with anything in politics,” Padilla added.

Archbishop Poli was born in Buenos Aires Nov. 29, 1947, and was ordained a priest in 1978. He was consecrated a bishop in 2008.

As a member of the Argentine bishops’ conference, he has served on the commissions for Catholic education and for ministers. He is president of the bishops’ Commission for Catechesis and Biblical Ministry.

By Carol Glatz

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Evils within the church are caused by a self-centeredness and “theological narcissism” that forget to share Christ with people outside of the church, Pope Francis said in the days before his election.

“When the church is self-referential, inadvertently, she believes she has her own light,” he said in a summary of a speech he gave to the College of Cardinals before the start of the conclave that ended in his election.

When the church ceases to be “the mysterium lunae,” that is, to depend on Christ for receiving and reflecting his, not its own, light, the church then “gives way to that very serious evil, spiritual worldliness, which according to (Jesuit Cardinal Henri-Marie) De Lubac, is the worst evil that can befall the church,” said then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The church then “lives to give glory only to one another” and not the rest of the world, he said.

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, and Vatican Radio published March 27 the future pope’s comments, which were in the handwritten outline of the speech he gave during the pre-conclave meetings, called general congregations. The meetings, which ran March 4-11, gave the cardinals a chance to discuss the main challenges facing the church.

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino of Havana “had been so impressed” by then-Cardinal Bergoglio’s speech that he asked for a copy of it, according to Vatican Radio. The radio said Cardinal Ortega received the pope’s permission to share the contents of the speech’s outline.

The outline said evangelization presupposes that the church does not want to be locked up inside herself, but wants to go “to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.”

“When the church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick,” he wrote, adding a note of reference to St. Luke’s Gospel account of Jesus curing the crippled woman on the Sabbath.

In the passage, Jesus is criticized for healing on the Sabbath, the day dedicated to rest. Jesus calls his critics hypocrites, asking why they can interpret the law to allow them to untie and release their animals on the Sabbath and not let a woman be unleashed from the binds of the devil who caused her illness.

The future pope wrote, “The evils that, over time, happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in self-referentiality and a kind of theological narcissism.”

“In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Obviously, the text refers to his knocking from the outside in order to enter, but I think about the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out,” he wrote.

“The self-referential church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him out,” he added.

The pope wrote, “Put simply, there are two images of the church: a church which evangelizes and comes out of herself” by hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith; and “the worldly church, living within herself, of herself, for herself.”

“This should shed light on the possible changes and reforms which must be done for the salvation of souls,” he wrote.

Then-Cardinal Bergoglio told the College of Cardinals that the next pope “must be a man who, from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the church to go out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother, who gains life from the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”

The College of Cardinals elected Pope Francis, reportedly beyond the two-thirds required, on March 13, on the fifth round of conclave voting.

By Carol Glatz

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY— Pope Francis called on the world’s priests to bring the healing power of God’s grace to everyone in need, to stay close to the marginalized and to be “shepherds living with the smell of the sheep.”

Those priests “who do not go out of themselves” by being mediators between God and men can “gradually become intermediaries, managers,” he said March 28 during the chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Francis breathes over chrism oil, a gesture symbolizing the infusion of the Holy Spirit, during the Holy Thursday chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican March 28. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

When a priest “doesn’t put his own skin and own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks” from those he has helped, the pope said in his homily.

“This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, lose heart and become in a sense collectors of antiquities or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with ‘the smell of the sheep,’” he said.

“This is what I am asking you,” he said with emphasis, looking up from his prepared text, “be shepherds with the smell of sheep,” so that people can sense the priest is not just concerned with his own congregation, but is also a fisher of men.

Presiding over the first of two Holy Thursday liturgies, Pope Francis blessed the oils that will be used in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, ordination and the anointing of the sick.

Deacons carried the sacramental oils in six large silver urns to the main altar to be blessed by the pope in his first chrism Mass as bishop of Rome.

Surrounded by more than 1,600 priests, bishops and cardinals, Pope Francis led them in a renewal in their priestly promises. He focused his homily on the meaning of being “the anointed ones” through ordination, underlining Holy Thursday as the day Jesus shared his priesthood with the apostles.

God anointed his servants so they would be there for others, serving “the poor, prisoners, the sick, for those who are sorrowing and alone,” the pope said standing at a lectern.

The precious sacramental oil “is not intended just to make us fragrant, much less to be kept in a jar, for then it would become rancid and the heart bitter,” the pope said.

He said a good priest anoints his people “with the oil of gladness,” by preaching the Gospel “with unction,” that is with the soothing, comforting words of God.

If people leave Mass “looking as if they have heard good news,” then the priest has clearly done his job well, the pope said.

“When we have this relationship with God and with his people, and his grace passes through us, then we are priests, mediators between God and men,” he said.

The pope urged priests to not grow weary of people’s requests and needs no matter how “inconvenient … purely material or downright banal,” such appeals may seem. Priests need to look deeper at what’s driving the encounter: the person’s underlying hope and desire for divine comfort, for being “anointed with fragrant oil, since they know we have it.”

“We need to go out, then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the ‘outskirts’ where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters,” the pope said.

Ministers do not encounter God through “soul-searching or constant introspection,” he said. Even though “self-help courses can be useful in life,” he said, living by them will only lead people to become “pelagians,” that is to falsely believe that good will and strenuous effort without divine aid may overcome sin.

The power of grace “comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we, in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all,” he said.

The pope called for resisting the onslaught of the “crisis of priestly identity (which) threatens us all and adds to the broader cultural crisis,” and for not giving up casting one’s nets in the name of the Lord.

“It is not a bad thing that reality forces us to ‘put out into the deep,’” where “the only thing that counts is ‘unction,’ not ‘function,’” he said, where bringing God’s healing and comfort to others is the priority.

The pope ended his homily by asking the faithful to “be close to your priests with affection and with your prayers, that they may always be shepherds according to God’s heart.”

Editor’s note: The text of the pope’s homily will be posted online at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130328_messa-crismale_en.html.

By Francis X Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — An Italian priest who died in a Nazi concentration camp and two victims of Soviet-bloc regimes during the Cold War were among those recognized as martyrs by Pope Francis March 27.

According to a statement released by the Vatican March 28, the pope authorized decrees stating that Franciscan Father Giuseppe Girotti, an opponent of Italy’s fascist government who died at Dachau in 1945, was killed “in hatred of the faith.”

Pope Francis likewise recognized the martyrdom of Romanian Father Vladimir Ghika and Hungarian Salesian Brother Stephen Sandor, who were killed by their country’s communist regimes, in 1954 and 1953, respectively.

The decrees prepare the way for the martyrs’ beatification, probably later this year.

Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for Saints’ Causes to promulgate equivalent decrees for Rolando Rivi, an Italian seminarian killed by communist partisans in 1945, during the last days of World War II; and for 58 persons, including the bishop of Jaen, killed between 1936 and 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.

The church normally requires a miracle to be attributed to the intercession of a deceased Catholic before he or she may be beatified, but that requirement does not apply to recognized martyrs. A miracle is required before any blessed may be canonized.

Also on March 27, Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to German Sister Maria Teresa Bonzel, founder of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, who died in 1905.

Among the seven whom the pope recognized for their “heroic virtues” were Mexican Father Moses Lira Serafin, founder of the Missionaries of Charity of Mary Immaculate, who died in 1950; and Oblate Brother Anthony Kowalczyk, who was born in Poland but died in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1947. Brother Kowalczyk spent the last three-and-a-half decades of his life working as a blacksmith and gardener at a frontier school in western Canada.

Now recognized as “venerable,” each is eligible for beatification if a miracle can be attributed to his intercession.

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Holy Week is a time to follow Jesus out of one’s parish or group and out of one’s comfort zone to go with him in search of the lost sheep, Pope Francis said.

“There is such a great need to bring (people) the living presence of Jesus, who is merciful and rich in love,” the pope said March 27 at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

The pope began very simply, saying in Italian: “Good morning. I’m happy to welcome you to my first general audience.”

Pope Francis blesses a baby as he arrives to lead his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican March 27. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

After Easter, he said, he will return to the audience series Pope Benedict XVI began on the creed for the Year of Faith, but he wanted to continue the tradition of speaking about the Holy Week liturgies on the Wednesday before Easter.

Unlike his predecessors, Pope Francis did not read greetings in a variety of languages. Reportedly not comfortable speaking English, he chose to stick to Italian and allow aides to translate his remarks. The Argentine pope did not even speak Spanish during the audience.

Introducing the Triduum liturgies that commemorate the Last Supper, Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection, Pope Francis said Holy Week “is not primarily about pain and death, but about love and the gift of self that gives life.”

Holy Week is a call to follow Jesus more closely, he said, which means going with Jesus “to the margins of existence, making the first move toward our brothers and sisters, especially those who are farthest away, those who are forgotten, those who have the greatest need for understanding, consolation and help.”

Christians are called to be merciful as God is merciful, the pope said, reminding the crowd of the father in the story of the Prodigal Son: “Every day he goes out to see if his son has returned.”

The pope said those who want to follow Christ “cannot remain in the sheepfold with the 99 sheep; we must go out, seek the lost sheep with him.”

“Someone might say, ‘But Father, I don’t have time. I have too many things to do. It’s difficult,’” the pope said. “Often we settle for a little prayer, a distracted Sunday Mass or some gesture of charity, but we do not have the courage to go out to bring Christ to others.”

Pope Francis said he is pained when he sees “so many closed parishes,” churches locked except for Mass, and communities without a strong outreach to others.

However, he was very clear that following Jesus means bringing his merciful love to others, letting them know God is always ready to forgive and that Jesus died for them, too.

Jesus, he said, did not ask people if they were a Jew or a Gentile, if they were rich or poor, he simply asked them what they needed, he said.

Jesus “healed, consoled, understood, gave hope, brought everyone the presence of God who is interested in every man and every woman, like a good father and a good mother toward each of their children,” Pope Francis said.

The pope told the estimated 15,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square: “Always go out. And do so with the love and tenderness of God, with respect and patience, knowing that we use our hands, our feet, our hearts, but it is God who guides them and makes our actions bear fruit.”

The crowd included some 4,300 university students participating in an annual Holy Week pilgrimage sponsored by Opus Dei. At the end of the audience, he walked over to the section where many of them stood; his hands were grabbed and kissed and he was pulled into big hugs.

A short red-headed woman, pressed by the crowd against a barrier, fainted as the pope was about to reach her. Security agents lifted her over the barrier and carried her to a first aid station.

Before the audience, groups of young people chanted in Spanish, “We are the pope’s youth.” Like at Pope Francis’ first Angelus address, his inauguration Mass and his Palm Sunday Mass, many people held up homemade signs. One, written on a large pink heart, said, “Viva il papa” (Long live the pope). The woman handed it to the pope and he took it.

He rode through the crowd in the open popemobile, waving and giving groups a thumbs-up. He kissed several babies, although he only caressed the face of a little boy whose screams and kicks made it clear he wanted nothing to do with a security guard taking him from his mother to pass him to the man in white.

The text of the pope’s audience remarks in English will be posted online at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2013/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20130327_en.html.

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Gossiping about someone is a “dark joy” that Christians must resist because it is a betrayal like Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, Pope Francis said.

Celebrating Mass at 7 a.m. in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the pope offered a brief homily on the Gospel, which included Jesus’ prediction that Judas would betray him.

The pope said that for Judas, who negotiated a price for handing Jesus over to the authorities, “Jesus is like merchandise: He’s sold.”

“In the market of history, in the market of our own lives, when we choose 30 pieces of silver and cast Jesus aside, the Lord has been sold,” Pope Francis said.

But people also do the same to each other, including “when we gossip about each other,” he said.

“I don’t know why, but there is a dark joy in gossiping,” he said. Sometimes we begin by saying nice things about another, but then we slip into gossip, making the object of our chatter merchandise to be bartered.

“Let us ask forgiveness because when we do this to a friend, we do it to Jesus, because Jesus is in this friend,” he said.

If one notices a defect in another, Pope Francis said, the Christian response is pray that God will help him or her.

While the pope celebrated the Mass in his residence, as has been his custom, several thousand Vatican employees were at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. The employees’ Mass on Wednesday of Holy Week is a Vatican tradition.

The Domus Sanctae Marthae is directly across a small parking lot from the sacristy entrance to the basilica. At the end of the Mass, celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of the basilica, Pope Francis walked over to greet the employees.

The pope thanked them for their service, and said: “I ask you to pray for me. I need it because I am a sinner, too, like everyone and I want to be faithful to the Lord. Pray for me.”

He wished the employees a happy Easter and prayed, “May the Lord bless you and may Our Lady watch over you like a good mother.”

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has decided not to move into the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, but to live in a suite in the Vatican guesthouse where he has been since the beginning of the conclave that elected him, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.

“He is experimenting with this type of living arrangement, which is simple,” but allows him “to live in community with others,’ both the permanent residents — priests and bishops who work at the Vatican — as well as guests coming to the Vatican for meetings and conferences, Father Lombardi said March 26.

The Domus Sanctae Marthae, the residence in Vatican City, is where Pope Francis has decided to live for now, instead of in the Apostolic Palace. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The spokesman said Pope Francis has moved out of the room he drew by lot before the conclave and into Suite 201, a room that has slightly more elegant furnishings and a larger living room where he can receive guests.

The Domus Sanctae Marthae, the official name of the guesthouse, was built in 1996 specifically to house cardinals during a conclave.

Celebrating Mass March 26 with the residents and guests, Pope Francis told them he intended to stay, Father Lombardi said. The permanent residents, who had to move out during the conclave, had just returned to their old rooms.

Pope Francis has been there since his election March 13, taking his meals in the common dining room downstairs and celebrating a 7 a.m. Mass with Vatican employees in the main chapel of the residence.

He will be the first pope in 110 years not to live in the papal apartments on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace.

In 1903, St. Pius X became the first pope to live in the apartments overlooking St. Peter’s Square. The apartments were completely remodeled by Pope Paul VI in 1964 and have undergone smaller modifications by each pope since, according to “Mondo Vaticano,” a Vatican-published mini-encyclopedia about Vatican buildings, offices and tradition.

The large living room or salon of the apartment is located directly above the papal library where official audiences with visiting bishops and heads of state are held.

Pope Francis will continue to use the library for official audiences and to recite the Angelus prayer on Sundays and holy days from the apartment window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Father Lombardi said.

The apartments contain a chapel, an office for the pope and a separate office for his secretaries, the pope’s bedroom, a dining room, kitchen and rooms for two secretaries and for the household staff.

When Pope Francis returned to the guesthouse after his election, Father Lombardi had said the move was intended to be short-term while a few small work projects were completed in the papal apartments. He said March 26 that all the work had been completed, but at least for the foreseeable future, Pope Francis would not move in.

The Domus Sanctae Marthae, named after St. Martha, is a five-story building on the edge of Vatican City.

While offering relative comfort, the residence is not a luxury hotel. The building has 105 two-room suites and 26 singles; about half of the rooms are occupied by the permanent residents. Each suite has a sitting room with a desk, three chairs, a cabinet and large closet; a bedroom with dresser, night table and clothes stand; and a private bathroom with a shower.

The rooms all have telephones and access to an international satellite television system.

The building also has a large meeting room and a variety of small sitting rooms. In addition to the dining room and the main chapel, it also has four private chapels, located at the end of hallways on the third and fifth floors of each of the building’s two wings.

By Francis X Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis celebrated his first Palm Sunday Mass as pope March 24, telling an overflow crowd in St. Peter’s Square that Christ’s death on the cross is a source of eternal consolation and joy.

“A Christian can never be sad. Never give way to discouragement,” the pope said in his homily, assuring listeners that with Jesus, “We are never alone, even at difficult moments, even at difficult moments when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them.”

Pope Francis carries woven palm fronds as he walks in procession at the start of Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican March 24. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

As he has done with striking frequency since his election March 13, Pope Francis warned against the action of the devil, who he said comes to discourage believers in times of trouble, “often disguised as an angel who insidiously tells us his word. Do not listen to him.”

Recalling Jesus’ triumphant arrival in Jerusalem, acclaimed as a king only days before his crucifixion, the pope stressed the otherworldly nature of Christ’s reign.

“Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honors reserved to earthly kings, to the powerful, to rulers; he enters to be scourged, insulted and abused,” Pope Francis said. “His royal throne is the wood of the cross.”

“Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including our own sin,” the pope said, “and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Christ’s cross embraced with love does not lead to sadness, but to joy,” he said.

Pope Francis characteristically strayed from his prepared text in a personal aside when deploring the sin of greed, adding that money is something “no one can bring with him. My grandmother would say to us children, ‘No shroud has pockets.’”

Noting that “for 28 years Palm Sunday has been World Youth Day,” the pope told young people in the congregation that “you bring us the joy of faith, and you tell us that we must live the faith with a young heart, always, even at the age of 70 or 80.”

Pope Francis confirmed that he would attend the July 2013 World Youth Day celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, saying, “I will see you in that great city in Brazil.” Though the announcement was widely expected, it drew applause from the crowd in the square and the avenue beyond.

Before the Mass, young people carrying woven palm fronds led a procession that included bishops, cardinals and Pope Francis in the popemobile. They processed to the ancient Egyptian obelisk in the center of the square, where the pope blessed palm and olive branches held up by members of the congregation.

After Mass, before praying the Angelus from the altar set up in front of the basilica, the pope made special mention of “people afflicted with tuberculosis, as today is the world day against this disease.”

By Catholic News Service

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — With a warm embrace, a helping hand, shared prayer, a long discussion and lunch together, Pope Francis spent several hours with retired Pope Benedict XVI March 23 at the papal summer villa.

Pope Francis gave Pope Benedict an icon of Mary and Jesus that the Russian Orthodox delegation to his inauguration had given him just a few days earlier.

Pope Francis prays with emeritus Pope Benedict XVI after arriving at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, March 23. Pope Francis travelled by helicopter from the Vatican to Castel Gandolfo for the private meeting with the former pontiff. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

“They told me this was Our Lady of Humility. If I may say, I thought of you,” Pope Francis said. Pope Benedict, obviously moved, grasped his successor’s hands.

Pope Francis told Pope Benedict, “You gave us so many examples of humility and tenderness.”

The meeting took place in Castel Gandolfo, where Pope Benedict is staying while a Vatican monastery is being remodeled as a residence for him.

The retired pope moved with much greater difficulty than he did a month ago. Walking with a cane, he took smaller and slower steps.

When the two went into the chapel of the papal villa to pray, Pope Benedict indicated that Pope Francis should take the front pew, but Pope Francis, reaching out to help his predecessor walk, said, “We’re brothers,” and they knelt side by side.

Traveling by helicopter from the Vatican, Pope Francis arrived shortly after noon. While the two have spoken by telephone at least twice, this was their first meeting since Pope Francis’ March 13 election.

Pope Benedict, wearing a quilted white jacket over a simple white cassock, without a short cape or white sash, was driven to the garden heliport to greet his successor.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said the two rode in the same car to the villa. Pope Francis sat on the right, the spot reserved for the pope, and Pope Benedict sat on the left.

After their visit to the chapel, the two spent 45 minutes talking alone, Father Lombardi said. He would not release details of the conversation and would not explain what was in the large box and two large envelopes seen on the table between the two.

The two had lunch together at Castel Gandolfo, then reportedly went for a short walk. Pope Francis returned to the Vatican about two-and-a-half hours after he arrived.

Hundreds of people who were gathered in the main square outside the papal villa were left disappointed. They had hoped the two popes, one reigning, one emeritus, would come to the balcony together.

Father Lombardi told reporters, “Remember that the retired pope had already expressed his unconditional reverence and obedience to his successor at his farewell meeting with the cardinals, Feb. 28, and certainly in this meeting, which was a moment of profound and elevated communion, he will have had the opportunity to renew this act of reverence and obedience to his successor.”

He also said, “Certainly Pope Francis renewed his gratitude and that of the whole church for Pope Benedict’s ministry during his pontificate.”

By Francis X Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Moral relativism “endangers the coexistence of peoples,” Pope Francis told diplomats March 22, and said a common ethics based on human nature is an indispensable condition for world peace.

The pope made his remarks to the Vatican diplomatic corps in the Apostolic Palace’s Sala Regia, the vast “royal hall” where popes traditionally received Catholic monarchs.

Recalling the love of the poor practiced by his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the pope lamented both material poverty and the “spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the ‘dictatorship of relativism,’ which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples.”

Pope Francis greets a diplomat during an audience with the Vatican diplomatic corps in the Apostolic Palace’s Sala Regia March 22. (CNS photo/Tony Gentile, Reuters)

“Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace,” Pope Francis said. “But there is no peace without truth. There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.”

The pope paid tribute the church’s charitable and social services around the world, and acknowledged his particular responsibility for peacemaking, noting that his title of pontiff means a “builder of bridges with God and between people.”

In a characteristically personal note, the Argentine pope added that his origin in a family of Italian immigrants gave him an impetus to “work for the building of bridges.”

Pope Francis stressed the importance to peacemaking of interreligious dialogue, particularly with Islam.

“It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God,” he said. “But the converse is also true: It is not possible to establish true links with God while ignoring other people.”

The pope also underscored the need to “intensify outreach to nonbelievers, so that the differences which divide and hurt us may never prevail.”

Following his speech, Pope Francis spent nearly an hour individually greeting the ambassadors and their spouses. Most of the men wore white tie, tails, ceremonial sashes and medals, though some from Arab or African countries opted for their traditional dress. Most of the women had covered their heads with a black lace mantilla.

The Vatican currently maintains diplomatic ties with 180 states, as well as the European Union, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Pope Francis voiced hope for closer ties with “those few countries that do not yet have diplomatic relations with the Holy See,” noting that some of them had sent representatives or greetings to his inauguration Mass March 19.

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, which do not exchange ambassador with the Holy See, had sent representatives to the Mass.