Pope Francis has published an Apostolic Exhortation building on his 2015 encyclical. We’re not reacting enough, he says, we’re close to breaking point. He criticises climate change deniers, saying that the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt. And he describes how care for our common home flows from the Christian faith.

“’Praise God’ is the title of this letter.  For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”

That’s how Pope Francis ends his new Apostolic Exhortation, published on the 4th October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.
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A leading Asian theologian says Pope Francis’ decision to include non-ordained women and men as voting members of October’s synod assembly is a “giant step” that will irreversibly change the Church’s decision-making processes.

Last month, the synod secretariat announced the Pope had authorised a reform to allow at least 70 non-bishops to be members of the 4-29 October synod assembly in the Vatican. This move will see women given a vote in a synod for the first time.
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Pope Francis has continued his predecessors’ serious commitment to ecumenical dialogue, but he also makes ecumenical gestures that underline that seriousness. Meeting Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, Egypt, Pope Francis paid tribute to the 21 Coptic martyrs murdered by Islamic State in 2015, noting they were killed for being Christian, not for being Orthodox. And he announced that they would be added to the Roman Martyrology, the book-length calendar of saints and blessed remembered by Catholics at Mass.
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Pope Francis’ decision in late April to include lay persons as full participants with voting rights in the upcoming Synod of Bishops is a significant step towards making the synod a body that more adequately represents and embodies an act of discernment by the whole entire people of God.

In exhorting the pastors of the local churches to embark upon a synodal process with the whole community of the baptized and listen to the voices of the marginalized, the pope has been seeking to reawaken the muscle memory of the ecclesial body.
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Pope Francis is getting personally involved in making sure sacred items and cultural artifacts held in the Vatican Museums are returned to Canadian Indigenous communities.

“The restitution of Indigenous things of Canada is underway, at least we agreed to do so,” Pope Francis told reporters during his news conference on the plane trip back to Rome April 30 following his papal visit to Hungary. “I will now ask how that’s going.”
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The Cross of Wales, a new processional cross presented by King Charles III as a centenary gift to the Church in Wales, will lead the Coronation procession at Westminster Abbey on 6 May. In a significant ecumenical gesture, the Cross of Wales incorporates a relic of the True Cross, the personal gift of Pope Francis to the King to mark the Coronation. The relics, set into the silver cross, are two small wooden splinters from the cross on which Christ was crucified.
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Pope Francis asked the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury and the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland to join him for his usual post-trip news conference on their flight back to Rome from Juba, South Sudan, Feb. 5.
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As part of their historic ecumenical pilgrimage to South Sudan, Pope Francis, Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury and the Rev. Iain Greenshields, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, led an ecumenical prayer for peace Feb. 4 in Juba.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has expressed his horror at the news that 27 people have been killed in Kajo-Keji, on the eve of his historic Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage with Pope Francis and the Moderator of the presbyterian Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields.
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Pope Francis reaffirmed that homosexuality is not a crime, and that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin, in a written response to a request for clarification about his remarks during a recent interview with the Associated Press.
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Before beginning their ecumenical pilgrimage of peace to South Sudan, Pope Francis and the leaders of the Anglican Communion and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland asked Christians around the globe to accompany them with prayers.
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Pope Francis invites Christians to pray for his upcoming Apostolic Journey to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, saying the African nations have suffered greatly from lengthy conflicts. Pope Francis sets off on Tuesday as a “pilgrim of peace” to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan on 31 January – 5 February.
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In South Sudan, “the Church speaks with one voice for peace,” says Presbyterian leader about the upcoming trip with Pope Francis. From February 3 to 5, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend Dr. Iain Greenshields, will join Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, on a “pilgrimage of peace” to South Sudan. The three Christian branches have worked together for several years to promote peace in the youngest state in the world, which continues to be troubled by conflict since its independence in 2011.
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Braving a volatile political and security situation, Pope Francis embarks on a long-anticipated journey of unity and reconciliation to two African countries wracked by bitter divisions, warring factions and humanitarian crises seldom on the radar of international power brokers.
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Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church; Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, UK; and Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields, moderator of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland; will travel to the world’s youngest nation on 3- 5 February on a spiritual and peace mission.
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God suffers and grieves when those who profess to believe in him do not love the people he loves and do not work for the justice he desires, Pope Francis said.
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Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church.
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Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will make an historic Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage to South Sudan from 3rd to 5th February next year.
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Pope Francis said Wednesday that the full restoration of communion among all Christians is “an urgent priority in today’s world.”

In a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the pope expressed gratitude that Catholic and Orthodox Christians are seeking “to achieve full communion that will enable us one day, in God’s time, to gather together at the same eucharistic table.”
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Pope Francis in a message to Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I has called for a continuous analyzing of the historical and theological reasons for the ongoing divisions between the two Churches “in a spirit that is neither polemical nor apologetic but marked instead by authentic dialogue and mutual openness”.
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While formal dialogue about the theological and historical causes of the splits in Christianity are essential, so, too, is a recognition that “sinful actions and attitudes” have contributed and continue to contribute to divisions in the body of Christ, Pope Francis said.

“We are called, then, to work toward the restoration of unity between Christians, not merely through signed agreements but through fidelity to the Father’s will and discernment of the promptings of the Spirit,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople Nov. 30, the feast of St. Andrew.
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Pope Francis has drawn a parallel between Russia’s war on Ukraine and the “Holodomor” – the man-made famine that Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin orchestrated in the early 1930s and which led to the death of five million Ukrainians.

The pope made the comparison – the first time he’s ever done so publicly – during his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square. He even went so far as to agree that the Holodomor, which means “to kill by starvation”, truly was a “genocide”.
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Meeting the U.S.-born patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Pope Francis expressed his hope that Christians of the East and West could finally agree on a common date for celebrating Easter.

“Let us have the courage to put an end to this division that at times makes us laugh” with the ridiculous possibility that Christians could ask each other, “When does your Christ rise again?” the pope told Catholicos Awa III, the patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.
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Pope Francis led an ecumenical prayer meeting with the participation of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Christian leaders from Bahrain
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On two occasions this past year, Pope Francis has expressed his deep sorrow for the pain and trauma suffered by former students of residential schools and their descendants. At the end of March, he met with delegations of First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples in Rome where he stated: “Listening to your voices, I was able to enter into and be deeply grieved by the stories of the suffering, hardship, discrimination and various forms of abuse that some of you experienced, particularly in the residential schools. … I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry. And I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon.”

Following this initial meeting, he travelled to Canada in July where he re-iterated his heartfelt apology for Catholic involvement in residential schools and again joined with the Canadian Bishops in asking pardon. He stated: “Today I am here, in this land that, along with its ancient memories, preserves the scars of still open wounds. I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry…. I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the Church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.”
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The Second Vatican Council was the universal Catholic Church’s response to God’s love and to Jesus’ command to feed his sheep, Pope Francis said, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the council’s opening.

The council reminded the church of what is “essential,” the pope said: “a church madly in love with its Lord and with all the men and women whom he loves,” one that “is rich in Jesus and poor in assets,” a church that “is free and freeing.”
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Pope Francis has told young economists, entrepreneurs and university researchers that the world’s development model must be seriously questioned and reformed without delay.

The pope made his appeal this past Saturday in Assisi before a thousand young adults from around the world who were gathered in Assisi for a three-day meeting titled “The Economy of Francesco”, which explored ways to create sustainable and ecologically viable development.
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The ITA plane with Pope Francis, his entourage and accredited journalists on board took off at 9:16 a.m. on Sunday, July 24, 2022, from Fiumicino Airport, heading for Edmonton Airport, where it landed around 11:20 a.m. Thus began Pope Francis’ trip to Canada, the second largest country in the world, about 10 million square kilometers in size but inhabited by only 38 million people.
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Pope Francis, sent greetings to the World Council of Churches 11th Assembly as it opened.

The Pope wished the representatives of the churches at the 31 August to 8 September assembly “a meaningful and fruitful meeting that deepens and strengthens the bonds of communion between the Churches and the ecumenical organizations present.”

The pontiff said in advance greetings that he has a “pastoral interest in the work of the Assembly.”

Pope Francis also noted that the Catholic Church has sent “delegated observers” to WCC assemblies since the WCC 3rd Assembly took place in New Delhi in 1961.
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When Pope Francis gave his first full-length interview after his election in 2013, he was asked about the importance of the church providing solid points of reference in a rapidly changing world. The new pope pulled out his thumb-worn breviary and read out a Latin quote from a fifth-century French monk.

Highlighting the words of St. Vincent of Lérins, Pope Francis raised a curtain onto his pontificate: presenting a little-known but once highly influential theologian whose name and citations would soon appear in a number of papal speeches, documents and interviews over the next decade.

The pope’s favourite quote? That Christian doctrine should follow the true and legitimate rule of progress, so doctrine may be “consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age.”
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Pope Francis on July 29 said that the Catholic Church’s treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada amounted to a cultural “genocide” and warned against a colonialist mindset that continues to view Native peoples and customs as “inferior.”

Francis said that “taking away the children, changing the culture and mentality” and erasing “an entire culture” was effectively a “genocide.”

The pope’s remarks came during an inflight press conference en route back to Rome after his July 24-29 trip to Canada, where he apologized on multiple occasions for the abuse that Indigenous children suffered at Catholic-run residential schools, as well as for the church’s adoption of policies that stripped away Indigenous culture.
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The heart of Pope Francis’ “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada has focused on his personal closeness to indigenous peoples and his request for forgiveness for the disasters wrought by the colonial mentality that sought to eradicate traditional cultures, including through the dramatic experiment of residential schools desired by the government and run by Christian churches.

Encounters with indigenous peoples marked every stage of the trip and were quite moving. The understandable focus on the suffering endured by indigenous people and the journey of reconciliation undertaken have overshadowed some valuable insights scattered throughout Pope Francis’ speeches, which offer useful paths for evangelization today in every corner on earth.

After saying he felt ashamed of what happened when believers “became worldly, and rather than fostering reconciliation, they imposed their own cultural models,” the Pope went on to emphasize that “this attitude dies hard, also from the religious standpoint.” He thus shifted his reflection to the present day, drawing on the events of the past. That is, it is a mentality that is still present.
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In a brief protest at a papal Mass in Canada, Indigenous women unfurled a banner that said, “Rescind the Doctrine.”

The protest July 28 was a momentary but graphic reminder of how, when representatives of Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities met Pope Francis at the Vatican in March and April, they asked him specifically for a formal repudiation of the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery.”

The phrase describes a collection of papal teachings, beginning in the 14th century, that blessed the efforts of explorers to colonize and claim the lands of any people who were not Christian, placing both the land and the people under the sovereignty of European Christian rulers.

The loss of the land, language, culture and spirituality of the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the foundation of the residential school system all can be traced to the doctrine, Indigenous leaders told reporters after their meetings with the pope.
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Meeting Indigenous survivors of residential schools in Canada, Pope Francis entrusted them and the journey of truth, healing and reconciliation to three women: St. Anne, Mary and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.

“These women can help us to come together and start to weave anew a reconciliation that can uphold the rights of the most vulnerable in our midst and look at history without resentment or forgetfulness,” the pope said July 29, his last morning in Canada.

Before heading to the airport for a three-hour flight to Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic, Pope Francis met with two dozen survivors of residential schools from across Eastern Canada. Organizers said they included people from the Algonquin, Mohawk, Cree, Innu and Mi’kmaq nations.
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On the final day of Pope Francis’ pilgrimage of penance, one of healing and reconciliation, he says it is he who has been “enriched” by the experience.

“Now that I am nearing the end of this intense pilgrimage, I want to tell you that although I came with these desires (for healing and reconciliation), I am now returning home greatly enriched,” the Pope told a gathering of some two dozen residential school survivors at the residence of Cardinal Gerald Lacroix in Quebec City this morning. Reporters were present for the beginning of the meeting but were asked to leave following the formal speeches to allow the Pope to speak in private with the survivors.

“I bear in my heart the incomparable treasure of all those individuals and peoples who have left a mark on me; the faces, smiles and messages that remain with me; the unforgettable stories and natural beauties; the sounds, colours and emotions that touched me deeply.”
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If Canadian Catholics were looking for a roadmap to reconciliation, Pope Francis laid it out for them at a vespers prayer service in Quebec City’s exquisite Notre Dame Basilica Cathedral on a rainy Thursday evening.

As is typical of Pope Francis’ preaching, he laid it out in three parts — three challenges to the Church in Canada. Canada’s Catholics must find a way to make Jesus known, become credible witnesses to the Gospel and seek out genuine fraternity with others. None of those three priorities for a reconciling Church has anything to do with a negative, judgmental, condemnatory, defensive, narrow, navel-gazing version of Christian life, he said.
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In the face of sin and failure, the temptation to wallow in despair and do nothing comes from the devil, Pope Francis said on Thursday.

While commentators, politicians and survivors discussed whether Pope Francis’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools was enough, the Pope insisted that reconciliation requires faith, action and the courage to move forward.

“The enemy wants to paralyse us with grief and remorse, to convince us that nothing else can be done, that it is hopeless to try to find a way to start over,” he said during Mass at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.
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When busloads of residential school survivors, elders, knowledge keepers and youth descend on Edmonton and Quebec City to be present as Pope Francis walks on his “penitential pilgrimage,” Cynthia Bunn will be among them. But she didn’t want to be.

The third-generation residential school survivor from Sagkeen First Nation had to be persuaded by St. Boniface Archbishop Albert LeGatt. A member of the parish council at St. Alexander Church, Bunn initially agreed only to co-ordinate Sagkeen’s contribution to the 56 survivors, knowledge keepers and their care-givers from seven First Nations going from St. Boniface to Edmonton. But the archbishop dropped in on Bunn to plead with her.

“But you’re the co-ordinator. I need you there,” Bunn recalled LeGatt saying. “So I reluctantly decided to go.”
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Pope Francis’ July trip to Canada was born out of his meetings with the nations’ Indigenous people and was planned around encounters with them, and if the pope’s words “have value elsewhere,” like throughout the Americas, all the better, said the director of the Vatican press office.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, briefed reporters July 20 about details of the pope’s visit to Canada July 24-29. He said the pope planned to deliver his nine speeches and homilies in Spanish during the trip.

Asked if the choice of Spanish was meant to send a message to other Indigenous peoples of North and South America, who often suffered the same forms of colonization, Bruni said Pope Francis would be speaking to the people he met, but he also knows that his words can offer solace to other Indigenous people and a challenge to the broader society.
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In the days between March 28 and April 1 of this year, a delegation of representatives of the Indigenous peoples of Canada traveled to Rome with some of their bishops for several meetings with Pope Francis. He promised to travel personally to Canada later this summer to continue the dialogue in their “Indigenous territories.”

During the concluding meeting, the pope said, “it is my hope that our meetings during these days will point out new paths to be pursued together, will instill courage and strength, and lead to greater commitment on the local level. Any truly effective process of healing requires concrete actions. In a fraternal spirit, I encourage the Bishops and the Catholic community to continue taking steps toward the transparent search for truth and to foster healing and reconciliation. These steps are part of a journey that can favor the rediscovery and revitalization of your culture, while helping the Church to grow in love, respect and specific attention to your authentic traditions. I wish to tell you that the Church stands beside you and wants to continue journeying with you. Dialogue is the key to knowledge and sharing, and the Bishops of Canada have clearly stated their commitment to continue advancing together with you on a renewed, constructive, fruitful path, where encounters and shared projects will be of great help.”[1]

In these pages we will attempt to briefly outline the context of the journey of truth and reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of Canada, in which the pope is intensely engaged, alongside the Canadian Church.
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Asking for prayers ahead of his visit to Canada July 24-29, Pope Francis described the trip as a “penitential pilgrimage” as part of a commitment to healing and reconciliation with the country’s Indigenous people.

“Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutes, contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation that, in the past, have severely harmed native communities in various ways,” the pope said July 17, referring particularly to the involvement of dioceses and religious orders in running residential schools.

From the 1870s to the 1990s, the Canadian government, usually in partnership with Christian churches, operated a residential school system to which over 150,000 First Nation, Métis and Inuit students were sent. Their language and customs were banned, and they often suffered malnourishment and physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
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Ten days after saying he would name two women to the group that helps him choose bishops, Pope Francis appointed three women to the office.

The Vatican announced July 13 that the pope had named 14 new members of the Dicastery for Bishops.

For the first time ever, the members include women: Sister Raffaella Petrini, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, who is secretary-general of the office governing Vatican City State; French Salesian Sister Yvonne Reungoat, former superior general of the order; and Maria Lia Zervino, an Argentine who is president of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations.

The dicastery is led by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet and is responsible for helping the pope choose bishops for Latin-rite dioceses outside of the church’s mission territories. Members meet twice a month to review dossiers submitted by Vatican nuncios about potential candidates and to vote on the names they recommend to the pope.
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Pope Francis said he plans to meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in September at an interreligious meeting in Kazakhstan. The pope confirmed the meeting in an interview that aired in the United States July 11 on Univision, the Spanish-language network. “We are going to meet in Kazakhstan in September because there is a religious meeting” there that both have promised to attend, he said.

Although the Vatican has not officially announced the visit, Kazakh authorities said the pope confirmed his participation at the Congress of World and Traditional Religions during a Zoom meeting in April with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The interreligious meeting will take place in the capital city, Nur-Sultan, Sept. 14-15.

Despite their opposing views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the pope told Univision that he has “a good relationship” with the Russian patriarch. However, he said, “it is evident that his position is conditioned by his homeland in some way; which is not to say that he is an indecent man. No; God knows each person’s moral responsibilities in the depth of their hearts.”
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The care of the environment and the fight against climate change is not a lofty goal for humanity but a moral imperative, Pope Francis said.

The worsening climate crisis can no longer be ignored, and it is up to all human beings, who were entrusted by God as “stewards of his gift of his creation,” to act, the pope said in a message July 13 to participants at a Vatican conference on climate change.

“Care for our common home, even apart from considerations of the effects of climate change, is not simply a utilitarian endeavour but a moral obligation for all men and women as children of God,” the pope said. “With this in mind, each of us must ask: ‘What kind of world do we want for ourselves and for those who will come after us?’”

The July 13-14 conference, titled “Resilience of People and Ecosystems under Climate Stress,” was sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

According to the academy’s website, the conference aimed to “bring researchers, policymakers and faith leaders together to understand the scientific and societal challenges of climate change and develop solutions for enabling resilient people and resilient ecosystems.”
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Interreligious dialogue is key to preventing “the extremism that, sadly, is a pathology that can appear also in religions,” Pope Francis said in a message to members of a Jewish group engaged in dialogue for more than 50 years.

The pope had been scheduled to meet June 30 with members of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, but the Vatican press office said “a recurrence of knee pain” prevented him from doing so.

Instead, the pope gave the group his prepared remarks.

“Interreligious dialogue is a sign of our times and, I would say, a providential sign, in the sense that God himself, in his wise plan, has inspired, in religious leaders and in many others, the desire to encounter and come to know one another in a way respectful of religious differences,” the pope wrote to the group.

Dialogue, he said, “is a privileged path to the growth of fraternity and peace in our world.”
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The “sense of mystery” and awe Catholics should experience at Mass is not one prompted by Latin or by “creative” elements added to the celebration, but by an awareness of sacrifice of Christ and his real presence in the Eucharist, Pope Francis said.

“Beauty, just like truth, always engenders wonder, and when these are referred to the mystery of God, they lead to adoration,” he wrote in an apostolic letter “on the liturgical formation of the people of God.”

Titled “Desiderio Desideravi” (“I have earnestly desired”), the letter was released June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The title comes from Luke 22:15 when, before the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”

In the letter, Pope Francis insisted that Catholics need to better understand the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council and its goal of promoting the “full, conscious, active and fruitful celebration” of the Mass.

“With this letter I simply want to invite the whole church to rediscover, to safeguard and to live the truth and power of the Christian celebration,” the pope wrote. “I want the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue.”
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In a new interview with a German newspaper, the Vatican’s point man on ecumenical affairs says Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill’s defense of the war in Ukraine amounts to “heresy,” and has fractured the unity of the Orthodox community.

Speaking to German newspaper Würzburg Die Tagespost in an interview that was published Wednesday, June 29, Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that in his opinion, “it is heresy that the patriarch dares to legitimize the brutal and absurd war in Ukraine for pseudo-religious reasons.”

He noted that Kirill in the past has not only defended the war as a protection of Russian security and interests, but he has implied that Russians and Ukrainians share a national unity given the baptism of Grand Duke Vladimir of Kievan Rus’ in 988, after which he declared Christianity the state religion.

In Koch’s view, this vision of unity “is cruelly refuted today: if Russians and Ukrainians emerged from the same baptismal bath, but the Russians today attack the Ukrainians and wage war, then the unity is denied.”
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A papal apology on Indigenous land in Canada is not irrelevant south of the border.

When Pope Francis visits Canada July 24-29, Oneida First Nation activist Daisee Francour and her colleagues at the U.S.-based international Indigenous non-governmental organization Cultural Survival will be paying close attention.

“An apology for one nation, in a way it’s a win for all of our nations,” said Francour. “When I say nation, I mean that as an Indigenous community — not necessarily the nation state or colonial state.

“There’s a huge opportunity, because the Catholic Church is just such an influential institution globally. There’s a huge opportunity to leverage, influence and push nation states like the U.S. government to join this collective process for justice, towards truth and towards healing.”
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Accepting the document, Pope Francis denounced surging anti-Semitism and stressed the importance of “recalling history so it can be of service to the future.”

A 30-member Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) international delegation met with Pope Francis on Wednesday to present a facsimile of an original report authored and signed by Adolf Hitler in which he openly espouses the destruction of the Jewish people by “a government of national strength.”

The facsimile, whose original is displayed at the SWC’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, was presented to His Holiness by SWC founder and CEO Rabbi Marvin Hier and Dawn Arnall, chairwoman of the leading NGO for Jewish human rights.

In Rabbi Hier’s remarks to Pope Francis, the Jewish leader first enumerated the horrific statistics on both sides of the Atlantic, which confirm surging anti-Semitism, including violent hate crimes.

In Pope Francis’ remarks, he responded by thanking the Simon Wiesenthal Center for protecting the memory of the past. Rabbi Hier then spoke about the human rights organization’s namesake, Holocaust survivor turned Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, and how he would react to current events.
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Growing up on Lac Ste. Anne in the 1940s and ’50s, Tony Belcourt remembers a rich and wondrous body of water, teeming with life.

“I go back to the ’40s. We had an abundance of fish, whitefish from the lake. The water was up,” said Belcourt, the former broadcaster and one-time president and CEO of the Metis Nation of Ontario.

When Pope Francis visits the lake this summer, he will be looking at a lake very different from the Lac Ste. Anne of Belcourt’s childhood memories. A 2017 report on the state of Lac Ste. Anne and its sister Isle Lake by the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance raises concerns about blue-green algae blooms, dropping lake levels, agricultural run-off and an environment stressed by power boats and recreation on the lake.

The report names at-risk species for the watershed, including peregrine falcons, western grebe and northern leopard frog, which are classed as “threatened,” and barred owls, black-throated green warbler and trumpeter swans as of “special concern.”
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