Let us pray that “the lay faithful, especially women, may participate more in institutions of responsibility in the Church, without falling into clericalism that nullifies the lay charism.” This was Pope Francis reflection after the Angelus, when he also appealed for a ”resumption” of the truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan and recalled the beatification of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, indicating him as a “model” for today’s young people.
Pope Francis recited the Marian prayer together with a few thousand people present in St Peter’s Square on a drizzly Sunday on Oct. 11. Commenting on that day’s Gospel passage on the parable of the wedding banquet, the Pope underlined that twice in the story, the king’s servants are sent to call the guests “but they refuse, they don’t want to go to the celebration, because they have other things to think about.”
Pope Francis underlined that “often we too put our interests and material things before the Lord who calls us. But the king of the parable does not want the room to remain empty, because he wishes to donate the treasures of his kingdom and extends the invitation to even the most distant, “without excluding anyone,” because “no one is excluded from the house of God.” The king in fact says: “Call everyone, good and bad. Everyone.” “God calls the bad, too.”
In this way the Church too “is called to reach today’s crossroads, that is, the geo-graphical and existential peripheries of humanity,” all those places where “shreds of humanity without hope” live. “It is a question of not settling on the comfortable and habitual ways of evangelization and witness to charity, but of opening the doors of our hearts and of our communities to all, because the Gospel is not reserved for a select few. Even those who are marginalized, even those who are rejected and despised by society, are considered by God worthy of His love.”
It was after the Angelus that Francis said he “appreciated that a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons was agreed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with a view to reaching a substantial peace agreement. Although the truce proves to be too fragile, I encourage it to be resumed and I express my participation in the pain of the loss of human lives, the suffering, as well as the destruction of homes and places of worship. I pray and invite you to pray for the victims and for all those whose life is in danger.”