SOFIA (CNS): On the day the Bulgarian Orthodox celebrate St. Thomas Sunday and read the gospel about the apostle asking to touch the wounds of the risen Lord, Pope Francis said the divisions within Christianity are “painful lacerations on the body of Christ, which is the Church.”
 
Arriving on May 5 for his visit, the pope was welcomed by the prime minister, Boyko Borissov, before heading for a private meeting at presidential palace with the president, Rumen Rade.
 

VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis lambasted what he called “a fallacious” economic model” that exploits the earth’s resources while disregarding the rights and cultures of indigenous people has left the planet in a precarious condition and requires a change of heart that places the common good before financial gain
 

VATICAN (Agencies): “I wish you to be good bearers of the Word, with the same enthusiasm that we read these days in the Easter stories, where everyone runs. They run to meet and announce the living Word,” Pope Francis told around 160 participants at the International Congress of the Catholic Biblical Federation (CBF), which took place in Rome from April 23 to 26.
 

ROME (CNS): “The main point of the new apostolic constitution is that the Church’s mission is evangelisation. It puts it at the centre of the Church and of everything the Curia does,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India, told the Spanish Catholic weekly, Vida Nueva, in an interview published on April 27.
 

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Happy Easter!
 
Today the Church renews the proclamation made by the first disciples: “Jesus is risen!” And from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, there resounds a call to praise: “Alleluia, Alleluia!” On this morning of Easter, the perennial youth of the Church and of humanity as a whole, I would like to address each of you in the opening words of my recent apostolic exhortation devoted especially to young people:
 

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Marking Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI’s 92nd birthday on April 16, Andrea Tornielli the editorial director of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, insisted what the retired pope recently wrote concerning the clerical sexual abuse crisis (Sunday Examiner, April 21) is essentially what Pope Francis has also said.
 

VATICAN (CNS): At the end of a highly unusual spiritual retreat for the political leaders of warring factions of South Sudan on April 11 held at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, Pope Francis knelt at their feet, begging them to give peace a chance and to be worthy “fathers of the nation.”
 
Unscripted, he said to them, “As a brother, I ask you to remain in peace. I ask you from my heart, let’s go forward. There will be many problems, but do not be afraid.” 
 

MANILA (UCAN): Pope Francis called on Radio Veritas Asia, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 11, to help build “a more just and united society.”
 
In his message, the pontiff expressed hope that the station would pursue its mandate to preach the gospel and be a “channel of love by being the voice of the poor.”
 
Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, papal nuncio to Manila, read the pope’s message during the first day of a week-long celebration at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.

VATICAN (CNS): The life of a young person and the vocation to which God calls each one is holy ground that pastors and parents must respect, nurture and encourage, Pope Francis writes in Christus Vivit (Christ Lives), his new apostolic exhortation, released on April 2.
 

VATICAN (CNS): As is customary, Pope Francis reviewed his March 30 to 31 trip to Morocco, at his general audience on April 3. 
 
“People might ask themselves, ‘Why is it the pope visits Muslims and not just Catholics?’” the pope said.
 
He reminded people that Catholics and Muslims are both “descendants of the same father, Abraham,” and the trip was another step on a journey of “dialogue and encounter with (our) Muslim brothers and sisters.”