Reflection for Feast of Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

"Christians who live in this city are like the river that springs from the temple: they bring a Word of life and of hope that can make fruitful the desert of hearts, just like the stream described in Ezekiel’s vision which fertilizes the Arabah desert and heals the salty and lifeless waters of the Dead Sea. The important thing is that the course of the water leave the temple and flow towards hostile looking lands. The city cannot but rejoice on seeing Christians becoming joyful proclaimers, determined to share with others the treasures of the Word of God and to devote themselves to the common good. The terrain that seemed destined to be arid, reveals an extraordinary potential: it becomes a garden with evergreen trees and leaves and fruit with healing properties. Ezekiel explains the reason for such fruitfulness: 'the water for them flows from the sanctuary' (Ez 47:12). God is the secret of this new life-giving power!"

--Pope Francis, Homily, November 9, 2019

Reflection for the Solemnity of All Saints

"The liturgy invites us to share in the heavenly jubilation of the Saints, to taste their joy. The Saints are not a small caste of chosen souls but an innumerable crowd to which the liturgy urges us to raise our eyes. This multitude not only includes the officially recognized Saints, but the baptized of every epoch and nation who sought to carry out the divine will faithfully and lovingly. We are unacquainted with the faces and even the names of many of them, but with the eyes of faith we see them shine in God's firmament like glorious stars.

"Today, the Church is celebrating her dignity as 'Mother of the Saints, an image of the Eternal City' (A. Manzoni), and displays her beauty as the immaculate Bride of Christ, source and model of all holiness. She certainly does not lack contentious or even rebellious children, but it is in the Saints that she recognizes her characteristic features and precisely in them savors her deepest joy....

"This, then, is the meaning of today's Solemnity: looking at the shining example of the Saints to reawaken within us the great longing to be like them; happy to live near God, in his light, in the great family of God's friends. Being a Saint means living close to God, to live in his family. And this is the vocation of us all, vigorously reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council and solemnly proposed today for our attention."

--Benedict XVI, Homily, November 1, 2006

Quote of the Day

"The operation launched from Gaza and the reaction of the Israeli Army are bringing us back to the worst periods of our recent history. The too many causalities and tragedies, which both Palestinians and Israeli families have to deal with, will create more hatred and division, and will destroy more and more any perspective of stability.

"We call on the international community, the religious leaders in the region and in the world, to make every effort in helping to de-escalate the situation, restore calm and work to guarantee the fundamental rights of people in the region.

"Unilateral declarations surrounding the status of religious sites and places of worship rattle religious sentiment and fuel even more hatred and extremism. It is therefore important to preserve the status quo in all the Holy Places in the Holy Land and in Jerusalem in particular....

"We ask God to inspire world leaders in their intervention for the implementation of peace and concord so that Jerusalem may be a house of prayer for all peoples."

--Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Archbishop of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, October 12, 2023

Quote of the Day

"Today the Church honors Our Lady of the Rosary, a liturgical Memorial that gives me the opportunity to reassert the importance of the prayer of the Rosary, so dear also to my venerable Predecessors. I commend it to you, dear young people, so that it may help you to do God's will and find in the Immaculate Heart of Mary a safe shelter. May it enable you, dear sick people, to experience the comfort of our Heavenly Mother, so that she may sustain you in moments of trial. May the recitation of this prayer be for you, dear newlyweds a daily custom in your family which, thanks to Mary's intercession will thus grow in unity and fidelity to the Gospel."

--Benedict XVI, General Audience, October 7, 2009

Reflection for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

"Brothers and sisters, only the ascent of the cross leads to the goal of glory. This is the way: from the cross to glory. The worldly temptation is to seek glory in bypassing the cross. We would prefer paths that are familiar, direct and smooth, but to encounter the light of Jesus we must continually leave ourselves behind and follow him upwards. The Lord who, as we heard, first “brought Abraham outside” (Gen. 15:5), also invites us to move outwards and upwards."

--Pope Francis, Homily, March 12, 2022

Signs of the Times

Photo by Justin Soutar

by Justin Soutar

In his popular 1966 book What Is It About Virginia?, Norfolk journalist Guy Friddell opined that there is actually a fifth season in between summer and autumn, which is not quite summer and not quite autumn. He wrote that this fifth season, which runs from mid-August to mid-September, is a mysterious period of transition and change in terms of weather and personal schedules. For me, this unique time of year is simply late summer and early autumn combined. The midday sun is getting lower in the sky and early morning temperatures are often chilly, but daytime readings can still be warm or even hot. Rainfall has noticeably declined, but occasional showers and thunderstorms still visit our area. Some tree leaves are turning color and falling, but most are still green. The growth of grass and weeds has nearly plateaued, but no frosts have yet destroyed them. Several of my garden crops are finished for the year, but several others are still producing vegetables. Some birds have already migrated south, but most are still here. Squirrels and deer are everywhere.

This beautiful and special time of year is a gift from our Creator. He has designed the earth and the solar system in such a way that there are gradual transitions between not only summer and autumn, but also autumn and winter, winter and spring, and spring and summer. These significant month-long overlaps between seasons allow earth's creatures valuable time to adjust, mentally and physically, to the different weather and climate of the approaching season. Without this gentle transition period, life on earth would be much more stressful and difficult if it could survive at all. Signs of the next season unfailingly appear towards the end of the current season as if to remind us that time is marching on. 

In today's overly busy and hyper-stressed world, an increasingly large number of people are so caught up in the performance of daily tasks that they no longer pay attention to signs of gradual change in the big picture in society, culture, education, the economy, politics, law, international relations, etc. However, our Lord Jesus Christ has summoned us, his followers, to pay attention to the signs of the times and to relate the truth of the Gospel to them. There is no shortage of such signs in our country and our world today. We just need to take a candid look at them and where they are pointing in the light of God's unchanging eternal reality, then respond with prayer and action as Christ calls us to do in our hearts and through the guidance of his Church.

Copyright 2023 Justin D. Soutar.

Quote of the Day

"When it is considered how short is the span of human life, does it really matter to a man whose days are numbered what government he must obey, so long as he is not compelled to act against God or his conscience?"

--Saint Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book V, Chapter 17

Quote of the Day

"The questions you have within you, the important ones that concern  your dreams, affections, greatest desires, hopes and the meaning of life: do not keep them to  yourselves but bring them to Jesus. Call him by name, as he does with you. Address your questions  to him, entrusting to him your secrets, your loved ones, your joys and concerns, and also the problems  of your nations and the world. Then you will discover something new and surprising: that when you  ask the Lord, when you open your hearts to him each day, when you really pray, your interior lives  are transformed."

--Pope Francis, Address to Youth, Lisbon, Portugal, August 3, 2023

Quote of the Day

"I am convinced that the destruction of transcendence is actually the mutilation of man from which all the other sicknesses spring."

--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), 1927--2022

Quote of the Day

"When the people broke the covenant, God appeared to Moses in the cloud to renew that pact, proclaiming His Name and its meaning... God is not far away and closed in Himself, but He is Life that wills to communicate itself, He is openness, He is Love that rescues man from infidelity. God is “merciful,” “compassionate,” and “rich in grace” because He offers Himself to us to fill our limitations and our failings, to forgive our errors, to bring us back to the way of justice and of truth."

--Pope Francis, Angelus Address, June 11, 2017

Quote of the Day

“We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

--Ronald Reagan (1911--2004), U.S. President, 1981--89

Reflection for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

"In the second reading, we hear the words of Paul who, looking back on his whole life, says: 'I have fought the good fight' (2 Tim 4:7). The Apostle is referring to the countless situations, some marked by persecution and suffering, in which he did not spare himself in preaching the Gospel of Jesus. Now at the end of his life, he sees that a great “fight” is still taking place in history, since many are not disposed to accept Jesus, preferring to pursue their own interests and follow other teachers, more accommodating, easier, more to our liking. Paul has fought his own battles and, now that he has run his race, he asks Timothy and the brethren of the community to carry on his work with watchful care, preaching and teaching. Each, in a word, is to accomplish the mission he or she has received; each must do his or her part."

--Pope Francis, Homily, June 29, 2022

Quote of the Day

"For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them."

--Saint Thomas More

Marching for Life in the Post-Roe Era

by Justin Soutar
June 21, 2023

On February 1, 2023, I was among many thousands of faith-filled people of all ages, races, and backgrounds from across the Old Dominion and neighboring states who converged on Richmond for the Virginia March for Life. While the great majority of participants in this annual demonstration were my fellow Catholics, including hundreds of brother Knights of Columbus, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, there were many hundreds of people from other Christian denominations as well, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. It was also an overwhelmingly younger crowd, with a large number of enthusiastic teenagers and young adults present. Despite our differences, we were all gathered for a single purpose: to respectfully demand that Virginia lawmakers protect the God-given right to life of innocent unborn children in the Commonwealth. 

Photo by Justin Soutar

It has been a year since the U.S. Supreme Court finally rectified its erroneous and infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the horrific practice of abortion in all fifty states and resulted in the tragic murder of more than sixty million unborn children during a forty-nine-year period. While the pro-life movement in the United States grew dramatically in the following decades, with tens of millions of believers consistently praying and advocating for Roe's reversal and most states enacting various effective restrictions on abortion access, we were not entirely prepared for the Dobbs v. Jackson decision and how to proceed in its wake.

This lack of a unified and coherent plan for the post-Roe era was reflected in the variety of opinions and responses to Dobbs. Some pro-life leaders insisted that the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. should continue to be held even though its goal of ending Roe had been achieved. Others favored shifting the movement's activism efforts to the state legislatures. And still others argued that pro-life activism should continue at both the federal and state government levels. Similarly, some parishes and Catholic colleges sent busloads of parishioners and students to the March for Life in our nation's capital; others sent buses to the March for Life in their state capitals; and still others participated in both the national and state demonstrations.

Meanwhile, although the abortion cartel led by Planned Parenthood was considerably less prepared for Dobbs than the pro-life movement was, it quickly adapted to the new legal situation to protect its bottom line, shifting its deadly operations to states with permissive abortion laws and convincing (bribing?) the FDA to allow the abortifacient drug Mifeprex (formerly UR-486) to be distributed over the counter to pregnant women in all fifty states via retail pharmacies and the U.S. Postal System in clear violation of federal drug safety guidelines.

Photo by Justin Soutar

Considering that the Dobbs decision returned the abortion issue to the American people and their elected representatives at the state level, it makes perfect sense that pro-life efforts in the state governments, including electing pro-life representatives and governors and enacting pro-life legislation, should be intensified in order to restrict and ban abortion in as many states as possible. This will significantly reduce the number of unborn baby killings nationwide, allowing us to make good progress toward our goal of eliminating legalized abortion throughout the United States. But we simply cannot reach that goal through state-level activism alone because certain states will continue to keep abortion legal. 

The inalienable right to life of each innocent person is affirmed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, although neither document specifies when life begins because no one knew at the time. Far more importantly, abortion is a direct violation of the Creator's natural law and basic human rights regardless of anyone's beliefs or opinions about it, so the question of whether or not it should be legal cannot simply be left to the whims of each state legislature's vote and each governor's signature or veto.

Federal legislation will ultimately be necessary to eradicate this scourge from our nation once and for all. In his famous 1983 "Evil Empire" address, U.S. President Ronald Reagan predicted that legislation to end the abortion tragedy would someday pass Congress. There is, in fact, just such a piece of legislation called the Life at Conception Act, introduced by Senator Rand Paul, that would enshrine the right to life of the unborn child into federal law. The pro-life movement should unify behind this Act and get it passed and signed into law.

All things considered, this author believes that the American pro-life movement should be waging a two-front campaign at the state and federal government levels to end the slaughter of the unborn. The long-running March for Life in Washington should continue for as many years as is necessary until the Life at Conception Act becomes the law of the land, but the route should be altered to end at the U.S. Capitol building instead of the Supreme Court. In the meantime, every state should have an annual March for Life demonstration in its capital city to push for an end to legalized abortion in that state. Let's keep praying and marching for life until we win!

Copyright 2023 Justin D. Soutar.

Quote of the Day

"For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our flesh and blood is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus."

--Saint Justin, First Apology, no. 66, circa A.D. 155

Quote of the Day

"Just like Mary, the Woman, so too the beloved disciple is both a historical figure and a type for discipleship as it will always exist and must always exist. It is to the disciple, a true disciple in loving communion with the Lord, that the Woman is entrusted: Mary--the Church.

"These words spoken by Jesus as he hung upon the Cross continue to be fulfilled in many concrete ways. They are constantly repeated to both mother and disciple, and each person is called to relive them in his own life, as the Lord has allotted. Again and again the disciple is asked to take Mary as an individual and as the Church into his own home and, thus, to carry out Jesus' final instruction."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), p. 222

Quote of the Day

"In the world in which we presently live, however, that passionate quest of a politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations seems a wistful memory from a distant past. We seem to be witnessing the sorry sunset of that choral dream of peace, as the soloists of war now take over....

"Peace will never come as the result of the pursuit of individual strategic interests, but only from policies capable of looking to the bigger picture, to the development of everyone: policies that are attentive to individuals, to the poor and to the future, and not merely to power, profit and present prospects.

"At this historical juncture, Europe is crucial, for thanks to its history, it represents the memory of humanity; in this sense, it is called to take up its proper role, which is to unite those far apart, to welcome other peoples and to refuse to consider anyone an eternal enemy. It is vital, then, to recover the European spirit: the excitement and vision of its founders, who were statesmen able to look beyond their own times, beyond national boundaries and immediate needs, and to generate forms of diplomacy capable of pursuing unity, not aggravating divisions."

--Pope Francis, Address to Government, Diplomats and Civil Society, Budapest, Hungary, April 28, 2023

Reflection for the Octave of Easter

"At times, we may simply feel weary about our daily routine, tired of taking risks in a cold, hard world where only the clever and the strong seem to get ahead. At other times, we may feel helpless and discouraged before the power of evil, the conflicts that tear relationships apart, the attitudes of calculation and indifference that seem to prevail in society, the cancer of corruption — there is so much — the spread of injustice, the icy winds of war. Then too, we may have come face to face with death, because it robbed us of the presence of our loved ones or because we brushed up against it in illness or a serious setback. Then it is easy to yield to disillusionment, once the wellspring of hope has dried up. ....

"This, then, is what the Pasch of the Lord accomplishes: it motivates us to move forward, to leave behind our sense of defeat, to roll away the stone of the tombs in which we often imprison our hope, and to look with confidence to the future, for Christ is risen and has changed the direction of history. Yet, to do this, the Pasch of the Lord takes us back to the grace of our own past; it brings us back to Galilee, where our love story with Jesus began, where that first call was. In other words, it asks us to relive that moment, that situation, that experience in which we met the Lord, experienced His love, and received a radiantly new way of seeing ourselves, the world around us, and the mystery of life itself.

"Brothers and sisters, to rise again, to start anew, to take up the journey, we always need to return to Galilee, that is, to go back, not to an abstract or ideal Jesus, but to the living, concrete, and palpable memory of our first encounter with Him. Yes, brothers and sisters, to go forward we need to go back, to remember; to have hope, we need to revive our memory. This is what we are asked to do: to remember and go forward! If you recover that first love, the wonder and joy of your encounter with God, you will keep advancing. So remember, and keep moving forward."

--Pope Francis, Homily, April 8, 2023

Reflection for the Paschal Triduum

"Jesus goes forth into the night. Night signifies lack of communication, a situation where people do not see one another. It is a symbol of incomprehension, of the obscuring of truth. It is the place where evil, which has to hide before the light, can grow. Jesus himself is light and truth, communication, purity and goodness. He enters into the night. Night is ultimately a symbol of death, the definitive loss of fellowship and life. Jesus enters into the night in order to overcome it and to inaugurate the new Day of God in the history of humanity....

"We think we are free and truly ourselves only if we follow our own will. God appears as the opposite of our freedom. We need to be free of him – so we think – and only then will we be free. This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. When human beings set themselves against God, they set themselves against the truth of their own being and consequently do not become free, but alienated from themselves. We are free only if we stand in the truth of our being, if we are united to God. Then we become truly “like God” – not by resisting God, eliminating him, or denying him. In his anguished prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom, and opened the path to freedom. Let us ask the Lord to draw us into this “yes” to God’s will, and in this way to make us truly free."

--Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, April 5, 2012

Ten Years with Francis, the Misunderstood Pope

by Justin Soutar
March 30, 2023

Following the surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013 for age and health reasons, few observers were anticipating the quick election of 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as his successor. As the first pontiff from Latin America, the first Jesuit, and the first to take the name of Saint Francis of Assisi, he was a newcomer, a teacher, and a reformer. Francis brought to the Petrine office a fresh perspective, a humble and engaging personality, a simple and clear way of preaching and teaching the Catholic faith, and a frugal lifestyle reflecting Gospel values. With his winning combination of personal warmth, simplicity of life, emphasis on divine mercy, and charitable outreach to the poor and marginalized, he immediately captured the hearts of hundreds of millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike across the globe.

Building upon and continuing the work of his great predecessors Pope Saint Paul VI, Pope Saint John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, Francis has consistently striven to shed the light of the perennial truths of Christ and His Church through the lens of the Second Vatican Council onto the complex situation of the twenty-first century world. Through his homilies, addresses, apostolic exhortations, encyclicals, canon law reforms, the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Year of Saint Joseph, and the three Synods on the Family, the Amazon, and on Participation, Communion, and Mission, he has strengthened and equipped believers to face contemporary issues with the power of Gospel truth; made official Church business more transparent and accountable; and has summoned the whole Church to listen more carefully and respond more effectively to a great variety of pastoral challenges. Furthermore, he successfully navigated the Church through the unexpected and difficult storm of the COVID-19 pandemic and the initial worldwide lockdown in response to it.

Unfortunately, less than two years after his election, the initial widespread enthusiasm with which Pope Francis was received had dissolved into heated controversy, unfair criticism, inane conspiracy theories, and frank disillusionment regarding his character and intentions among large numbers of people both within and outside of the Church, for opposing reasons. His “progressive” style and emphasis, including his elevation to the Curia of some bishops with incomplete fidelity to Church teaching and his call in Amoris Laetitia for a new pastoral approach to some irregular marital situations, has led many faithful and traditionalist Catholics to view him through a “hermeneutic of rupture” as a wild-eyed radical who is bent on distorting Church doctrine and discipline beyond recognition and who was elected through the machinations of a secret group of cardinals for this very purpose. Meanwhile, many heretics and radical secularists who had expected Francis to remake the Church in their own image were profoundly disappointed to find him upholding traditional Church teachings on abortion, marriage, and the devil and publicly rebuking the wayward German synod.

It’s a shame that influential and otherwise faithful Catholic media outlets such as the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and Inside the Vatican magazine have turned themselves into platforms for slanderous attacks on, and unjust criticisms of, Pope Francis by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano and other chronically negative commentators. By frequently zeroing in on a handful of Francis’ vague or unclear words and actions, magnifying their controversial aspects, and ignoring the larger context while conspicuously failing to recognize his personal holiness and the many remarkable accomplishments of his papacy, they are presenting to hundreds of millions of people a heavily biased, distorted, and inaccurate picture of Francis and his reign, thus harming the Church by fueling confusion and division within her and by alienating large numbers of the faithful from their own shepherd. This is not only irresponsible journalism, it is unjust and uncharitable and a tragic disservice to the truth. No wonder that the Holy Father has publicly referred to such incessant criticism as “the work of the devil”!

Many faithful Catholics now erroneously view Benedict XVI as a good pope loyal to tradition and Francis as a bad pope disloyal to it, conveniently brushing aside the facts that Benedict himself as Pope Emeritus explicitly rejected this narrative on multiple occasions as entirely baseless, remained a close friend and confidant of Francis, and frequently renewed his pledge of fidelity and obedience to the Jesuit pontiff. But even apart from Benedict’s unwavering support for his successor--not to mention the sadly neglected doctrine of papal infallibility--when one looks objectively at the totality of Francis’ public words and actions during his ten years as the Vicar of Christ to date, it becomes abundantly evident that the “hermeneutic of rupture” has no logical foundation whatsoever.

Thankfully, the majority of Catholics worldwide still correctly view Francis as the good, simple, holy, hardworking, Christ-like pope that he has been and appreciate the many blessings and graces God has bestowed on the Church through his generally wise and capable leadership. While there is certainly room for respectful criticism regarding some aspects and decisions of his administration, for the most part Francis has served as an exemplary Successor of Saint Peter. History will probably judge his pontificate favorably, and he will likely be fondly remembered long after his harshest critics have vanished into obscurity. Christ too was misunderstood and criticized by some of the religious leaders of his day for reaching out to those on the margins of society. Yet the Church he founded on Peter and the apostles has endured through two thousand years and has survived many grave problems because he and the Holy Spirit have remained with her and have protected her from teaching error. The self-assured critics of Francis on both sides seem unaware that the Church and the papacy are divine institutions.

Copyright © 2023 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

"What does it mean to have the true light, to walk in the light? First of all it means abandoning false lights: the cold, vain light of prejudice against others, because prejudice distorts reality and ladens us with aversion to those whom we judge without mercy and condemn without appeal. This is our daily bread! When you gossip about others, you do not walk in the light, you walk in shadows. Another false light, because it is seductive and ambiguous, is that of self-interest: if we value men and things on the basis of usefulness to us, of pleasure, of prestige, we are not truthful in our relationships and situations. If we go down this path of seeking self-interest, we are walking in shadows.

"May the Blessed Virgin, who was the first to welcome Jesus, the Light of the World, obtain for us this grace of welcoming anew the light of faith this Lent, rediscovering the inestimable gift of Baptism, which all of us have received. And may this new illumination transform us in attitude and action, so that we too, beginning with our poverty, our narrow-mindedness, may be bearers of a ray of the light of Christ."

--Pope Francis, Angelus Address, March 26, 2017

Quote of the Day

"During this liturgical season, the Lord takes us with Him to a place apart. While our ordinary commitments compel us to remain in our usual places and our often repetitive and sometimes boring routines, during Lent we are invited to ascend “a high mountain” in the company of Jesus and to live a particular experience of spiritual discipline —ascesis— as God’s holy people. Lenten penance is a commitment, sustained by grace, to overcoming our lack of faith and our resistance to following Jesus on the way of the Cross."

--Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2023

Quote of the Day

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it."

--U.S. President George Washington (1732--1799), Farewell Address, 1796

Quote of the Day

"History is not history unless it's the truth."

--Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Day

"The Congo is like a diamond, for her nature, her resources, and especially for her people; but this diamond has become a source of contention, of violence, and paradoxically of the impoverishment of the people. It is a dynamic that is also found in other African regions, and which applies in general to the Continent... In the face of all this I said two words. The first is negative: 'Enough!' Stop exploiting Africa!... The second is positive: together, together with dignity, all together, and with mutual respect, together in the name of Christ, our hope, to go forward. Do not exploit, and go forward together."

--Pope Francis, General Audience, February 8, 2023