POPE RECEIVES PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC OF EQUADOR: CENTRALITY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY

Vatican City, 19 April 2013 (VIS) – This morning in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father received in audience Mr. Rafael Correa Delgado, president of the Republic of Equador. President Correa then met with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B., accompanied by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States.

During the talks, which were held in an atmosphere of cordiality, the Catholic Church's significant contribution in the various sectors of the country's social life and the importance of sincere and permanent dialogue between the Church and the State to address fundamental societal challenges were discussed.

Then, the centrality of social justice and the value of solidarity and subsidiarity in seeking the common good were emphasized. Finally, issues regarding current events in the region, respect for indigenous peoples and their culture, as well as environmental protection were treated.

VATICAN MUSEUMS: BEAUTY TO BE HEARD

Vatican City, 19 April 2013 (VIS) – Beginning 3 May until the end of October (except during the month of August) the Vatican Museums will host 21 evenings of music. Every Friday the Museums will have special hours from 7:30pm until 11:00pm. During these special openings, the music of Brahms, Debussy, Beethoven, Respighi, Piazzolla, Mendelssohn, and others will be offered in the Rooms of Raphael, the Gregorian Museum, the terraces of the Pinacoteca, or the Courtyard of the Pinecone in concerts beginning at 8:30pm and lasting around an hour.

The musical series, entitled “Beauty to be Heard” is the result of a collaboration between the Vatican Museums, the Venaria Real (the Royal Palace of Turin, Italy, a Baroque masterpiece declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and the Giuseppe Verdi National Conservatory of Turin. The initiative was born of the conviction that the Museums and the Venaria Real are not simply collections, architecture, history, or culture from the past, but the ideal meeting place for all those who want to transform art into a passion to be shared. In the "Room of the Signatura" of Raphael's Stanze, two winged cupids in the lunette above the Parnassus Wall—where Apollo, the god of Beauty and Poetry, surrounded by the Muses representing all the Arts, plays a lyre—bear signs reading “Numine afflatur”, inviting us to contemplate that Art, in all its manifestations, is inspired by divinity.

The beauty of music and the beauty of the figurative arts go hand in hand, Raphael says, portraying Apollo at the centre of his celestial court. This unity is what the youth of the Giuseppe Verdi National Conservatory wish to demonstrate in their Friday concerts at the Vatican Museums. The initiative also includes Saturday performances at the Venaria Reale during the summer months.

The Vatican Museums administration has also provided for a series of thematic guided visits on the musical iconography within the Museums. The complete schedule of “Il Bello da Sentire” (Beauty to be Heard) with the information regarding the places where the concerts will take place and details of the guided “musical” visits is available, in Italian, on the Vatican Museum website: www.museivaticani.va.

AUDIENCES

Vatican City, 19 April 2013 (VIS) – Today the Holy Father received:

- His Beatitude Ignace Youssif III Younan, Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrians, Lebanon, and

- His Excellency Mr. Antun Sbutega, ambassador of the Republic of Montenegro, on his farewell visit.

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City, 19 April 2013 (VIS) – Today the Holy Father appointed Fr. Milan Lach, S.J., as auxiliary of the Archeparchy of Presov for Catholics of Byzantine rite (Catholics 123,373, priests 294, permanent deacons 2, religious 126), Slovak Republic. The bishop-elect was born in Kezmarok, Slovakia in 1973 and was ordained a priest in 2001. Since ordination he has served in several pastoral and academic roles, most recently as vice dean for Foreign Relations and Development in the Theology faculty of the University of Trnava, Slovakia. The Holy Father has assigned him the Titular See of Ostracine.

POPE FRANCIS SHARES SORROW OF PLAZA DE MAYO MOTHERS

Vatican City, 18 April 2013 (VIS) - “The Holy Father shares your sorrow, and that of the many mothers and families who have and are suffering the tragic loss of their loved ones at this moment in Argentina's history.” These are the words that the Pope addressed to Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Association of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in a letter dated 10 April and signed by Msgr. Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for the Holy See’s Relations with States.

The Bishop of Rome thus responded to the letter that Hebe de Bonafini sent to him this past 21 March, gladdened by Cardinal Bergoglio's commitment in the “slums” of Buenos Aires and asking him to join with “all those in this unjust world who are fighting for an end to poverty.”

The Pope, writes Msgr. Camilleri, expresses his gratitude for the letter and responds to “your kindness, asking God for the strength for the fight, in the ministry that he has just accepted, for the eradication of poverty in the world, so that the suffering of so many who are in need might cease. His Holiness appreciates and highly esteems those who are close to the most disadvantaged and who make the effort to assist them, understand them, and meet their aspirations. In his prayers, he also asks that those responsible for the common good be enlightened so that they might fight the scourge of poverty with effective, equable, and caring means.”

The letter concludes with the Pope's blessing “as a sign of hope and support, at the same time asking the favour that they pray for and have prayers said for him.”

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an association of Argentinian mothers created in 1977 to denounce the disappearance of their children during the time of the Military Junta that controlled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Since 1977 they have assembled every Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada (the “Pink House”, seat of the Argentinian government) to protest for the crimes committed during that era and to keep alive the memory of the desaparecidos.