Vatican City: Pope Francis has put Satan in his place, citing the devil repeatedly in a new document following a Vatican rebuke last month of a journalist who quoted him as saying hell does not exist.

In the document known as an Apostolic Exhortation called Gaudete et Exsultate , (Rejoice and Be Glad), the pope also bewails the amount of defamation and slander spread online by some Roman Catholic bloggers and Twitter users.

Satan gets more than a dozen mentions in the document as Francis talks about how life can be "a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil".

"Hence, we should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea. This mistake would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable."

Francis refers to the "wiles of the devil", "the spirit of the devil", "keeping the devil at bay", how to "banish the devil", and "snares and temptations of the devil". </s> VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has put Satan in his place, citing the devil repeatedly in a document published on Monday following a Vatican rebuke last month of a journalist who quoted him as saying hell does not exist.

Pope Francis arrives to lead a Holy Mass to mark the feast of Divine Mercy in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican April 8, 2018. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

In the document known as an Apostolic Exhortation called “Gaudete et Exsultate,” (Rejoice and Be Glad), the pope also bewails the amount of defamation and slander spread online by some Roman Catholic bloggers and Twitter users.

Satan gets more than a dozen mentions in the document as Francis talks about how life can be “a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil”.

He continues in the same section: “Hence, we should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea. This mistake would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable.”

Francis refers to the “wiles of the devil”, “the spirit of the devil”, “keeping the devil at bay”, how to “banish the devil”, and “snares and temptations of the devil”.

On March 29, the Vatican felt compelled to reaffirm the existence of hell after Eugenio Scalfari, 93, an avowed atheist who has struck up an intellectual friendship with Francis, wrote that the pope had told him that “A Hell doesn’t exist”.

Scalfari prides himself on not taking notes and not using tape recorders, “reconstructing” encounters later in articles.

Ironically, Francis did mention hell in Monday’s document - in a section that warned against “unguarded tongues” in the media.

In it, he referred to online hate in the Catholic media, which is predominately present on right-wing, conservative blogs and Twitter handles that often use strong language to criticize liberal Catholics and even the pope himself.

“Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned,” Francis said.

“It is striking that at times, in claiming to uphold the other commandments, they completely ignore the eighth, which forbids bearing false witness or lying, and ruthlessly vilify others. Here we see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze,” he said, paraphrasing a passage from the Bible. </s> Vatican City, April 9 - Pope Francis has said that the Internet is often a home to dangerous "verbal violence" in his new Apostolic Exhortation, which was released on Monday, adding that Catholic sites are not immune. "Christians too can be caught up in networks of verbal violence through the internet and the various forums of digital communication," the pope said in 'Gaudete ed Exsultate' - a call for holiness in today's world. "Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned. "The result is a dangerous dichotomy, since things can be said there that would be unacceptable in public discourse, and people look to compensate for their own discontent by lashing out at others. "It is striking that at times, in claiming to uphold the other commandments, they completely ignore the eighth, which forbids bearing false witness or lying, and ruthlessly vilify others. "Here we see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze". </s> The “malign power” of Satan is always in our midst, Pope Francis has asserted in a new teaching letter, and “poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice.”

The pope is a firm believer in the devil and has repeatedly asserted that he is not a fairy tale character but a being who exists and who constantly works to try to separate people from God.

Satan is not “a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea,” Francis wrote in his letter called Gaudete et Exsultate (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), and falling into this mistake “would lead us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable.”

“When we let down our guard, he takes advantage of it to destroy our lives, our families and our communities,” he said. “Like a roaring lion, he prowls around, looking for someone to devour,” he added, quoting from the New Testament first letter of Peter.

Acknowledging the existence of the devil is essential, the pontiff insisted, because the spiritual warfare Christians fight is not merely “a battle against the world and a worldly mentality” or a “struggle against our human weaknesses and proclivities.”

“It is also a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil,” he said.

In modern times, certain scripture scholars have downplayed the existence of Satan in the bible, suggesting that certain physical ailments with natural causes were frequently attributed to diabolical assault in the bible.

While acknowledging this, the pope asserted that such an explanation still does no tell the whole story.

“True enough, the biblical authors had limited conceptual resources for expressing certain realities, and in Jesus’ time epilepsy, for example, could easily be confused with demonic possession,” he said. “Yet this should not lead us to an oversimplification that would conclude that all the cases related in the Gospel had to do with psychological disorders and hence that the devil does not exist or is not at work.”

To understand the action of Satan, it is necessary to overcome the prejudices of scientific materialism, which only accepts the existence of physical realities that can be seen, weighed, and measured.

“We will not admit the existence of the devil if we insist on regarding life by empirical standards alone, without a supernatural understanding,” he wrote. “It is precisely the conviction that this malign power is present in our midst that enables us to understand how evil can at times have so much destructive force.”

Curiously, while forcefully reasserting his belief in the existence of the devil, the pope continues to be silent regarding the existence of hell, which has stoked rumors that he does not believe in eternal punishment for human beings who commit grave evils and die unrepentant.

A recent article in the Italian press sparked uproar and outrage when the former director of a major Italian daily said that in a meeting the pope had told him outright that he does not believe in hell.

Asked by the 93-year-old journalist Eugenio Scalfari, former director of La Repubblica, what he thought about the fate of souls who died in sin, the pope reportedly denied both hell and the immortality of the human soul.

“They are not punished. Those who repent obtain God’s forgiveness and enter the rank of the souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent, and cannot therefore be forgiven, disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls,” the pope is reported as saying.

The confusion was aggravated by a pseudo-denial of the report by the Vatican press office, which only said that Scalfari had not quoted the pope verbatim. It did not refute the gist of the story but rather the wording, which confirmed in the minds of some people that the pontiff had probably said something very similar to what was reported by Scalfari.

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis has often spoken of the reality of the devil in the clearest of terms.

He has spoken less of hell, although some of his statements would seem to indicate that he does believe in hell, or at least the possibility of hell.

In his message for Lent 2015, for instance, Francis wrote that “the danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is Hell.”

In November of the following year, the pope reflected during a homily warned Christians that “if you do not take care of your heart,” and “you always live far away from the Lord, perhaps there is the danger, the danger of continuing in this way, far away from the Lord for eternity. This is very bad!”

And in launching a powerful appeal to mafia bosses, Francis fired a shot across the bow that hell was a real possibility for them.

“The power, the money, that you possess now from so many dirty transactions, from so many mafia crimes, is blood-stained money, it is power soaked in blood, and you cannot take it with you to the next life,” he said.

“Convert, there is still time, so that you don’t end up in hell.”

For its part, the Catholic Church unambiguously affirms the existence of hell, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that immediately after death, “the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire.’”

“The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs,” it reads. </s> A journalist reads Pope Francis' new apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate at a Vatican press conference April 9, 2018. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

In Gaudete et Exsultate, the Holy Father offers guidance on the many paths to sanctity in today’s world.

Pope Francis has issued a long apostolic exhortation on holiness in today’s world, in which he emphasizes the universal call to sanctity, highlights the pitfalls to achieving it, and recalls that the Christian life is one of constant battle against the devil and the forces of evil.

Running at just over 22,000 words, Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad) — The Call to Holiness in Today’s World — contains many themes the Holy Father has repeated over the past five years: an emphasis on the importance of discernment, warnings against Gnosticism and neo-Pelagianism, rigidity, doing things as they have always been done, an excessive emphasis on doctrine, and gossip.

He quotes the late Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini and the Swiss theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar in the text, but also draws on the example of many saints, including St. Bonaventure, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony of Padua, and singles out women saints such as St. Hildegard of Bingen, St Bridget and St. Catherine of Siena.

The document is rich in guidance on how to answer the call to holiness in a world filled with distractions, consumerism and hedonism. Frequently, the Pope stresses the importance of prayer and worship, but gives greater emphasis to acts of love and mercy toward one’s neighbor, especially the poor and those on the periphery.

In one particularly notable section, the Pope stresses that “equally sacred” to defending the lives of the unborn are the lives of the poor, the elderly exposed to “covert euthanasia” and those facing “every form of rejection.”

As with every apostolic exhortation or letter, the document begins with its title: “Rejoice and be glad” — Jesus’ words to those persecuted or humiliated for his sake.

“The Lord asks everything of us, and in return he offers us true life, the happiness for which we were created,” the Pope begins. “He wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence,” and he reminds the faithful that the call to holiness “is present in various ways from the very first pages of the Bible.”

In light of this, the Pope says his “modest goal” is to “re-propose the call to holiness in a practical way for our own time, with all its risks, challenges and opportunities. For the Lord has chosen each one of us ‘to be holy and blameless before him in love.’”

The first chapter outlines the essence of the call to holiness. The Pope stresses that the Holy Spirit “bestows holiness in abundance among God’s holy and faithful people,” not just the beatified, canonized, prelates, clergy or religious, but the “saints next door” — “the middle class of holiness.” Often, he says, holiness is shown through patience, such as parents who raise their children “with immense love” or “work hard” to support their families.

Besides making the point that holiness exists “even outside the Catholic Church,” he says that each believer has to “discern” his or her own path to sanctity and that St. John of the Cross “preferred to avoid hard and fast rules for all.” He also stresses the “genius of woman” seen in “feminine styles of holiness,” witnessed especially in times of history when “women tended to be most ignored or overlooked” and whose sanctity led to “important reforms” in the Church.

Holiness is not restricted to those who “spend much time in prayer,” he goes on, and argues that it is “not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others, to want peace and quiet while avoiding activity, to seek prayer while disdaining service.”

Instead, the Pope stresses that the call to holiness can also be answered through “small gestures,” such as refusal to succumb to the temptation to gossip. “Holiness is nothing other than charity lived to the full,” he adds, and “giving your best” in committing yourself “body and soul.”

He notes the constant distractions of “new gadgets,” travel and consumerism, asking how we can “stop this rat race” and recover the personals space for “heartfelt dialogue with God.” Quoting Cardinal Martini, he says finding that space may not happen unless “we see ourselves staring into the abyss of a frightful temptation, or have the dizzying sensation of standing on the precipice of utter despair, or find ourselves completely alone and abandoned.”

As he has said before, the Pope calls on the faithful not to be “afraid of holiness” and adds that “to the extent that each Christian grows in holiness, he or she will bear greater fruit for our world.”

He highlights two “subtle enemies” of sanctity — gnosticism and pelagianism. Although the Pope says Placuit Deo, a document on the subject by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued in February, provides the “doctrinal bases” for these heresies, he broadens the definitions considerably, saying gnostics today “judge others based on their ability to understand the complexity of certain doctrines.” They also “reduce Jesus’ teaching to a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything.”

“When somebody has an answer for every question, it is a sign that they are not on the right road,” he says. “They may well be false prophets, who use religion for their own purposes, to promote their own psychological or intellectual theories.” He also warns against believing that knowledge of doctrine makes one “perfect and better than the ‘ignorant masses.’”

On contemporary pelagianism, the Pope warns against telling the weak that “all things can be accomplished with God’s grace” while giving the idea that “all things are possible by the human will” and failing to realize “that ‘not everyone can do everything.’” The “new pelagians,” he continues, have an “obsession with the law,” a “punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige,” and “give excessive importance to certain rules,” rather than wishing to spread the “beauty and joy of the Gospel and seeking out the lost.”

“May the Lord set the Church free from these new forms of gnosticism and pelagianism that weigh her down and block her progress along the path to holiness!” he says.

In Chapter 3, the Pope recalls Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in showing the way towards holiness. In a sub-chapter entitled “Going Against the Flow,” he lists each of the beatitudes, highlighting that holiness is manifested in being poor of heart, meekness and humility, knowing how to mourn with others, yearning for righteousness, keeping a heart free of all that tarnishes love, sowing peace, and accepting the path of slander and lies — the modern persecution of today.

In a further subchapter called “The Great Criterion,” the Pope underlines the importance of imitating the Good Samaritan, but warns against ideologies such as those which view some social-justice work “as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist.”

“Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate,” he says. “Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.”

He also criticizes some Catholics who often view the situation of migrants as “a secondary issue” compared to “the ‘grave’ bioethical questions,” and he cites scriptural references underlining the importance of welcoming the stranger.

Again, the Pope stresses the importance of acts of mercy, saying that although “primacy belongs to our relationship with God,” one should not “forget that the ultimate criterion on which our lives will be judged is what we have done for others.”

He also warns against “hedonism and consumerism,” which “can prove our downfall” and lead to our being “too concerned about ourselves and our rights.” The answer, he says, is to “cultivate a certain simplicity of life, resisting the feverish demands of a consumer society.”

He lists five “great expressions” of love for God and neighbor that will make us “genuinely happy” as perseverance, patience and meekness; joy and a sense of humor; boldness and passion; being in community; and constant prayer.

The last chapter is given to spiritual combat, and he reminds the faithful that the Christian life “is a constant battle,” but adds that this battle “is sweet, for it allows us to rejoice each time the Lord triumphs in our lives.” He also stresses that this battle is not just against “the world and a worldly mentality” or “human weakness,” but “a constant struggle against the devil.”

The devil is not “a myth,” he says, adding that he “does not need to possess us,” but simply “poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice.” Those who fail to realize it is a constant battle “will be prey to failure or mediocrity,” he adds, stressing that the Lord has given us “powerful weapons” to fight the devil such as “faith-filled prayer, meditation on the word of God, the celebration of Mass, Eucharistic adoration, sacramental reconciliation, works of charity, community life, missionary outreach.”

He goes on to warn against “spiritual corruption,” which he describes as a “comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness” where all appears acceptable: “deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centredness, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

Pope Francis ends by returning to his common theme of discernment, which he says is “something more than intelligence or common sense.” It is a gift, he says, which we must implore and seek to develop through prayer, reflection, reading and good counsel.

“Discernment is necessary not only at extraordinary times,” he says, adding that only if we are prepared to listen do we have the freedom to set aside our own partial or insufficient ideas, our usual habits and ways of seeing things.

“Naturally, this attitude of listening entails obedience to the Gospel,” he says, but it is “not a matter of applying rules or repeating what was done in the past, since the same solutions are not valid in all circumstances and what was useful in one context may not prove so in another.”

“The discernment of spirits liberates us from rigidity, which has no place before the perennial “today” of the Risen Lord,” the Pope says.

The Pope closes the document, released on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, which was transferred to today due to Palm Sunday, by asking that these reflections “be crowned by Mary, because she lived the beatitudes of Jesus as none other” and because she “teaches us the way of holiness and she walks ever at our side.” </s> Is it true? Did the Pope actually say that there is no hell?

That's what some news sources reported. Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist journalist who recently interviewed the Pope, is where the claim originated. Scalfari said the pontiff told him that unbelievers don't go to hell, hell doesn't exist, instead, their souls are annihilated.

"Those who repent obtain God's forgiveness and go among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot be forgiven disappear. There is no hell – there is the disappearance of sinful souls," the Pope allegedly claimed.

Other news sources, however, report that the Vatican is claiming Scalfari's piece is unreliable and not a faithful transcription of the Pope's words.

Whatever the case, Scalfari's article in La Repubblica, has much of the world speculating. Conservative radio political pundit, Rush Limbaugh, speculates the Pope is really a left-winger and actually trying to mingle his own leftist personal views with church doctrine. Other media spokespersons argue some version of the same and claim Pope Francis is unwilling to enter into a long battle within the church over the doctrine of hell, but this is one clever way he can incrementally chip away at the view. Until the Pope himself is willing to clearly distance himself from Scalfari's claims, they argue it leaves the Pope suspect.

One thing not given to speculation though is the Catholic Church's teaching on hell – a view that is not consistent with the belief that the ultimate judgment of unbelievers is the annihilation of their souls.

Catholic teaching says, "[T]he church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death, the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, 'eternal fire.' The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation of God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs."

The Bible, which is the Word of God, should be the sole authority on the subject of hell. Its claims on the subject are abundantly clear. Psalm 9:17 says, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Daniel 12:2 reads, "And many of them that slept in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Jesus said in Matthew 25:46, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Revelation 14:9-11 says that those who reject the Lord "will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels and in the sight of the Lamb [Christ], and the smoke of their torment will go up forever and forever. There is no rest day or night" for them.

Certainly, these passages teach that there is a hell and leave no room for the concept of "the disappearance of sinful souls."

William Evans in Great Doctrines of the Bible has eloquently written on this subject, saying:

"This is probably the hardest of all the doctrines of Christianity to be received. If we ask the reason why, we receive various answers. Some would tell us that this doctrine is unwelcome to many because they feel themselves guilty, and their conscience tells them that unless they repent and turn to God this awful doom awaits them. Others believe that it is because the thought of future punishment strikes terror to people's hearts, and therefore this doctrine is repulsive to them. To others again, the thought of future anguish seems utterly incompatible with the fatherly love of God. Yet it is acknowledged to be a remarkable fact that both Jesus and John, who more than anyone else in the New Testament represent the element of love in their lives and teaching, speak most of the future anguish of the wicked...Yet great care must be exercised in the teaching or proclamation of this doctrine. After all, it is not the saying of hard things that pierces the conscience of people; it is the voice of divine love heard amid the thunder...Yet there must be no consciousness of cowardice in proclaiming the doctrine of future retribution, however awful its delineation may be. Fear is a legitimate motive to which we may appeal, and while it may be classed among the lower motives, it is nevertheless true that it is the only motive that will effectively move some people to action."

One might also argue that logic and justice demand an everlasting hell. If in this life, the intents of the human heart can be so depraved as to exploit, enslave, torture, cast his fellow man into the ovens, capture "the fire of the gods" in a nuclear bomb and drop it on his brother, then logic and simple justice demand his eternal soul be consigned to the same kind of place he sought to make for others. If in this life, men would reject God, the source of all light, love, joy, purpose, compassion, mercy, and every other good and perfect gift, logic and justice demand that they be relegated to a place where their ultimate desire is granted. Thus, this is hell in the fullest sense – separation from God - the absence of God and every blessed gift that comes with him.

Granted, in a wayward and snowflake culture, much like what's witnessed in Western nations, the concept of hell is becoming increasingly unpopular. Perhaps the Pope sees it this way too and wishes to present a more appealing message. Although this author isn't inclined to believe the Pope actually denied the existence of hell, it still doesn't seem so clear.

However, a return to the proclamation of this doctrine with a broken heart is something that could do wonders in turning people's feet back to the path of righteousness. We don't hear much preaching on hell anymore. Someone has rightly said that we would have less hell in our streets if there were more hell coming from the pulpits again.

The Scriptures teach that everyone has sinned and deserves hell. Some perhaps deserve to go there more than others, but all who use their lives in a manner other than for which God created them, will be thrown into the garbage bin of the universe – hell.

But the Bible also teaches that Christ died on the Cross to suffer the punishment for the sins of the world. He endured the hell we've merited for our sins so we wouldn't have to go. His blood was shed to atone and cleanse us from every sin. There is nothing more transforming in life than to realize the lengths to which God has gone to reconcile us to himself in Christ. When an individual comes to Christ for forgiveness, the soul is then fitted for heaven and a new life of obedience to God's benevolent commands is readily and willingly embraced.

The denial of the existence of hell is a critical mistake. But one doesn't need to deny it to end up in that terrible place. One needs only to ignore it.

Rev. Mark H. Creech is executive director of the Raleigh-based Christian Action League of North Carolina Inc. </s> Pope Francis says helping the poor and migrants is as important as opposing abortion

(CNN) — Pope Francis rebukes narrow-minded Catholics and warns the world about the devil in a new document about modern holiness unveiled Monday by the Vatican.

In the major teaching document, called an apostolic exhortation, Francis also encourages Catholics to reach for holiness in daily life, urging the faithful to become “the saint next door.” The 100-page booklet is titled “Rejoice and Be Glad; On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World.”

After March for Our Lives protests, Pope urges youth to speak out

In a pointed rebuke to Catholic anti-abortion activists who focus on the issue to the exclusion of all others, Francis says that helping the poor and immigrants is as important as taking a stance against abortion.

“Some Catholics consider it (the situation of migrants) a secondary issue compared to the ‘grave’ bioethical questions,” he writes.

To do so, the Pope says, is like “a politician looking for votes.”

A Christian, Francis says, should “stand in the shoes of those brothers and sisters of ours who risk their lives to offer a future to their children.”

Can Pope Francis keep the door open for refugees?

“Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate,” the Pope writes.

“Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged…” he adds.

Pope Francis has previously criticized those who he claimed are “obsessed” with the issues of abortion and homosexuality.

“It’s not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” he said in a 2013 interview.

Francis also takes issue with conservatives who have criticized him for trying to open up Catholic teaching.

Sunday was the second anniversary of the publication of Francis’ previous apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, which occasioned an outcry among some conservatives for Francis’ position on allowing communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

On Saturday, a group of those conservative Catholics — led by Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of Francis’ principal critics — held a conference in Rome discussing the limits of papal authority, heresy and doctrine.

While the Pope has never directly addressed the concerns of his critics, he has frequently condemned their “rigidity.”

In the new document, Francis once again calls out his critics’ “obsession with the law… and a punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige,” claiming that they are closed off to the Holy Spirit.

“Not infrequently, contrary to the prompting of the Spirit, the life of the Church can become a museum piece or the possession of a select few. This can occur when some groups of Christians give excessive importance to certain rules, customs or ways of acting,” the Pope writes.

Just last week, Francis made waves in an interview with Italian journalist and founder of the left-wing daily La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, in which he allegedly claimed that hell did not exist.

The Vatican issued a vague denial, leaving some to question the true position of the Pope.

While Francis does not address the question of hell in his new document, he makes clear that he believes the devil exists and is at work in our world.

“We should not think of the devil as a myth,” Francis writes, claiming that the devil is “a personal being who assails us.”

Using battle imagery, Francis writes of the importance of discerning the work of the devil in our lives: in lethargy, self-centeredness and a “rigid resistance to change.”

The Pope calls upon Christians to engage in “spiritual combat” through prayer and vigilance against the work of the devil by a daily examination of conscience.

Seeing the Pope help strangers made me tear up. Later I learned why.

“We are not dealing merely with a battle against the world and a worldly mentality that would deceive us and leave us dull and mediocre, lacking in enthusiasm and joy,” the Pope writes. “It is also a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil.”

“Jesus himself celebrates our victories,” Francis says.

Francis says that everyone is called to be a saint in “small everyday things.”

“Holiness is not about swooning in mystic rapture,” he writes. It is found in daily life, the Pope says, in the patience of parents, the sick, and the elderly.

“Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them, ‘the middle class of holiness,'” he writes.

Francis recommends following Jesus’ Beatitudes, avoiding gossip, having a sense of humor, reaching out to our neighbors and shunning consumerism and too much technology.

“When we allow ourselves to be caught up in superficial information, instant communication and virtual reality, we can waste precious time and become indifferent to the suffering flesh of our brothers and sisters,” the Pope writes. </s> Pope Francis prays in front of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 2015, in St. Peter's Square. (© L'Osservatore Romano)

Pope Francis and the Unexpired Call of Fatima

On May 12-13, the focus of the Catholic world will be on Portugal, as Pope Francis heads to Fatima to lead the celebration of the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the three shepherd children.

It will be an opportunity for the Holy Father to reinforce the continued relevance and summons of Fatima and link it to four of his most prominent pastoral priorities: mercy and conversion, peace, Marian devotion and children.

First, mercy and conversion. From his papal motto Miserando Atque Eligendo (“With Mercy Chosen”), pointing to how God chooses through mercy, to the words of his inaugural Angelus meditation in 2013 — stressing that we should never tire of asking for the forgiveness that God never tires to give — to the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy he convoked, his 2016 apostolic letter Misericordia et Misera (“Mercy and Misery”), and more, Pope Francis’ priority for a pontifical theme has been the merciful love of God, our need to receive it and to pray for others to receive it, and our call to become merciful like the Father in sharing it.

Mary’s main message to the pastorinhos was a maternal echo of her Son’s call to conversion. She asked Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto if they were willing to offer themselves to God in reparation for sins and for the conversion of sinners.

She showed them three visions — one of hell, another about world wars, and the third about the persecution of the Church — indelibly illustrating for them the consequences of sin. She urged them to turn to her Son and beg, “Forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy.”

When St. John Paul II first went to Fatima in 1982, he summarized Mary’s entreaty as a reiteration of her Son’s call to repent and believe: “The message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance, as in the Gospel.”

For that reason, he said, her maternal reiteration “remains ever relevant” and is even “more relevant … and urgent” than it was in 1917. Writing in 2000, the future Pope Benedict likewise underlined, “Our Lady's call to conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today,” stressing that her “insistent invitation” to penance “is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness.”

The second priority Pope Francis will be able to pray for and articulate in Fatima is the pressing need for peace.

Because of a failure of persons and peoples to convert and forgive, the world is exploding with conflicts, what Pope Francis has called a third world war “fought piecemeal.” Syria, Iraq, North Korea, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the most noteworthy ones, but terrorist networks and attacks, murderous drug cartels and organized crime, totalitarian crackdowns and various national insurgencies have made most of the world a battlefield.

Our Lady appeared in Fatima to help lead the world on the path of peace. “If what I say to you is done,” she said to the three children, “many souls will be saved, and there will be peace. The war [World War I] will end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out.”

With prophetic prescience, she called us to pray for and consecrate Russia, because if it were not converted from the totalitarian communist atheistic path it had begun a few months earlier with the Bolshevik Revolution, it would “spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions [and] … various nations will be annihilated.”

Twentieth-century history has verified her admonition. Even though the consecration was eventually done, prayer for peace in the world, and especially for countries that continue to seek to subjugate other lands under dehumanizing utopian lies, remains ever needed.

When Blessed Paul VI visited Fatima for the 50th anniversary of the apparitions in 1967, he said he had come to pray for peace in the world, so that through prayer and penance under Mary’s direction, we would see the triumph of love and the victory of peace. When St. John Paul II came in 1991, two years after the fall of the Soviet communist bloc, he thanked Mary for “having guided with maternal tenderness peoples to freedom” and said that Mary’s “palpable, penetrating call” for peace remains insistent.

The third pastoral priority Fatima gives Pope Francis is the opportunity to emphasize true devotion to Mary, especially through the Rosary and consecration. It’s noteworthy that before and after every foreign trip Pope Francis goes to St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome to beg for Mary’s prayers. He has repeatedly encouraged all people to pray the Rosary, calling it a “school of prayer” and “school of faith,” and exhorting us, “Please pray the Rosary. … Do not neglect it!”

During the Year of Consecrated Life, he spoke regularly about the meaning of Mary’s consecration and how we are called to imitate it and enter into it.

In Fatima, Mary taught the three children how to pray the Rosary properly, because they were used to saying just the first words of each prayer. She identified herself to them as “Our Lady of the Rosary,” and in every appearance, she asked them to “pray the Rosary every day.”

She revealed: “To save [poor sinners on the path to hell], God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart,” a heart that is pure and sees God, treasures his word, says fiat to what he asks, and loves both him and others.

The day Blessed Paul VI visited Fatima, he released an apostolic exhortation focused on the devotion we should all have to Mary as a spiritual mother, describing her as the model of how to enflesh and live by God’s word. In Rome and Fatima, St. John Paul II led the Church throughout the world in consecrating itself to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. And during his visit, Pope Benedict emphasized, “Fatima and the Rosary are practically synonymous,” urging us, in praying the Rosary, to imitate the entrustment of the shepherds to Mary and allowing her to help us fix the gaze of our hearts on the blessed Fruit of her womb.

The fourth pastoral priority is about young people and the call to spiritual greatness.

Whenever Pope Francis visits a parish, he always has a special meeting with young children to answer their questions, to inspire them in simple ways to say “Yes” to God, and to help them to grow in love of God, the Blessed Mother, their faith and others. With youth and young adults at World Youth Day, he has summoned them to the fullness of the Christian life. “God calls each of us to be holy, to live his life,” he said in Brazil at World Youth Day 2013. In Krakow in 2016, he challenged them, “Leave your mark on history” by following Jesus all the way.

When he reaches Fatima this week, Pope Francis will have a chance to illustrate these truths as he canonizes Francisco and Jacinta, who will become the youngest non-martyred canonized saints in history. When John Paul visited in 2000 to beatify Francisco and Jacinta in the presence of Lucia, he said that the means by which they were able to become “saints so quickly” was that they had enrolled in Mary’s “school” and had learned from her, through prayer and loving reparation, the way to holiness, happiness and heaven.

Pope Francis will have a chance to call all children of God, no matter how young, to learn from the same Mother and teacher and offer Sts. Francisco and Jacinta to the children of the world as heroes who truly left their mark on history.

During the last papal visit in 2010, Pope Benedict said that the message of Fatima “imposed itself on the Church.” Its centenary is not principally about looking backward, because “Fatima’s prophetic message” is, he said, not complete, but is something that all of us are meant to actualize.

Our Lady’s message doesn’t chiefly concern secrets or “particular devotions,” but, rather, he underlined, a “fundamental response” that involves persistent prayer, conversion, penance, forgiveness, Marian piety and consecration, faith, hope, justice and charity. For the years leading up to the centenary and beyond, he called all of us through those practices to help hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of the triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart and to the peace, holiness and salvation it brings.

As Pope Francis visits Fatima, he will help the Church, through the example of the docility and devotion of the new saints, to enter Mary’s school and learn there not just the lessons of the past century and about the foundation for peace on earth, but, most important of all, the path to salvation and eternal happiness, where Our Lady and the shepherd children continue to pray for the bishop in white and for all of us.

Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, and national chaplain of Catholic Voices USA. </s> Foul-mouthed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who once called the pope a “son of a bitch” and told U.S. President Barack Obama to “go to hell,” says he has promised to God he won’t spew expletives again.

Duterte’s profanities have become his trademark, especially when threatening to kill drug dealers as part of his war on illegal drugs, which has left thousands dead since he took office at the end of June.

Duterte made the stunning pledge on arrival in his southern hometown of Davao late Thursday from a trip to Japan.

While flying home, he said he was looking at the sky while everyone was sound asleep, and he heard a voice that said, “If you don’t stop epithets, I will bring this plane down now.”

“And I said, ‘Who is this?’ So, of course, ‘It’s God,'” he said.

“So, I promise God to … not express slang, cuss words and everything. So you guys hear me right always, because (a) promise to God is a promise to the Filipino people.”

Duterte’s vow was met with applause, but he cautioned, “Don’t clap too much or else this may get derailed.”

He shocked the dominant Roman Catholics last year when he fired off an expletive while expressing his disgust over a monstrous traffic jam that trapped him while Pope Francis was visiting Manila. “I wanted to call, ‘Pope, you son of a bitch, go home. Don’t visit here anymore,'” he told a mob of supporters, some of whom laughed.

He later apologized after Filipino bishops expressed shock and outrage.

It is not certain if the 71-year-old president, who has been compared to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump because of his brash language, can keep his promise. Duterte made a similar pledge in June when it became evident that he had won the May 9 presidential election overwhelmingly on a pledge to end crime, especially illegal drugs and corruption.

He said then that he was enjoying his last moments as a “rude person” because “when I become president, when I take my oath of office … that will be a different story. There will be a metamorphosis.”

It didn’t take long for Duterte to break the promise.

He has repeatedly leveled SOB-laced tirades against Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a few outspoken opposition politicians and human rights advocates, while heaping praises on Chinese and Russian leaders.

There were no expletives in his Thursday speech, but Duterte still sounded mean toward critics.

When asked for his message for a Filipino beauty queen who won the recent Miss International pageant, Duterte said he was proud. “Many Filipinas are beautiful, but all of you there in the human rights commission are ugly.”

Asked if the days of his cursing the U.S. and the EU are over, Duterte didn’t answer clearly.

“I do not want anybody reading my mind because I couldn’t make a smart move anymore. But it’s all calibrated, it’s all about timing,” Duterte said.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that Duterte was “certainly entitled to his views about his own relationship with the supreme being” but would not comment on whether it would make conversation easier with the Philippine leader.
In a new apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis mentions Satan or the Devil twelve times. Warning against Catholic media transgressing the eighth commandment, he calls to "see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze."