Vatican City, Jun 5, 2005 / 22:00 pm
During the Sunday Angelus, Pope Benedict XVI called on Christians to pray that priests may never place anything above the love of Christ.
The Pope noted that the June 3 feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was also “the world day for the sanctification of priests, a propitious occasion to pray that priests place nothing above love of Christ.”
“One person deeply devoted to the Heart of Christ was Blessed Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, patron of migrants," who "founded the missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, also known as the Scalabrinians, to proclaim the Gospel among Italian emigrants.”
He went on to say that "the heart that most resembled Christ's was without doubt the heart of Mary, his Immaculate Mother. ... We entrust to her Immaculate Heart, whose feast was yesterday, the entire world so that it might feel God's merciful love and know true peace.”
After the Angelus, speaking about the recent feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Pope referred to the tense atmosphere in Bolivia, where the Church is trying to help resolve a situation of unrest and protests, and asked for the liberation in Afghanistan of the Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni.