The Raising of Lazarus (1857), by Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat. Pope Francis adds feast of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus to Church calendar
Pope Francis has added the memorial of Sts Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to the General Roman Calendar, giving the siblings the combined feast day of July 29.
A decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship said on 2 February that Pope Francis had included the three saints in the General Roman Calendar “considering the important evangelical witness they offered in welcoming the Lord Jesus into their home, in listening to him attentively, in believing that he is the resurrection and the life”.
The Pope’s decree said that “in the household of Bethany the Lord Jesus experienced the family spirit and friendship of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and for this reason, the Gospel of John states that he loved them”.
The July 29 feast day of Sts Martha, Mary, and Lazarus will now appear in the Church’s calendars and liturgical texts as an obligatory memorial, which means it has to be observed.
Pope Francis also added three other saints and Doctors of the Church as optional memorials: St Hildegard of Bingen will be commemorated on September 17, St Gregory of Narek on February 27, and St John of Ávila on May 10.
‘No criminal misconduct’ in mysterious Vatican transfers to Australia
The Australian Federal Police said on Wednesday 3 February that it had found no evidence of criminal misconduct in its investigation into money transfers from the Vatican to Australia.
Australian authorities have been investigating the suspicious payments, equivalent to about $7.4 million, for several months.
The federal police (AFP) said in a statement on February 3 that “no criminal misconduct has been identified to date”.
“If the AFP receives additional information from Australian or international partners it will be reviewed accordingly,” it said.
Austrac, in the last months of 2020, alleged that over the last six years vast sums of money amounting to €1.4 billion had been sent from the Vatican to Australia, totalling some 47,000 individual transfers.
Working with the Vatican’s Supervisory and Financial Information Authority (ASIF), Austrac found that there were only 362 transfers from the Vatican to Australia between 2014 and 2020, amounting to $7.4 million.
On January 13, Austrac said that it had vastly overestimated the Vatican transfers, attributing the miscalculation to a “computer coding error”.
World must realise common humanity or fall apart, Pope says
The world must begin to realise its shared humanity in order to live peacefully, otherwise it risks falling apart in endless conflicts, Pope Francis said.
“Today, there is no time for indifference,” the Pope said February 4 at a virtual event commemorating the first International Day of Human Fraternity.
“We cannot wash our hands of it, with distance, with disregard, with contempt. Either we are brothers and sisters or everything falls apart. It is the frontier, the frontier on which we have to build; it is the challenge of our century, it is the challenge of our time,” he said.
The Pope was among several world and religious leaders who took part in the February 4 virtual event, which was hosted in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince. Among those taking part in the online global meeting were Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University, and António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations. The date chosen for the event marks the day in 2019 that Pope Francis and Sheikh el-Tayeb signed a document on promoting dialogue and “human fraternity”.