Interview with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches: “The Pope’s visit to this country will be a pilgrimage in the name of mercy and peace”.

Ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Armenia from 24 to 26 June, we met Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, who knows the country very well and will be accompanying the Pope on his trip.

Your Eminence, what is the essence of the Pope’s visit to Armenia?

The decision was announced on the evening of 13 June, after the Patriarchates of Antioch, Bulgaria and Georgia pulled out: Moscow has now made the same request as these Churches. The Russians are refusing to attend if the Council is not postponed as requested. But the assembly is to go ahead as scheduled.

Eastern Orthodox Churches are gathering shortly in Crete for a highly significant 'Holy and Great Council' aimed at ironing out knotty problems that have accumulated over the last few centuries. It begins on Saturday, June 18, and supporters hope it will be something like the Second Vatican Council that blew away the cobwebs from the Roman Catholic Church and brought it into the 20th century (it started in 1962). However, the 'Pan-Orthodox Council' – it means all the Orthodox Churches – has run into problems.

More than nine million pilgrims have passed through the holy doors of four major basilicas in Rome; the Holy Year of Mercy has defeated the fear of terrorism, although security remains high since the Paris attacks. This is a global Holy Year that has been celebrated in every local Church. Organisational problems have been resolved in time for Mother Teresa’s canonisation ceremony in September.

In the Roman missal the saint is commemorated with an obligatory memorial, now Francis has raised the celebration to the dignity of a feast day that celebrates the apostles, in order to underline the importance of the first testimony of the resurrection and the role of women in evangelisation. The feast day will still be celebrated on 22 July.

"Together before God, and for humanity" is the term used by Dutch Jesuit Fr. Christian Van Niaspan who spent long years in Egypt, in its churches and in its mosques. He maintained friendship with Al-Azhar, which has lofty universal, religious and cultural merits on the one hand, and with the local Coptic Church, which has great contributions to the Egyptian history, on the other. Christian Van Niaspan passed away a few days ago and left behind a great legacy of Arabic books and above this, he left behind a model of goodness that exudes mutual cordiality.

The Council of Cardinals has concluded its consultations on the Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith, for Worship and the Sacraments, for the Causes of Saints and for Consecrated Life. Pell, Marx and Viganò have reported on the ongoing reform of the Vatican economy and media

Interview with Chrysostomos Savatos, Metropolitan of Messinia: “May the Holy Spirit enlighten the minds of primates. We need to get across an image of unity”.

Accounts of peaceful co-existence between Christians and Muslims. Journey to the city of Saranda, in the southern part of the country, where the Marcelline sisters have a big education centre. Sister Daniela Silvestrini and Entela Kenaçi, head of the nursery: “Religious faith is not a cause for division”.

Francis gives speech to world's judges on how to tackle modern day slavery.

The Church has a duty to be involved in politics when it comes to combatting global problems such as human trafficking, Pope Francis told a summit in the Vatican yesterday.

The Pope, who was speaking to a group of judges and legal experts from around the world, said that it was not true that the Church should keep out of the political realm.