VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

In this week’s editorial, Fr. Federico Lombardi, sj, speaks of the external challenges and pressures put on the Church since the resignation of Pope Benedict and leading up to the upcoming conclave. Fr. Lombardi is the director of the Press Office of the Holy See. Read Vatican Radio’s English translation below.

The journey of the Church in these last weeks of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate and up until the election of the new Pope — passing through the sede vacante and the conclave — is very demanding, given the newness of the situation. We do not — and we rejoice — have to carry the pain of the death of a much-loved Pope, but we have not been spared another test: that of the multiplication of the pressures and considerations that are foreign to the spirit with which the Church would like to live this…