ROME
Catholic News Agency
By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) — Acting in his capacity as bishop of Rome, Pope Francis offered words of encouragement to his diocesan priests, assuring them that recent and current scandals cannot overcome the church’s holiness and urging them to keep their vocations alive through love of God.
The pope made his remarks Sept. 16 at a meeting with diocesan clergy in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome.
Pope Francis devoted the first part of the meeting, which lasted more than two hours, to answering a letter he had received a few days earlier from an elderly parish priest, writing of his struggles as a pastor.
“The letter is beautiful, I was moved,” the pope said, speaking without a text. “The letter is simple. The priest is mature and he shared with me one of his feelings: fatigue.”
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