Notizie

Almost a year after his episcopal consecration and his establishment in the Sipontine-Gargano diocese, Mons. Franco Moscone sent Christmas greetings to his diocesan people.

Christmas

it must commit our existence to shedding light on an individualistic and polluted society, which tries to push aside Christian values, which proposes a culture that ignores the weak, that discards the most fragile and the least; it must help to testify daily to the beauty of Christian culture centered on the gift, justice, peace, which puts in communion with God and with the brothers, especially the least.

I invite you to stop a little in front of the holy Child of Bethlehem to discover that our hearts too can be filled with tenderness, filled with love, empathy and mercy towards others. I remember some words of Pope Francis on Christian hope, a gift from God, which makes us leave ourselves and make us open our minds and hearts to our brothers and sisters: «May the Lord free us from this terrible trap, from being hopeless Christians, who they live as if the Lord had not risen and the center of life were only our problems “(March 27, 2016).

In Evangelii Gaudium Bergoglio he enumerates “some challenges of the current world” with a sort of section dedicated to the “challenges of urban cultures” (nos. 52-75) where at the center of the Pope’s ‘dreams’ and ‘signs’ there is always a Church leaving towards the city. As “missionary disciples” we are called to keep alive the awareness that God is already in our cities and that he gives form and life to a real active citizenship, based on respect for justice and legality.

May the child who is born illuminate the soul of our beloved Gargano cities, from Manfredonia to San Giovanni Rotondo, from Monte Sant’Angelo to Vieste, from Mattinata to Peschici, from Zapponeta to Rhodes, Vico, Ischitella, Carpino, Cagnano and Tremiti Islands!

The hope is that in every baptized and citizen, “hunger and thirst for justice to be peacemakers” will grow; that everyone can enjoy the experience of the Beatitudes and realize that “we are called”, and they really are, “children of God” (Mt 5, 6ss).

In this way we will make our Gargano an authentic “Nativity scene”!