Pope Francis to Meet Student Priests in Panama

PANAMA, LELEMUKU.COM - Pope Francis celebrates Mass Saturday in the centuries-old colonial Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria la Antigua, Panama’s patron saint, as part of World Youth Day festivities.

On the fourth day of his visit to Panama, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church is also to meet with student priests at the seminary of San Jose. He is expected to talk with the young men about the dwindling number of men entering the priesthood and the reasons for the declining numbers.

Francis has admitted elsewhere that the sex scandals and cover-ups have contributed to fewer men seeking religious vocations.

Later Saturday, Francis and the Archbishop of Panama, Cardinal Jose Domingo Ulloa, are hosting a lunch for 10 young people attending the WYD celebrations.

On Friday, the pope went to a youth detention center, enabling the inmates to participate in WYD. Francis also heard the confessions of the five of the detainees.

In an emotional homily at the center, Francis said he deplored society’s tendency to label people as good or bad, the righteous or sinners. Instead, he said, society should focus on creating opportunities that enable people to change.

In a veiled swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump and his insistence on a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the Argentinean-born pope said of the tendency to label: “This attitude spoils everything, because it erects an invisible wall that makes people think that, if we marginalize, separate and isolate others, all our problems will magically be solved.” Francis added, “When a society or community allows this, and does nothing more than complain and backbite, it enters into a vicious circle of division, blame and condemnation.” (VOA)

Pope Brings World Youth Day to Panama’s Detained Youths

VATICAN, LELEMUKU.COM - Pope Francis is bringing World Youth Day to Panama’s juvenile delinquents who can’t participate in the Catholic Church’s big festival of faith.

On Friday Francis will celebrate a special penitential Mass inside the Las Garzas de Pacora detention center, which is Panama’s main youth lockup. In a twist, he will also hear the inmates’ confessions inside confessionals the detainees made themselves.

It’s all part of Francis’ belief that prisoners deserve the same dignity as everyone else, as well as hope.

World Youth Day opens

Francis opened his first full day in Panama with that message of hope Thursday, formally welcoming tens of thousands of pilgrims to World Youth Day at a twilight pep rally at the capital’s seaside park.

He urged them to be builders of bridges of encounter, not “builders of walls that sow fear and look to divide and box people in,” a clear reference to the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Plea to public officials

Earlier in the day, in remarks to President Juan Carlos Varela, he warned that those same young people are increasingly demanding that public officials live honest lives that are coherent with the jobs entrusted to them.

“They call upon them to live in simplicity and transparency, with a clear sense of responsibility for others and for our world,” Francis told Varela and other Panamanian leaders. “To lead a life that demonstrates that public service is a synonym of honesty and justice, and opposed to all forms of corruption.”

Transparency International estimates that as much as 1 percent of Panama’s GDP, about U.S. $600 million, may have been lost to various corruption schemes during the presidency of Ricardo Martinelli, who governed Panama from 2009 to 2014. Martinelli was extradited to Panama last year from the United States to face political espionage and embezzlement charges.

In addition, two of Martinelli’s sons have been detained in the U.S. and are being sought on corruption charges in Panama. They are suspected of receiving more than $50 million in “undue payments” from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which is at the center of one of the largest graft scandals in history.

Odebrecht has acknowledged paying nearly $800 million dollars in bribes in a dozen Latin American nations in return for favors and works contracts.

That includes at least $59 million in Panama, although authorities say the real figure is likely much higher. In addition to the Martinelli sons, the scandal has implicated former government ministers under the elder Martinelli as well as people linked to the party of the current president, Varela.

The Martinelli family has denied involvement by the sons in the bribery scandal and alleges persecution by political foes. The former president also denies any wrongdoing and says he is being targeted politically. (VOA)