By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The troves of knowledge stored in archives and libraries must be made available and accessible to all people, especially as they increasingly depend on technological means for their knowledge, Pope Francis said.

Scholars overseeing archives and managing libraries must have “a great openness to discussion and dialogue,” Pope Francis told professors and students from the Vatican’s archival and library sciences schools May 13. He encouraged them to develop “a readiness to welcome,” especially the marginalized and those suffering “material, cultural and spiritual poverties.”

The pope encouraged the members of the two schools – the Vatican School of Paleography, Diplomatic and Archival Studies and the Vatican School of Library Studies – to avoid becoming complacent in distributing knowledge, particularly given the “decisive and epochal cultural challenges” of modern day, noting the problems of contemporary scholarship “related to globalization, to the risk of a flattening and devaluation of knowledge.”

He highlighted humanity’s “increasing complex relationship with technology,” the challenges of engaging with and studying traditional cultures, making sources of information accessible to all and the responsibility of scholars to “defend all from the toxic, unhealthy and violent things that can lurk in the world of social media and technological knowledge.”

Pope Francis also urged the scholars to avoid “self-referentiality” and to share their ideas and experiences with other academic institutions.

Marking the 140th anniversary of the archival school and the 90th anniversary of the school of library sciences, the pope said that such anniversaries are not meant “just to honor old glories” but to “look forward to the future, to have the courage to rethink yourselves in the face of demands from the cultural and professional world.”

The pope praised the “decisive characteristic” of the two schools: their “eminently practical” and “concrete” approach to problems and studies, which he said enables them to come into contact with past knowledge and transmit it to future generations.

“Confronting the realty of things is worth more than ideology,” he said. “Ideologies always kill.”

By Gina Christian

(OSV News) – In the latest comment from the Vatican on “Fiducia Supplicans,” the controversial declaration issued by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2023 that includes guidelines on the blessing of same-sex couples, Pope Francis clarified that he didn’t allow blessings of “the union” but of “each person.”

“What I allowed was not to bless the union,” the pope said, correcting the question of CBS journalist and interviewer Norah O’Donnell, who stated within her question that the pope had “decided to allow Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples.”

“That cannot be done because that is not the sacrament. I cannot. The Lord made it that way,” said Pope Francis, according to the English translation provided in voiceover by CBS. “But to bless each person, yes. The blessing is for everyone. For everyone. To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the given right, against the law of the church. But to bless each person, why not? The blessing is for all. Some people were scandalized by this. But why? Everyone! Everyone!”

The Spanish-language video, however, reveals that instead of “given right,” Pope Francis said “natural law,” which, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life.”

“Fiducia Supplicans,” which sparked international uproar within the church, was just one of the many topics touched on in the wide-ranging interview that covered the pope’s thoughts on war, a “globalization of indifference,” conservativism in the church, antisemitism and U.S. policy toward migrants.

The pope spoke with O’Donnell April 24 at his residence, Casa Santa Marta (Domus Sanctae Marthae). A roughly 13-minute portion of the interview aired May 19 on “60 Minutes,” the long-running newsmagazine of the CBS Television Network, with the balance of the session to be broadcast in a one-hour primetime special May 20 on the network and on the Paramount+ streaming platform.

The pair were seated beneath a large image of Our Lady Undoer of Knots, a Marian devotion from 18th-century Germany that is a favorite of Pope Francis, who learned of it some 40 years ago from a nun he had met while he was completing his doctoral thesis in that nation.

As a follow-up to the topic of same-sex blessings, O’Donnell reminded Pope Francis of his previous remarks that “homosexuality is not a crime,” qualifying of “unjust” laws criminalizing the condition of same-sex attraction, which the church recognizes as “objectively disordered” while calling for such persons to exercise chastity and self-mastery, and to be treated with respect and compassion.

Homosexuality “is a human fact,” Pope Francis told O’Donnell.

She asked him how he would respond to “conservative bishops in the United States that oppose your new efforts to revisit teachings and traditions.”

In his reply, Pope Francis defined a conservative as the “suicidal attitude” of “one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that.”

“One thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box,” he said.

Throughout the interview, Pope Francis underscored his soft-spoken but energetic responses — delivered in his native Spanish through an interpreter — with emphatic gestures, shifting occasionally in his chair and appearing to be in good health, despite a bout with bronchitis earlier this year that saw him taken to the hospital for tests.

Asked by O’Donnell if the Catholic Church had “done enough” to reform and repent of clerical sexual abuse, Pope Francis said “it must continue to do more” since “the tragedy of the abuses is enormous.”

He also stressed the need to “not only … not permit it but to put in place the conditions so that it does not happen.”

“It cannot be tolerated,” Pope Francis said. “When there is a case of a religious man or woman who abuses, the full force of the law falls upon them. In this there has been a great deal of progress.”

O’Donnell, in the May 19 excerpt, did not ask Pope Francis about Father Marko Rupnik, the Slovenian-born priest who was expelled from the Society of Jesus in June 2023, and who has gained international recognition both for his liturgical art and for the numerous accusations of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse leveled against him in the course of his career.

O’Donnell did ask Pope Francis about the children of Gaza ahead of the Catholic Church’s inaugural World Children’s Day May 25-26, an observance instituted by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education.

When O’Donnell, citing the United Nations, said that more than a million in Gaza, mostly children, would face famine on World Children’s Day, Pope Francis replied, “Not just in Gaza. Think of Ukraine.”

He said that many of the Ukrainian children who come to the Vatican “don’t know how to smile … they have forgotten how to smile. And that is very painful.”

As a follow-up question, O’Donnell asked if the pope had a message for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Please, warring countries, all of them, stop. Stop the war,” replied Pope Francis. “You must find a way of negotiating for peace. Strive for peace. A negotiated peace is always better than an endless war.”

O’Donnell asked the pope how to address international division over the Israel-Hamas war, which has sparked “big protests on college campuses and growing antisemitism.”

“All ideology is bad, and antisemitism is an ideology, and it is bad,” said Pope Francis. “Any ‘anti’ is always bad. You can criticize one government or another, the government of Israel, the Palestinian government. You can criticize all you want, but not ‘anti’ a people. Neither anti-Palestinian, nor antisemitic. No.”

Asked by O’Donnell if he could help negotiate peace, the pope sighed and replied, “What I can do is pray. I pray a lot for peace. And also, to suggest, ‘Please, stop. Negotiate.'”

O’Donnell also asked Pope Francis for his thoughts on the state of Texas’ efforts to shutter Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit sheltering migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“That is madness. Sheer madness. To close the border and leave them there, that is madness,” he said. “The migrant has to be received. Thereafter you see how you are going to deal with him. Maybe you have to send him back, I don’t know, but each case ought to be considered humanely.”

Recalling the pope’s July 2013 visit to Lampedusa — the Italian island to which thousands of migrants have fled, with thousands more perishing while crossing the Mediterranean — O’Donnell asked Pope Francis to speak about “the globalization of indifference.”

“People wash their hands!” he answered. “There are so many Pontius Pilates on the loose out there … who see what is happening, the wars, the injustice, the crimes … (They say), ‘That’s OK, that’s OK’ and wash their hands. … That is what happens when the heart hardens … and becomes indifferent.

“Please, we have to get our hearts to feel again,” Pope Francis implored. “We cannot remain indifferent in the face of such human dramas. The globalization of indifference is a very ugly disease. Very ugly.”

No reference was made to another hot button topic: women in the clergy, except in a post-interview narration in which O’Donnell said that although the pope had appointed more women to positions of church power than his predecessors, “he told us he opposes allowing women to be ordained as priests or deacons.”

In a particularly poignant moment in the interview, O’Donnell asked the pope about the church’s rejection of surrogacy, saying she knows women who are cancer survivors for whom the practice has become “the only hope” for having a child.

Pope Francis reaffirmed church teaching on the point, saying that surrogacy has sometimes “become a business, and that is very bad.”

He also said that for infertile women, “the other hope is adoption,” and stressed that “in each case the situation should be carefully and clearly considered, consulting medically and then morally as well.”

The pope commended O’Donnell for her sensitivity toward people that “in some cases (surrogacy) is the only chance,” saying with a warm smile, “It shows that you feel these things very deeply. Thank you.”

O’Donnell, in turn, said the pope has inspired hope among many “because you have been more open and accepting perhaps than any other previous leaders of the church.”

Reiterating a cry he issued at World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon, Pope Francis said that the church is open to “everyone, everyone, everyone.”

“The Gospel is for everyone,” he emphasized. “If the church places a customs officer at the door, that is no longer the church of Christ.”

The May 19 segment concluded with O’Donnell asking the pope what gave him hope.

“Everything,” Pope Francis said. “You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things … heroic mothers, heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future. That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @GinaJesseReina.)

By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – Executives from the apologetics nonprofit Catholic Answers told OSV News they remain committed to exploring artificial intelligence after the launch of the group’s “Father Justin” AI project sparked intense backlash online – and resulted in the character’s swift “laicization” to just “Justin.”

“We’re no less resolved to make good use of this technology to continue our work of apologetics and evangelization,” Christopher Check, president of Catholic Answers, told OSV News. “We regard this (incident) as an opportunity to take some feedback and move forward with it.”

Check’s team debuted a “Father Justin” interactive AI app April 23, aiming “to provide users with faithful and educational answers to questions about Catholicism,” according to an announcement that day by the organization.

The grey bearded, bushy-browed Father Justin character – named for St. Justin Martyr, a second-century convert and apologist – was intended to be what Catholic Answers information technology director Chris Costello, quoted in the company’s April 23 announcement, had called a tribute to parish priests, and an “authoritative yet approachable” figure on Catholic teaching.

But Father Justin’s preference for addressing users as “my child,” and his statements indicating he could actually give absolution and preside at the sacrament of matrimony, drew howls of condemnation in Catholic cyberspace.

By approximately 5 p.m. EDT April 24, Father Justin had fallen silent, gazing with a contemplative air toward a point out of the screen frame – only to re-emerge a few hours later in a button-down shirt as what Catholic Answers called “just ‘Justin.’”

Check told OSV News that criticism of the app was down to “a combination” of concern over some of the app’s responses, and the AI character itself.

“I think there are some people who simply reacted to a cartoon priest,” said Check, adding that “it would be evident to anybody who’s looking at it that in fact it’s not a real priest.”

Check said the move to make the app’s face simply “Justin” was a concession to those who found the character “a distraction” that hindered “the purpose of the application, which is to provide sound answers about the Catholic faith.”

“We’re good listeners,” Check said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re good apologists.”

Check admitted he and his “entire executive team” had been “a little taken aback by the particularly hostile reaction that we received on social media” regarding the app.

Such outrage “tends to be endemic” to social media platforms, Check added.

“I think that people who otherwise would have given some sort of thoughtful consideration of the merits of AI and answering … questions about the Catholic faith instead jumped onto (a) sort of more viral path,” he said. “And to me it’s kind of one of those unfortunate indications of the divisions that our church is feeling right now.”

Check said that some users (who had to provide email addresses and cell phone numbers to access the app) “were deliberately trying to trick it … which is what people like to do with AI or ChatGPT. We discovered while going through the log that one person who finally got (the app) to err (in its responses) in fact has a substantial background in AI.”

Costello told OSV News that he and his development team “knew that (the AI app) was going to be controversial.

“We know there’s a lot of concern in the Catholic world about AI in general – how it’s used, in fact, in not just the Catholic world, but in the world,” he said.

Costello said the app had been proposed by an AI consultant who is a Catholic Answers radio listener and fan. He said the project – the first AI undertaking for the company – had undergone “four or five months” of development.

The software’s initial character, a Franciscan friar named “Brother Geppetto,” was transformed into Father Justin, with the app’s original background – the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy’s Perugia province – left intact.

Part of the testing included feeding the app inquiries from “actual callers on our radio show, to see if (the app) could answer the questions,” said Costello. “And of course the answers were different (from those of the Catholic Answers radio hosts), but still accurate.”

Like Check, Costello stressed that the organization’s “goal is not to lead someone down the wrong path” with the app.

“It’s a start to your journey,” he said. “It’s to help you hone your questions so that you can really have a discussion with your priest or spiritual advisor, if there’s something you don’t understand. It’s not the end at all; it’s the beginning.”

Check said he was not concerned the troubled rollout of the app would erode trust in Catholic Answers as an apologetics apostolate.

“There’s been some ‘pearl-clutching,’ (but) … it’s obvious this was at best a misstep or failure to read the room,” he said. “But the Catholic Answers brand and our reputation is nearly 40 years old. And it’s backed by the talent and the profound knowledge of … (our apologists) and executive team and staff.”

Oblate Father Thomas Dailey, John Cardinal Foley Chair of Homiletics and Social Communications at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, told OSV News that the “Father Justin” launch, though fraught, has not been without merit.

“The response to what happened shows people’s interest in both the technology and its application for faith matters,” he said. “That Catholic Answers took all of that feedback and benefited from it or acted on it – and their interest in moving forward to help people – is a compliment to them.”

“We’re guided by our intentions,” Check said. “And we know that if we’re doing what we’re doing out of love for Jesus Christ, which is why we act, (then) God will bless it.”

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @GinaJesseReina.)

By Cindy Wooden and Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis signed a letter on synodality in the presence of parish priests and urged them to be “missionaries of synodality,” said several of the priests present.

Father Donald J. Planty Jr., pastor of St. Charles Church in Arlington, Virginia, and one of the U.S. pastors at the meeting, said, “He told us, ‘I want you to take this letter, and I want you to put it into action. I want you to share it and speak to your bishops about it and speak to your brother pastors about it.’”

The pope signed the letter May 2 as he met with more than 200 parish priests in the Vatican Synod Hall. The meeting came at the end of an April 29-May 2 gathering designed as an opportunity for the priests to share their experiences and offer input for the drafting of the working document for the Synod of Bishops on synodality’s second assembly in October.

Father Planty, who served for a time in the Vatican diplomatic corps and in the Vatican Secretariat of State, said it was clear that what participants from around the world had in common was “love for our identity as priests and our mission as priests.”

Clearly, he said, some priests have difficulty getting parishioners to open up and share their hopes, dreams and skills – a crucial part of building a “synodal church” where people listen to one another and share responsibility for the life of the parish and its missionary outreach.

That is not a problem in the United States, Father Planty said. “Especially in a country of an Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition,” people are used to sharing their opinions, including with their priests. They comment after Mass or send an email or phone the parish office.

“A priest who really knows his parish, loves his parishioners, has his finger on the pulse of the parish” not only through the pastoral council and finance council but “also through other, informal settings,” he said. Such a pastor “knows his people, consults with them, listens to them, takes their advice, and ultimately that factors into his pastoral decisions and planning and actions.”

Father Clint Ressler, pastor of St. Mary of the Miraculous Medal Catholic Church in Texas City, Texas, said spiritual discernment adds a key factor because synodality “is not listening to the voice of the people, but the voice of God in the voice of the people.”

“It isn’t just about your voices and your opinions,” he said. “We have to all be willing to then go deeper beneath those voices to try to hear what the Spirit is saying among us.”

People are hesitant about synodality when it is erroneously presented as debating “the issues that are controversial in the church” and “whether or not this is some new instrument to foment change in doctrine or church teaching,” he said. When that happens, “I think it’s disturbing. It’s scary. It’s unsettling,” and it leaves some wondering, “Why are we going to let the people decide what God wants?”

Father Paul Soper, pastor of St. Margaret Mary and St. Denis parishes in Westwood, Massachusetts, and secretary for ministerial personnel in the Archdiocese of Boston said priests and laypeople who have fears or concerns about synodality are afraid of different things.

“The fear of the priests is that there is a degree of randomness to the process,” he said, and that the synod “is going to be recommending big changes in the life of the church somehow or another that will have come from a bunch of random voices rather than from a clearly traceable conciliar process.”

“I think what the people fear is different,” he said. “I think that they fear that this is a conversation that’s not going to go anywhere. That it will simply, in the end, be a collection of reflections on the process of reflecting – a meeting on meetings, if you will.”

But, he said, his experience in evangelization has taught him that the “deep listening” or “contemplative listening” that the synod process is teaching people is what will enable Catholics to understand other people’s stories and invite them into or back into a relationship with Jesus and with the church.

Father Robert L. Connors, director of the Office for Senior Priests in the Archdiocese of Boston and episcopal vicar of the archdiocese’s south region, said the synod’s emphasis on listening also can help Catholics “learn the art of respect in a world where there is very little respect.”

And, especially in parishes and dioceses where there is growing diversity, he said, synodality helps people realize, “we’re all in this together.”

By Lauretta Brown
(OSV News) – Pope Francis sat down exclusively with “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell on April 24 for an interview ahead of the Vatican’s inaugural World Children’s Day. The CBS interview marks the first time a pope has given an in-depth, one-on-one interview to a U.S. broadcast network, according to the network.

In the brief portion of the interview that aired April 24, topics ranged from the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and the plight of children in these areas to climate change and the decline in the number of U.S. Catholics.

O’Donnell asked Pope Francis about “pictures of starving children coming out of Gaza” and what he thought of those that “call that a genocide.”

The pope replied that he calls a Catholic parish of about 600 people in Gaza every afternoon, where he hears that the situation is “very hard” as “food goes in, but they have to fight for it. It’s very hard.”

In her report, O’Donnell noted that the pope condemned the Oct. 7 attack on Israelis by the terrorist group Hamas and also called on Israel to use restraint. Earlier this month, the pope met with the families of Israelis hostages still held by Hamas. O’Donnell referenced the pope’s past calls for peace and a ceasefire in the region and asked him if he could “help negotiate peace.”

“I can pray, I do,” he replied, “I pray a lot.”

In advance of World Children’s Day, O’Donnell asked about the United Nations’ estimate that “over a million people will be facing famine in Gaza, many of them children.”

“Not only Gaza,” the pope replied, “we should think about Ukraine.”

“Those kids don’t know how to smile,” he lamented. “I tell them something, but they forgot how to smile. And this is very hard when a child forgets to smile. That’s really very serious.”

“Do you have a message for Vladimir Putin when it comes to Ukraine,” O’Donnell asked.

“Please, countries at war, all of them: Stop the war,” the pope said, “look to negotiate. Look for peace. A negotiated peace is better than a war without end.”

When asked about his practice of inviting children to join him in the popemobile and to visit the Apostolic Palace, the pope said that children “always bear a message. They bear a message, and it is a way for us to have a younger heart.”

O’Donnell also asked the pope about those who deny climate change.

“There are people who are foolish and foolish even if you show them research; they don’t believe it,” he replied. “Why? Because they don’t understand the situation or because of their interest, but climate change exists.”

O’Donnell cited a statistic that in the US, only 20% of adults identify as Catholic, down from 24% in 2007. She asked Pope Francis to “speak to those who don’t go to Mass anymore, or maybe don’t see a place for themselves in the Catholic Church.”

“I would say there is always a place, always,” he replied. “If in this parish, the priest doesn’t seem welcoming, I understand, but go and look.”

“There is always a place,” he emphasized. “Do not run away from the church. The church is very big. It’s more than a temple. It’s more. You shouldn’t run away.”

In addition to the brief interview segment that aired April 24, CBS will air more of the interview on “60 Minutes” May 19 and in a primetime special on May 20. O’Donnell revealed that she had also asked the pope about “the migrant crisis, gay rights, women’s role in the church and whether he’s thinking about retirement” in the remainder of the interview.

(Lauretta Brown is culture editor for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @LaurettaBrown6.)