By Carol Glatz
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNS) – Whether you still stick to books or magazines or get everything online, Pope Francis said all media should encourage and edify – not enslave.
“Back in my day – the Stone Age – when a book was good, you read it; when the book was bad for you, you chucked it,” he told hundreds of youth in Sarajevo June 6.
The pope ended his one-day visit to the capital of this Balkan nation meeting with young people of different religions and ethnicities who volunteer together with the archdiocesan St. John Paul II Center. He set aside his prepared text and told the young people he would rather take some questions.
One young man said he read that the pope had stopped watching TV a long time ago, and wanted to know what led him to making that choice.
The pope said he decided back in the middle of 1990 to stop because “one night I felt that this was not doing me good, it was alienating me” and he decided to give it up.
He did not give up on movies, however.
When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he would go the archdiocesan television station to watch a recorded film he had picked out, which didn’t have the same isolating effect on him, he said.
“Obviously, I am from the Stone Age, I’m ancient!”
Times have changed, he said, and “image” has become all important. But even in this “age of the image,” people should follow the same standards that ruled back “in the age of books: choose the things that are good for me,” he said.
Those who produce or distribute content, like television stations, have the responsibility of choosing programs that strengthen values, that help people grow and prepare for life, “that build up society, that move us forward, not drag us down.”
Viewers have the responsibility of choosing what’s good, and changing the channel where there is “filth” and things that “make me become vulgar.”
While the quality of content is a concern, it is also critical to limit the amount of time one is tied to the screen, he said.
If “you live glued to the computer and become a slave to the computer, you lose your freedom. And if you look for obscene programs on the computer, you lose your dignity,” he said.
Later, in response to a journalist’s question on the papal plane from Sarajevo back to Rome, the pope said the online or virtual world is a reality “that we cannot ignore; we have to lead it along a good path” and help humanity progress.
“But when this leads you away from everyday life, family life, social life, and also sports, the arts and we stay glued to the computer, this is a psychological illness,” he said.
Negative content, he said, includes pornography and content that is “empty” or devoid of values, like programs that encourage relativism, hedonism and consumerism.
The pope said some parents do not allow their children to have a computer in their own room, but keep it in a common living space. “These are some little tips that parents find” to deal with the problem of unsuitable content, he said.
(Editor’s Note: A related video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/pta1-9YVR5M.)

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who will be beatified in San Salvador May 23, has become a symbol of Latin American church leaders’ efforts to protect their flocks from the abuses of military dictatorships.
However, his life and the 35 years it took the Vatican to recognize him as a martyr also reflect decades of theological and pastoral discussion over the line dividing pastoral action from political activism under repressive regimes.
Archbishop Romero was assassinated March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in the chapel of Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador, the city he served as archbishop for three years.
The intense turmoil in El Salvador coincided with a period of intense questioning within the church as pastors in countries under military dictatorships, civil war or communist oppression tried to find the best ways to be faithful to their mission of ministering to their flocks while defending their rights.
The Vatican made frequent calls in those years for priests and bishops, especially in Latin America and in Africa, to stay out of partisan politics. But repressive regimes easily decided churchmen who denounced widespread human rights abuses were meddling in politics.
Jesuit Father James R. Brockman, author of a biography of the archbishop, like many historians and supporters of Archbishop Romero’s beatification, said that when Bishop Romero was chosen as archbishop of San Salvador in 1977, he was known as a “conservative” and there was a widespread assumption that he would not directly challenge the country’s rulers. His background was not that of a political activist.
Oscar Romero was born Aug. 15, 1917, in Ciudad Barrios, the second of seven children. Although not considered poor, the family did not have electricity or running water in their home, and the children slept on the floor. Oscar began working as a carpenter’s apprentice when he was 12 years old, but then decided to enter the minor seminary and continue his formal education.
Once he finished his studies at the San Miguel minor seminary, he transferred to the major seminary in San Salvador and was sent to Rome where he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained to the priesthood April 4, 1942, in the chapel of the Latin American College.
Returning to El Salvador in 1944, he worked as a parish priest in the Diocese of San Miguel, later becoming secretary of the diocese, a position he held for 23 years. During that time — long before becoming archbishop of San Salvador and famous for the radio broadcasts of his homilies – he convinced local radio stations to broadcast his Sunday Masses and sermons so that Catholics in more rural areas could listen and grow in their faith.
In 1970, when the priest was 52, Pope Paul VI named him an auxiliary bishop of San Salvador. Four years later, he became bishop of Santiago de Maria, the diocese that included his hometown of Ciudad Barrios. Social and political tensions in El Salvador were growing worse; when five farmworkers were hacked to death in June 1975 by members of the Salvadoran National Guard, then-Bishop Romero consoled the families and wrote a letter of protest to the government.
“Before Romero was archbishop for a month, his deeply admired friend, the Jesuit Rutilio Grande, was killed,” wrote Thomas Quigley, a former official at the U.S. bishops’ conference, in the foreword to the English translation of Archbishop Romero’s audio diary.
Father Grande’s strong advocacy for the poor as he ministered in rural communities in northern San Salvador strongly influenced Archbishop Romero, say many of those who knew him. The Jesuit used his pulpit to denounce actions of the government and of the death squads in his country, as well as the violence used by some opponents of the government.
After consultation with the priests’ council, Archbishop Romero “ordered only one public Mass celebrated in the archdiocese on the Sunday following Grande’s funeral,” Father Brockman wrote in the introduction to the diary. “It turned out to be the largest religious demonstration in the nation’s history and for many a profound religious experience.
But it also led to a serious clash with the Vatican’s ambassador, the papal nuncio, who had pressured Romero not to hold the single Mass lest the government think it provocative. It was the beginning of an enduring lack of understanding and support on the part of the nuncio.”
Archbishop Romero continued having his Sunday Masses and homilies broadcast by radio and, increasingly, he used them as opportunities to explain to Salvadoran citizens what was going on in their country and what their response as Christian should be. He always condemned violence and he urged conversion, particularly on the part of members of the government death squads.
Quigley wrote that Archbishop Romero’s homilies “rarely lasted less than an hour and a half” and included his account of “the events of the week,” both good and bad, “proclaiming the good news of the liberating Gospel and, with the prophets of old, denouncing the evils of the day.”
His homilies and his letters to government officials made him a frequent target of death threats and often put him at odds with several of the other Salvadoran bishops and even with Vatican officials who believed he had crossed the line into politics and was placing the church’s pastoral work in jeopardy.
He lived in a small residence on the grounds of the Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador and frequently celebrated Mass, vespers and benediction there with the sisters who ran the hospital. He was shot and killed in the chapel, a day after he challenged army soldiers for killing their fellow citizens.

Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee

Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father, and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.
Show us your face and we will be saved.

Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money; the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things; made Peter weep after his betrayal, and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.
Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman:
“If you knew the gift of God!”

You are the visible face of the invisible Father,
of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy: let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified. You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error: let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.

Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing, so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind.

We ask this through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy, you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.
Amen.

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Holy Year of Mercy will be an opportunity to encourage Christians to meet people’s “real needs” with concrete assistance, to experience a “true pilgrimage” on foot and to send “missionaries of mercy” throughout the world to forgive even the most serious of sins, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella.
The yearlong extraordinary jubilee also will include several individual jubilee days, such as for the Roman Curia, catechists, teenagers and prisoners, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, the office organizing events for the Holy Year of Mercy.
During a news conference at the Vatican May 5, Archbishop Fisichella unveiled the official prayer, logo, calendar of events and other details of the special Holy Year, which will be celebrated from Dec. 8, 2015, until Nov. 20, 2016.
The motto, “Merciful Like the Father,” he said, “serves as an invitation to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive and to give love and forgiveness without measure.”
Pope Francis announced in March his intention to proclaim a holy year as a way for the church to “make more evident its mission to be a witness of mercy.”
One way the pope wants to show “the church’s maternal solicitude” is to send out “missionaries of mercy” – that is, specially selected priests who have been granted “the authority to pardon even those sins reserved to the Holy See,” the pope wrote in “Misericordiae Vultus,” (“The Face of Mercy”), the document officially proclaiming the Holy Year.
Archbishop Fisichella said the priests will be chosen on the basis of their ability to preach well, especially on the theme of mercy, and be “good confessors,” meaning they are able to express God’s love and do not make the confessional, as Pope Francis says, like “a torture chamber.”
The priests will also have to “be patient” and have “an understanding of human fragility,” the archbishop said.
Bishops can recommend to the council priests from their own dioceses to serve as missionaries of mercy, he said, and priests themselves can submit their request to serve, he said.
When a priest volunteers, however, the council will confer with his bishop to make sure he would be “suitable for this ministry” and has the bishop’s approval to serve temporarily as a missionary of mercy, he said.
The archbishop emphasized the importance of living the Holy Year as “a true pilgrimage” with the proper elements of prayer and sacrifice.
“We will ask pilgrims to make a journey on foot, preparing themselves to pass through the Holy Door in a spirit of faith and devotion,” he said.
More than a dozen individual jubilee celebrations will be scheduled in 2016, such as a jubilee for consecrated men and women Feb. 2 to close the Year of Consecrated Life; a jubilee for the Roman Curia Feb. 22; a jubilee for those devoted to the spirituality of Divine Mercy on Divine Mercy Sunday April 3; and separate jubilees for teenagers; for deacons; priests; the sick and disabled; and catechists.
A jubilee for “workers and volunteers of mercy” will be celebrated on Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata’s feast day Sept. 5 and a jubilee for prisoners will be celebrated Nov. 6.
Archbishop Fisichella said the pope wants the jubilee for inmates to be celebrated not only in prisons, but also with him in St. Peter’s Basilica. He said the council is discussing the possibility with government authorities and is not yet sure if it can be done.
The Vatican is asking bishops and priests around the world to conduct “similar symbolic gestures of communion with Pope Francis” and his vision of reaching out to those on the margins.
“As a concrete sign of the pope’s charitable love,” he said, “effective measures will be taken to meet real needs in the world that will express mercy through tangible assistance.”
At the news conference, the council distributed copies in several languages of the Holy Year prayer and logo, which features Jesus – the Good Shepherd – taking “upon his shoulders the lost soul, demonstrating that it is the love of Christ that brings to completion the mystery of his incarnation culminating in redemption,” the archbishop said.
The image, created by Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, also shows one of Jesus’ eyes merged with the man’s to show how “Christ sees with the eyes of Adam, and Adam with the eyes of Christ.”
The council has joined with the United Bible Societies to distribute to pilgrims 1 million free copies of the Gospel of Mark; the texts will be available in seven languages.
The Jubilee of Mercy has an official website in seven languages at www.im.va; a Twitter handle @Jubilee_va; a Facebook page; and accounts on Instagram, Flickr and Google+.

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – At the end of Pope Francis’ spontaneity-filled meeting with priests, seminarians and religious in the cathedral of Naples, Italy, the vial of dried blood of the city’s patron saint appeared to miraculously liquefy.
After Pope Francis blessed the congregation with the reliquary holding the vial, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples announced, “As a sign that St. Januarius loves the pope, who is Neapolitan like us, the blood is already half liquefied.”
The thousands of people present in the cathedral applauded, but the pope insisted on taking the microphone. “The bishop said the blood is half liquefied,” he said. “It means the saint loves us halfway; we must all convert a bit more, so that he would love us more.”
The blood of the fourth-century martyr is Naples’ most precious relic. The townspeople gauge the saints’ pleasure with them by awaiting the blood’s liquefaction three times a year: in the spring during celebrations of the feast of the transfer of the saint’s relics to Naples; Sept. 19, his feast day; and Dec. 16, the local feast commemorating the averting of a threatened eruption of Mount Vesuvius through the intervention of the saint.
Entering the cathedral, Pope Francis’ white cassock and his arms were yanked repeatedly by priests, seminarians and nuns wanting to touch him or attract his attention. Calmed reigned briefly after the pope reached the altar, but then Cardinal Sepe told the pope that, in accordance with canon law, he had given formal permission for the nuns in Naples’ seven cloistered convents to go out for the day.
The nuns, who had been seated in the sanctuary, broke free, running to the pope, surrounding him, hugging him, kissing his ring and piling gifts on his lap.
“Sisters, sisters, not now, later!” the cardinal shouted over the microphone to no avail. “Look what I have done,” he said, exasperated. “And these are the cloistered ones, imagine what the non-cloistered ones are like! Ay. They’re going to eat him alive.”
When order was restored, Pope Francis stood with several sheets of paper and told the congregation, “I prepared a speech, but speeches are boring.” So, he put the papers aside, sat down and began talking about how Jesus must be at the center of a consecrated person’s life, about life in community, about poverty and mercy.
“The center of your life must be Jesus,” he said. Too often, people – including priests and religious – have a difficulty with a superior or a confrere and that problem becomes the real center of their lives, robbing them and their witness of joy.
Addressing seminarians, he said, “if you do not have Jesus at the center, delay your ordination. If you are not sure Jesus is the center of your life, wait a while in order to be sure.”
Money definitely cannot be the center of the life of a priest or nun, he said. Even a diocesan priest, who does not take vows of poverty, must make sure “his heart is not there” in money.

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As Catholics are encouraged to make going to confession a significant part of their lives during Lent, Pope Francis offered some quick tips to help people prepare for the sacrament of penance.
After a brief explanation of why people should go to confession — “because we are all sinners” — the pope listed 30 key questions to reflect on as part of making an examination of conscience and being able to “confess well.”
The guide is part of a 28-page booklet in Italian released by the Vatican publishing house. Pope Francis had 50,000 free copies distributed to people attending his Angelus address Feb. 22, the first Sunday of Lent.
Titled “Safeguard your heart,” the booklet is meant to help the faithful become “courageous” and prepared to battle against evil and choose the good.
The booklet contains quick introductions to Catholic basics: it has the text of the Creed, a list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. It explains the seven sacraments and includes Pope Francis’ explanation of “lectio divina,” a prayerful way of reading Scripture in order to better hear “what the Lord wants to tell us in his word and to let us be transformed by his Spirit.”
The booklet’s title is based on a line from one of the pope’s morning Mass homilies in which he said Christians need to guard and protect their hearts, “just as you protect your home — with a lock.”
“How often do bad thoughts, bad intentions, jealousy, envy enter?” he asked. “Who opened the door? How did those things get in?”
The Oct. 10, 2014, homily, which is excerpted in the booklet, said the best way to guard one’s heart is with the daily practice of an “examination of conscience,” in which one quietly reviews what bad things one has done and what good things one has failed to do for God, one’s neighbor and oneself.
The questions include:
— Do I only turn to God when I’m in need?
— Do I take attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation?
— Do I begin and end the day with prayer?
— Am I embarrassed to show that I am a Christian?
— Do I rebel against God’s plan?
— Am I envious, hot-tempered, biased?
— Am I honest and fair with everyone or do I fuel the “throwaway culture?”
— In my marital and family relations, do I uphold morality as taught in the Gospels?
— Do I honor and respect my parents?
— Have I refused newly conceived life? Have I snuffed out the gift of life? Have I helped do so?
— Do I respect the environment?
— Am I part worldly and part believer?
— Do I overdo it with eating, drinking, smoking and amusements?
— Am I overly concerned about my physical well-being, my possessions?
— How do I use my time? Am I lazy?
— Do I want to be served?
— Do I dream of revenge, hold grudges?
— Am I meek, humble and a builder of peace?
Catholics should go to confession, the pope said, because everyone needs forgiveness for their sins, for the ways “we think and act contrary to the Gospel.”
“Whoever says he is without sin is a liar or is blind,” he wrote. Confession is meant to be a sincere moment of conversion, an occasion to demonstrate trust in God’s willingness to forgive his children and to help them back on the path of following Jesus, Pope Francis wrote.

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christianity is not a set of prohibitions, but a “project for life” that can lead to true happiness in building better relationships and a better world, Pope Francis told Catholic young people.
“Do you realize how much you are worth in the eyes of God?” the pope asked youths in his annual message for local celebrations of World Youth Day. “Do you know that you are loved and welcomed by him unconditionally?” The ability to love and be loved is beautiful and is a key to happiness, but sin means it also can be “debased, destroyed or spoiled” by selfishness or the desire for pleasure or power, he said in the message, published Feb. 17 at the Vatican.
In preparation for the next international celebration of World Youth Day, which will be held in Krakow, Poland, July 25-Aug. 1, 2016.
The Poland gathering will focus on the beatitude from St. Matthew’s Gospel, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” The 2015 theme chosen by Pope Francis is the beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The “beatitude” or blessedness for which God created human beings and which was disrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve “consists in perfect communion with God, with others, with nature and with ourselves,” the pope wrote. God’s “divine light was meant to illuminate every human relationship with truth and transparency.”
But with sin, he said, Adam and Eve’s relationship with each other, with God and with creation changed. “The inner compass which had guided them in their quest for happiness lost its point of reference and the attractions of power, wealth, possessions and a desire for pleasure at all costs led them to the abyss of sorrow and anguish.” God still loved the human creatures he created and still wanted them to find happiness, the pope said, so he send his son to become one of them and to redeem them.
Jesus taught that impurity or defilement was not something that happened because of what someone ate or who they touched, but was something that came from inside the person. Jesus listed “evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness,” the pope said, pointing out that most of the things on the list have to do with a person’s relationship with others.
“We need to show a healthy concern for creation, for the purity of our air, water and food,” the pope told young people, “but how much more do we need to protect the purity of what is most precious of all: our heart and our relationships. This ‘human ecology’ will help us to breathe the pure air that comes from beauty, from true love, and from holiness.” Through prayer, speaking to Jesus ”as you speak to a friend,” and reading the Bible, he said, people can draw closer to God and allow him to purify their hearts, discovering God’s call to live a life of love in marriage, the priesthood or religious life.