Pope Francis told thousands of young people at St Peter’s Square that happiness “is not an app that you can download on your phones, nor will the latest update help you become free and great in loving”.

He said true freedom is priceless and comes from making the courageous decision to do good and not from the belief that happiness can be easily obtained through worldly possessions and fashion.

A person’s happiness “has no price and cannot be bought,” the Pope told them. Love, he said, is the “only valid ‘document’ identifying us as Christians” and the only path to happiness.

“Be sceptical about people who want to make you believe that you are only important if you act tough like the heroes in films or if you wear the latest fashions. Your happiness has no price; it cannot be bought,” the Pope stressed.

Priests won’t officiate at civil marriage

After consulting the Vatican, Bishop Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo decided that Catholic priests in Norway will no longer act as civil officials at weddings. Following the decision of the Lutheran Church in Norway to recognise same-sex marriage the bishop said churches should underline the distinction between civil ceremonies and Christian marriages. He said “the best option is for us to stop conducting marriages on the State’s behalf”. Bishop Eidsvig, together with several Protestant leaders, said recognition of same-sex unions violated “not only the Christian understanding of marriage, but also the historic and universal view of marriage”.

Austrian bishop rejects border fence

Austrian Bishop Ägidius Zsifkovics of Eisenstadt has refused to give government permission to build a border fence on land owned by a parish in Moschendorf, a town on the Hungarian border. He said a border fence on Church property would be “contrary to the spirit of the Gospel and the clear message of Pope Francis”.

Bishop Zsifkovics also said the proposed fence evokes painful memories of the Iron Curtain.

Indian cardinal on ecological degradation

In an op-ed piece published by the Hindustan Times, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, a member of Pope Francis’s advisory Council of Cardinals, wrote: “Step outside in India, and often you will be breathing some of the dirtiest city air on the planet. Take a walk through our towns and villages, and you will see the foulness of our rivers.

“Immorally, it is, of course, the poor who have contributed least to these problems that are worst impacted. For their sakes, the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, coupled with unabated and unplanned urbanisation, must cease soon as possible. Twenty-one countries have already proven that it is possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while keeping the economy growing – India could be among them, but is not.”

Transform ‘deserts’ into ‘forests’ – Pope

Pope Francis told members of the Focolare Movement to transform the world’s interior deserts into forests. “The desert is ugly, both the desert in the heart of all of us, as well as the desert in the city, in the peripheries, which is also an ugly thing,” he said. “There’s also a desert that’s in the gated neighborhoods. It’s ugly, but the desert is there too.”

Such deserts, he said, can be transformed into “forests” through the forgiveness and gratuity that are part of “social friendship”.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)