During a recent audience with members of the Italian Periodical Press Union and the Italian Federation of Catholic Weeklies, Pope Francis said: “You have a task or rather a mission, among the most important in today’s world: to inform correctly, to offer everyone a version of the facts conforming as closely as possible to reality.

“You are called to make complex problems accessible to a wide audience, so as to enable a mediation between the knowledge available to specialists and the concrete possibility of its broad dissemination.

“Your voice, free and responsible, is fundamental for the growth of any society that wishes to be called democratic, so that the continuous exchange of ideas and a profitable debate based on real and correctly reported data can be guaranteed.

“There is an urgent need for news communicated with serenity, precision and completeness, with a calm language, so as to favour a fruitful reflection; carefully weighted and clear words, which reject the inflation of allusive, strident and ambiguous speech.”

Pope seeks to restore Confession

The Apostolic Penitentiary has published a book quoting all that Pope Francis has taught about the sacrament of confession or, as it is officially called, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The book, La festa del perdono con Papa Francesco, is written in Italian and is mainly aimed at confessors.  According to the introduction of the book, the Pope has sought to restore Confession to central place in the Church’s life and that the sacrament, rather than being a “torture chamber”, should be a “feast of forgiveness” where the sincerely repentant experience great happiness.

Medjugorje pilgrimages still not approved

Public lack of agreement was registered between the diocese in Bosnia-Herzegovina where Medjugorje is located and Archbishop Henryk Hoser, who had been commissioned by the Vatican to investigate the pastoral situation in Medjugorje. Hoser said last week it is “no longer a problem” for Church groups to schedule pilgrimages to Medjugorje.

But the diocesan authorities said Hoser’s term as a Vatican envoy had expired and the Polish prelate does not have authority to rule on the matter. The diocese was always very sceptical about the alleged Marian apparitions there.

The Vatican has not yet ruled on the authenticity of those phenomena, which it is said continue to this day.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)