By David Agren
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNS) — Pope Francis used to pick up La Nacion newspaper every day at a kiosk across from the city’s cathedral. Each edition was bound by a rubber band. But then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, being frugal, would save the rubber bands and return them in a ball at the end of every month.
Guide Javier Cortese offered the anecdote while leading tours around central Buenos Aires, where the local government and private companies alike have capitalized on the popularity of Pope Francis. Tour guides now take tourists to the most notable and mundane points — from his neighborhood parish to the newspaper stand — visited by the pope during his life in Buenos Aires. Continue reading →

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — An English bishop asked Catholics to use Lent as a time to repent of sins committed on social media. Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth described the uncharitable use of blogs, Facebook and Twitter as a “grave matter.” Using social media for abuse or to attack the reputations of other people was a direct sin against the Eighth Commandment, forbidding people from “bearing false witness” against their neighbors, he said in a pastoral letter released March 19.
“We must exercise discretion, respect others and their privacy and not engage in slander, gossip and rash judgment,” the bishop wrote in the document that was to be distributed in parishes the weekend of March 22-23.
“We must avoid calumny, that is, slurring and damaging people, and not spread abroad their sins and failings,” he said. The bishop encouraged the faithful to ask themselves “How do I use Facebook or Twitter? Am I charitable when blogging? Do I revel in other people’s failings? “All this is grave matter,” he said.
“Yet when we think of our news media and TV, in which fallen celebrities are pilloried, reputations shredded and people’s sins exposed, it sometimes seems our popular culture thrives on breaking this commandment,” he added.

NIGERIA (CWN)–More than 2,000 Catholics in northern Nigeria risked their lives to attend Mass last Sunday during an attack on their city by Boko Haram terrorists.
Father John Bakeni, who celebrated Mass in St. Patrick’s cathedral in Maiduguri, told Aid to the Church in Need that the building was “packed,” even after rocket-propelled grenades hit the city, killing hundreds of people. The priest said that some worshippers told him that if their lives were in danger, they would prefer to die in the church.
Father Bakeni reported that on Sunday morning, “we were greeted with the deafening sounds of bomb explosions, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. There was confusion and pandemonium everywhere.” When he addressed the congregation in his homily, he said, he realized that an extended message was unnecessary. “Please pray that this violence will stop,” he urged the people.

Beirut(Zenit.org)–A Syrian prelate has warned of the effects of the ongoing conflict, saying that it is “killing the Syrian people at a psychological level.”
Chaldean Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, President of Caritas Syria, gave an account of the effects of the conflict at a Caritas Syria meeting held in Lebanon. Continue reading →

By Jonathan Luxmoore

OXFORD, England (CNS) — A Ukrainian Catholic priest in Crimea said church members are alarmed and frightened by the Russian military occupation and fear their communities might be outlawed again if Russian rule becomes permanent. Continue reading →

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Bishop Camillo Ballin, apostolic vicar of Northern Arabia, knows full well what it is like to minister to Catholics in a Muslim region because he has been doing that for more than four decades.
In recent years, the 69-year-old Italian bishop — a member of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus who has served in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Kuwait and now Bahrain — has seen the number of Catholics particularly in the Persian Gulf rise sharply. Continue reading →