best for their children, but that love is never dependent on their meeting   
   certain conditions. The family home is one place where we are always welcome. I   
   would like to encourage everyone to see society not as a forum where strangers   
   compete and try to come out on top, but above all as a home or a family, where   
   the door is always open and where everyone feels welcome.   
    For this to happen, we must first listen. Communicating means sharing, and   
   sharing demands listening and acceptance. Listening is much more than simply   
   hearing. Hearing is about receiving information, while listening is about   
   communication, and calls for closeness. Listening allows us to get things   
   right,   
   and not simply to be passive onlookers, users or consumers. Listening also   
   means   
   being able to share questions and doubts, to journey side by side, to banish   
   all   
   claims to absolute power and to put our abilities and gifts at the service of   
   the common good.   
    Listening is never easy. Many times it is easier to play deaf. Listening means   
   paying attention, wanting to understand, to value, to respect and to ponder   
   what   
   the other person says. It involves a sort of martyrdom or self-sacrifice, as we   
   try to imitate Moses before the burning bush: we have to remove our sandals   
   when   
   standing on the 'holy ground' of our encounter with the one who speaks to me.   
   Knowing how to listen is an immense grace, it is a gift which we need to ask   
   for   
   and then make every effort to practice.   
    Emails, text messages, social networks and chats can also be fully human forms   
   of communication. It is not technology which determines whether or not   
   communication is authentic, but rather the human heart and our capacity to use   
   wisely the means at our disposal. Social networks can facilitate relationships   
   and promote the good of society, but they can also lead to further polarisation   
   and division between individuals and groups. The digital world is a public   
   square, a meeting-place where we can either encourage or demean one another,   
   engage in a meaningful discussion or unfair attacks. I pray that this Jubilee   
   Year, lived in mercy, 'may open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we   
   might know and understand one another better; and that it may eliminate every   
   form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every form of violence   
   and discrimination'. The internet can help us to be better citizens. Access to   
   digital networks entails a responsibility for our neighbour whom we do not see   
   but who is nonetheless real and has a dignity which must be respected. The   
   internet can be used wisely to build a society which is healthy and open to   
   sharing.   
    Communication, wherever and however it takes place, has opened up broader   
   horizons for many people. This is a gift of God which involves a great   
   responsibility. I like to refer to this power of communication as 'closeness.   
   The encounter between communication and mercy will be fruitful to the degree   
   that it generates a closeness which cares, comforts, heals, accompanies and   
   celebrates. In a broken, fragmented and polarised world, to communicate with   
   mercy means to help create a healthy, free and fraternal closeness between the   
   children of God and all our brothers and sisters in the one human family".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Presentation of the Pope's Message for the World Day of Social Communications   
    Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) - This morning the a press conference was   
   held to present the Holy Father's Message for the fiftieth World Day of Social   
   Communications. The panel was composed of Msgr. Dario Vigano, prefect of the   
   Secretariat for Communication, Paolo Ruffini, director of TV2000, and Marinella   
   Perroni of the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm, Rome.   
    The prefect mentioned that this World Day of Social Communications, which the   
   Church celebrates on May 8, is the fiftieth in chronological order: an   
   important   
   fact that relates to Vatican Council II, which fifty years ago issued the   
   Decree   
   on the tools of social communication, "Inter mirifica". It is also the only   
   World Day established by the Council, and on this occasion it is also situated   
   in the context of the great Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, to which the theme   
   of the Day refers directly. Finally, it will be the first World Day of Social   
   Communications held following the creation by the Holy Father of the   
   Secretariat   
   for Communications.   
    Following this preamble, Msgr. Vigano emphasised that mercy is the distinctive   
   feature of the Church's way of acting and of being. The relationship between   
   the   
   Church and mercy is not an extrinsic one, or indeed accidental ... but rather   
   intrinsic, constitutive, part of the very identity of the Church. The   
   experience   
   of the Pentecost is the beginning of the historic experience of the Church. The   
   Church carries the memory of Jesus and therefore cannot interpret the words of   
   His announcement other than in relation to mercy. They are works awaiting by   
   those who think they are far from the God of mercy of Whom we often have a   
   distorted image, such as that of God as a ruthless judge unable to engage with   
   the limits of suffering. ... For the men and women of today, for Jesus' Church,   
   these are the words to offer as an antidote to the harsh words of precepts   
   pronounced by those who make accusations of prevailing relativism and the   
   irrevocability of values. .. The Church called to participate in the messianic   
   mission must know how to live in a true and authentic humanity. She must learn   
   from Jesus how to express mercy in words of hope and life and in engaging   
   gestures, letting us be touched by human experience and knowing, as Pope   
   Francis   
   often reminds us, how to touch the flesh of the least among us".   
    The second point was the relationship between silence and listening. Msgr.   
   Vigano cited the Swiss philosopher Max Picard, who explained that contemporary   
   man has become an appendix to noise, atrophying in a context of words shouted   
   instead of spoken, that reduce to a minimum our capacity to listen and cause a   
   lack of attention. "Listening is a necessary act for the development of   
   communication and it requires above all silence, an indispensable condition for   
   receiving each word pronounced and for understanding its meaning. ... We   
   communicate only to the extent that we are are the same time listeners, and   
   Pope   
   Francis' attention to this dichotomy is constant". Pope Benedict XVI too paid   
   great attention to this issue, when in the Message for the 2012 World Day of   
   Social Communications he wrote that when messages and information are abundant,   
   silence becomes essential to enable us to distinguish what is important from   
   what is insignificant and secondary".   
    The prefect concluded by quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote that the   
   merciful "have an irresistible love for the down-trodden, the sick, the   
   wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They   
   go out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress   
   is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity". "It is the blessing of   
   mercy   
   that the Church is called to live, first and foremost in her relationships as   
   the Christian community is not an elite group, nor is it made up of the   
   perfect.   
   St. Paul ... invites us all to recognise the starting point of Christian and   
   ecclesial life, which is God's love and, by His grace, participation in His   
   holiness".   
    Finally, Msgr. Vigano returned to the theme of silence: "From this Gehenna of   
   noise that is our daily life, from this wind tunnel of gossip, and chatter   
   there   
   arises spontaneously a nostalgia for silence, the wish to mute words of   
   manipulation, to discover the words of silence. Contemporary man, almost   
   without   
   realising it, is calling out with Verlaine, give me silence, and the love of   
   mystery.   
    The director of TV2000, Paolo Ruffini, spoke about the need for television   
   able   
   to look upon the world with the eyes of mercy, without being afraid of being   
   rooted in reality. "It must not be closed up in its own studies. ... It chooses   
   closeness as a criterion for understanding, for surprising itself and for   
   surprising, for acting, for choosing. ... It draws near to people in flesh and   
   blood in the real world, not in the virtual one ... and is able to communicate   
   reality without surrendering to stereotypes, or to the vicious circles of   
   condemnation and vengeance which, as the Pope writes, continue to ensnare us".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Decrees for the Causes of Saints   
    Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) - Yesterday, 21 January, the Holy Father   
   Francis received in a private audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B., prefect   
   of   
   the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the   
   Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:   
    MIRACLES   
    - Blessed Stanislaw of Jesus and Mary (né Jan Papczy?ski), Polish founder of   
   the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception. (1631-1701);   
    - Blessed Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, Argentine diocesan priest   
   (1840-1914);   
    - Blessed Jose Sánchez del Río, Mexican child martyr (1913-1928);   
    - Venerable Servant of God Francesco Maria Greco, Italian diocesan priest,   
   founder of the Congregation of the Little Workers of the Sacred Heart   
   (1857-1931);   
    - Venerable Servant of God Elisabetta Sanna, Italian layperson and widow, of   
   the Third Order of St. Francis, member of the Catholic Apostolic Union founded   
   by St. Vincent Pallotti (1788-1857);   
    MARTYRDOM   
    - Venerable Servant of God Engelmar Unzeitig (né Hubert), German professed   
   priest of the Congregation of Missionaries of Mariannhill, killed in hatred of   
   the faith in 1945);   
    - Servants of God Genaro Fueyo Castañón, Spanish diocesan priest, and three   
   companions, laypersons killed in hatred of the faith in 1936;   
    - Servant of God Iustus Takayama Ukon, Japanese layperson, killed in hatred of   
   the faith in 1615.   
    HEROIC VIRTUES   
    - Servant of God Arsenio da Trigolo (né Giuseppe Migliavacca), professed   
   priest   
   of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, Italian founder of the Congregation of   
   the Sisters of Mary Most Holy Consolatrix (1849-1909);   
    - Servant of God Maria Luisa of the Most Holy Sacrament (née Maria Velotti),   
   Italian member of the Third Order of St. Francis and founder of the Franciscan   
   Sisters Adorers of the Holy Cross (1826-1886).   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Audiences   
    Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in   
   audience:   
    - Charles Angelo Savarin, president of the Commonwealth of Dominica, with his   
   wife and entourage;   
    - Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine   
   of the Faith;   
    - Timothy Donald Cook, chief executive officer of Apple;   
    - Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota;   
    - College of Prelate Auditors of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Note   
    Vatican City, 22 January 2016 (VIS) - The date of the Holy Father's letter to   
   Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the   
   Discipline of the Sacraments, regarding the selection of people for the rite of   
   the Washing of feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is 20 December 2014, not 2015,   
   as erroneously implied in yesterday's Vatican Information Service bulletin. We   
   apologise to our readers.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
   For more information and to search for documents refer to the site:   
   www.visnews.org and www.vatican.va   
      
   Copyright (VIS):  the news contained in the services of the Vatican   
   Information Service may be reproduced wholly or partially by quoting   
   the source:  V. I. S. - Vatican Information Service.   
   http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/vis/vis_en.html   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)