Pope Francis said the Sacrament of Confession does not work like a dry cleaner but is a moment in which Jesus imparts his peace. “Jesus in the confessional is not a dry cleaner, it is an encounter with Jesus but with this Jesus who waits for us just as we are,” said Pope Francis. “Many times we think that going to confession is like going to the dry cleaner to clean the dirt from our clothes,” he observed during his April 29 homily. But what really happens is that Jesus “donates to us the peace that only he gives,” he said. The Pope usually invites different groups to attend his daily Mass in the chapel of Saint Martha’s residence, where he lives. Today, the personnel from the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See were among the congregation. “We are often ashamed to tell the truth, but shame is a true Christian virtue, and even human,” he commented. “I do not know if there is a similar saying in Italian, but in our country those who are never ashamed are called ‘sin vergüenza,’” he said in his homily. “This means ‘the unashamed’ because they are people who do not have the ability to be ashamed. And to be ashamed is a virtue of men and the women who are humble,” he added. Pope Francis taught that being ashamed of sins is “not only natural, it’s a virtue that helps prepare us for God's forgiveness.” He underscored that confession is not “a torture session” and that God is not waiting “to beat,” but is instead “always waiting for us, with tenderness to forgive. It is going to praise God, because I, a sinner, have been saved by Him,” said Pope Francis. “And if tomorrow I do the same?” he asked. “Go again, and go and go and go.” The Pope encouraged the congregation to “never masquerade before God. Jesus Christ is the righteous (one) and supports us before the Father," he said. “He defends us in front of our weaknesses, but you need to stand in front of the Lord with our truth of (being) sinners, with confidence, even with joy, without masquerading,” he remarked. The Holy Father also noted that walking in darkness means being “overly pleased with ourselves and believing that we do not need salvation. That is darkness!” he exclaimed. “When we continue on this road of darkness, it is not easy to turn back. We all have darkness in our lives, moments where everything, even our consciousness, is in the dark, but this does not mean we walk in darkness,” said the Pope.

Praying for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. May all those in pain today turn to the Lord Jesus Christ who is our great consoler.

Students and parishioners are speaking up for a Catholic priest after two gay students at George Washington University said they want him removed for supporting the Church's stance on homosexual behavior. “I have never seen Fr. Greg be less than compassionate to any student on an issue of sexuality,” Catholic author and speaker Dawn Eden told Catholic News Agency April 5. “He’s been instrumental in helping them to find healing in Christ.” Eden, who is a parishioner at Saint Stephen Martyr Parish where Fr. Schaffer serves as chaplain to the GWU Newman Center, said participation in Catholic life “shot up exponentially” since his arrival in 2009. These comments come in the wake of an effort by two former Newman Center members seeking to force Fr. Schaffer off campus at the D.C. university, saying that they felt alienated by his defense of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. Seniors Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen, both of whom are gay, want Fr. Schaffer removed because he taught that homosexual behavior is immoral, consistent with the teaching of the Catholic faith. The students said that the priest had told individuals who came to him for counseling that if they experience same-sex attraction, they should remain celibate. Asserting that this was unacceptable anti-gay behavior, the two gay students have launched a campaign to force Fr. Schaffer off the campus. According to the campus newspaper, they have filed a formal complaint with the administration and are holding a vigil outside the Newman Center until the priest is removed. Legacy, who is now a priest in the schismatic Old Catholic Church, submitted a report to the administration outlining a program used by other schools to vet religious leaders before bringing them to the campus and plans on asking the Student Association to defund the Catholic student outreach center which reportedly received $10,000 last year. Current and past Newman Center students have voiced their support of the priest on a blog called, “The Chaplain I Know.” They argued that it was ridiculous to try to penalize a Catholic priest for upholding Catholic teaching and offered testimonies on Fr. Schaffer’s character, calling him “self-sacrificing,” “encouraging” and instrumental in their conversions back to the Catholic faith. “The kindness and unconditional affection he expressed was what gave me the strength to realize that I was loved despite my mistakes,” one contributor wrote. If Catholics are looking for “someone to rally behind” in order to tell the culture where they stand, Eden said, Fr. Schaffer is “a good and holy priest” worthy of such support. “We need to stand up for a Catholic priest who is true to his vocation and who is promoting and defending the Gospel for the good of souls,” she added. Catholic League president Bill Donohue has called Legacy and Bergen’s campaign a “serious civil issue” that should be the subject of a “campus wide discussion on the meaning of the First Amendment.”

During his brief homily at an April 2 Mass at the chapel of St. Marta’s Residence, Pope Francis encouraged the faithful to pray to God for the gift of tears, to imitate Mary Magdalene during this Easter season. Addressing various members of the Vatican gendarmerie and other Vatican workers present for the Mass, the Holy Father mediated on the passage about the “sinful” woman who wept upon seeing the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene, he said, is the woman “whom Jesus said had loved much and therefore her sins were forgiven.” However, she had to “confront the loss of all her hopes” in not finding Jesus, and for this reason she wept. “All of us have felt joy, sadness and sorrow in our lives,” but “have we wept during the darkest moment? Have we had that gift of tears that prepare the eyes to look, to see the Lord?” the Pope asked. “We too can ask the Lord for the gift of tears,” he said. “It is a beautiful grace…to weep praying for everything: for what is good, for our sins, for graces, for joy itself.” Weeping, the Holy Father explained, “prepares us to see Jesus. It is the Lord," he said, “who gives us the grace, to all, to be able to say with our lives, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ not because he has appeared, but because ‘I have seen him in my heart.’ And this should be the testimony of our lives: ‘I live this way because I have seen the Lord.’”