With Advent coming during an ongoing pandemic, Christians are called to hold on to hope and foster a season of compassion and tenderness, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis to young people: “You have been entrusted with an exciting but also challenging task: to stand tall while everything around us seems to be collapsing; to be sentinels prepared to see the light...to be builders amid the many ruins of today’s world; to be capable of dreaming.”

On this week’s episode, Gerry and host Colleen Dulle take a look at how the pope’s relationship with the media has changed over time and examine the vision of the media that Pope Francis laid out in his speech to Vatican journalists this weekend.

Joseph teaches us this: “Do not look so much at the things that the world praises, look into the corners, look in the shadows, look at the peripheries, at what the world does not want.”

“Journalism is not so much a matter of choosing a profession,” the pope said, “but rather of embarking on a mission, a bit like a doctor, who studies and works to cure evil in the world.”

The pope sent a letter of thanks to Michael O'Loughlin, America's national correspondent, this summer after receiving an advance copy of “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.”