bracelet which connects to a smartphone application.
Photo: CNS/courtesy Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network
VATICAN (CNS): “Pope Francis says the rosary is the prayer of his heart. He prays it every day,” Jesuit Father Federic Fornos, international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (formerly the Apostleship of Prayer), said at the Vatican press office on October 15.
Father Fornos was launching Click to Pray eRosary, the latest effort to respond to what he said was Pope Francis’ explicit request that the network help young people learn to pray and love the rosary.
Click to Pray eRosary, developed by GadgeTek Inc., is both a free app for Apple and Android and an actual high-tech rosary bracelet that connects to a smartphone using Bluetooth. Making the sign of the cross with the rosary automatically opens the app on the smartphone, while clicking one of the prayer beads allows the person praying to advance through the prayer texts, music and images on the screen.
Father Joao Chagas, head of the youth office at the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, said the app—described on clicktoprayerosary.org— is “a concrete sign of the pope’s desire to enter the lives of young people and help them pray.”
Father Fornos explained that Pope Francis’ big push to get young people to pray the rosary came in the run-up to and the celebration of World Youth Day in Panama in January. Hundreds of thousands of rosaries were distributed to the young people taking part.
But the pope has not let up. Speaking to Polish pilgrims at his weekly general audience on October 9, he told them, “Remember these words, especially now, in the month of October dedicated to the rosary,” the pope continued. “Through the intercession of Mary, mediator of graces, we ask for peace for the world, wisdom for those who govern and for faith and unity for families.”
