Pope Francis Rips 'Very Ugly Thing' He Sees at Mass

When the priest says "lift up your hearts" during Mass, you'd better put your cellphone down while you do it. That was Pope Francis' message Wednesday during his weekly address in St. Peter's Square, calling it a "very ugly thing" to see worshippers—even other men of the cloth—with their phones out while he leads services, the BBC reports. "Please! Mass is not a show!" he said, per the Washington Post, with the Catholic News Service tweeting that the pope is "exasperated." Another beef the pontiff brought up: kids not knowing how to do the sign of the cross, instead "moving their hand all over their chest," per the Catholic News Agency. Applause can be heard from the audience in a video of his remarks.

Francis has taken on the subject of phones before, telling the faithful earlier this year to swap out their phones for Bibles and warning in last year's apostolic exhortation of the damage to relationships that cellphones can cause. Per CBS New York, locals there mostly agree with the pope's stance, though one churchgoer tries to justify her own phone use. "I have my Bible in my cellphone," she says. "So I'm looking at it, but I'm reading my Bible or finding the Scripture." Not that the pontiff is a total Luddite: The BBC notes his penchant for tweeting and taking selfies with admirers. (More Pope Francis stories.)