Catholic News Service

As the continental assemblies for the Synod of Bishops make clear that hot-button issues — like sexuality, climate change and the role of women in the church — are not going away, the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life is pointing at a more fundamental issue at stake in learning to be a "synodal church": What responsibility comes from baptism and unites all Catholics?

"I am close to you, and I pray for you," Pope Francis told the Turkish people reeling from earthquakes that killed nearly 42,000 people in Turkey and neighboring Syria, according to figures updated Feb. 16.

Pope Francis told Jesuits working in Congo that he had taken seriously the promise he and all Jesuits make to not seek offices of authority and power in the church and, in fact, he twice declined becoming a bishop.

Pope Francis sent 10,000 thermal shirts to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, where millions are sleeping outdoors in below-freezing temperatures.

Christians are not called to "argue, counterattack and defend themselves" when evangelizing but to be meek and humble, Pope Francis said.

Just days after Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Pope Francis expressed concern over his condition.

Indigenous people have a "fundamental role" in protecting the planet from "unprecedented" social and environmental threats, Pope Francis said during a meeting with participants from the Forum of Indigenous Peoples at the Vatican Feb. 10.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the papal vicar for Vatican City State, has appointed Scalabrinian Fr. Luigi Sabbarese, a 60-year-old canon lawyer, to coordinate and verify the city state's safeguarding efforts.

Young people must be "missionaries of human dignity" to fight human trafficking and all forms of exploitation, Pope Francis said.

On the feast of Sudan-born St. Josephine Bakhita, Pope Francis prayed for "a future of justice and peace for our brothers and sisters in Africa."

Pope Francis urged all people to be in solidarity with the regions of Turkey and Syria struck by two powerful earthquakes early Feb. 6 and that are "in part already martyred by a long war."

Pope Francis expressed his "spiritual closeness" and "solidarity" with those affected by a pair of powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria Feb. 6.

Ongoing flooding in South Sudan is causing people to move into regions traditionally populated by members of other ethnic groups. That leads to competition for land and resources that fuels ethnic tensions.

More than three-quarters of a century after the largest genocide in history, the United States and the Catholic Church are still making sense of their response to the Holocaust.

The principal task of the continental assemblies and the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops in 2023 and 2024 is to learn and strengthen a process of listening as a church to the Holy Spirit and not to address all the issues being debated in the church, top officers of the synod said.

Ukraine's religious leaders asked Pope Francis to visit Kyiv, said Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The world's religious traditions and their followers are called to offer wisdom to the world and to "infuse it with a spirit of warmth, healing and fraternity," which requires the participation of women as well as men, Pope Francis said.

As war ravages Ukraine, the country cannot be divided among religious confessions but must be united behind "mother Ukraine," Pope Francis said.

God suffers and grieves when those who profess to believe in him do not love the people he loves and do not work for the justice he desires, Pope Francis said.

Germany's bishops do not have the authority to establish a permanent decision-making body of bishops and laypeople that top Vatican officials said would supersede the authority of the country's bishops' conference, according to a letter from the officials published Jan. 23.