Cindy Wooden

As a "first choice," members of the Italian bishops' conference decided to focus their study of clerical sexual abuse in the country on cases reported to the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2000 to 2021.

As Italian bishops debated how to respond to calls for a nationwide investigation into clerical sexual abuse and the way accusations have been handled, U.S. Cardinal Seán P. O'Malley of Boston encouraged them to move forward.

Pope Francis said the Vatican office that deals with religious orders can permit men's communities that are made up of both priests and brothers to choose one of the brothers to be a provincial superior or even the superior general.

To truly be a "field hospital," the Catholic Church and its projects must be "concerned more with those who suffer than with defending its own interests," Pope Francis said.

Divided Christians must recognize how their sins have fractured Christ's church, be honest about the struggles their communities are facing and be humble enough to recognize that others have gifts they need, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis is being very careful to ensure that he offers solidarity and hope to suffering Ukrainians while not doing or saying anything to endanger a possibility for dialogue, said Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister.

The study and celebration of the liturgy should lead to a sense of awe before God, a commitment to mission and a growing unity within the church, not tensions and squabbles, Pope Francis said.

Doing nothing to overcome the divisions among Christians means allowing tensions to fester and even feed conflict, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis' secretary of state reaffirmed the pope's offer to go to Moscow personally to try to convince President Vladimir Putin to stop his war on Ukraine but said the Kremlin had yet to respond.

In a cavernous warehouse on the edge of Lublin, Piotr Piskorski sees too much empty space, especially near the pallets of baby formula, canned soups and vegetables and individual servings of instant noodles.

The Catholic Church in Europe and other places will, as retired Pope Benedict XVI had said, be smaller and less influential, but the church's mission and joy is not to increase numbers but to share the Gospel, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Malta.

European Catholic and Protestant leaders echoed Pope Francis' appeal for an Easter cease-fire in Ukraine, and they asked Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to support it.

In Russia's war on Ukraine, "the forces of evil" are clearly at work, leading to "abominable" attacks on innocent people and widescale destruction of their homes, Pope Francis said.

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church asked Pope Francis to scrap plans to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the pope's Way of the Cross service at Rome's Colosseum April 15.

While the Vatican confirmed Pope Francis' hope to travel to Kazakhstan this year, it did not confirm a news story that Francis could meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Jerusalem in June.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Joe Donnelly, officially began his duties April 11, presenting his letters of credential to Pope Francis.

Russia's war on Ukraine frighteningly raises the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons, the unleashing of radioactive material from nuclear power plants and a new push to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, including by terrorists, said members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said it appeared Ukraine could keep Pope Francis safe if he made a wartime trip to Kyiv, but the pope's safety was not the Vatican's only concern.

Members of Canada's Assembly of First Nations gave Pope Francis a "cradleboard," a traditional baby carrier, and asked him to keep it overnight as he reflected on what happened to Indigenous children who were sent to residential schools and, particularly, to those who never made it home again.

With his voice often trembling and tears sliding down to his beard, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church spoke via Zoom about the death and destruction Russia is raining down on his people and his country.