Cindy Wooden

The best way to overcome indifference to the suffering of migrants and refugees is to look in their faces, Pope Francis said.

Celebrating Mass Dec. 5 in Athens' Megaron concert hall, Pope Francis spoke of the blessing and spiritual advantage of being a small community without power and without pretenses.

In a meeting with Archbishop Chrysostomos II, head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, Pope Francis assured him that "your sorrows and your joys are also ours."

Concerned at the slow pace of adopting his reforms of the marriage annulment process, Pope Francis has established a Vatican commission to encourage and verify progress in the dioceses of Italy.

Pope Francis expressed his ongoing concern for the political and economic turmoil Lebanon is experiencing and his conviction that Lebanon has a special role to play in the Middle East.

The classical Christian understanding of what it means to be human provides a clear affirmation of the sacredness and uniqueness of human life, but to answer new questions posed by modern culture and technology, dialogue and compassion are needed.

To protect the sacrament of reconciliation as a "channel of grace" for victims of sexual abuse, the Catholic Church must do a better job instructing priests on what to do if a victim recounts his or her abuse in the confessional and in the unlikely case that an abuser confesses.

Honoring two reporters who have covered the Vatican for more than 40 years, Pope Francis paid tribute to all journalists who work to explain what is going on in the world and "make it less obscure."

The pope's pilgrimage to Assisi Nov. 12 was dedicated totally to the poor in preparation for the celebration Nov. 14 of the World Day of the Poor.

In times of trouble, Christians must be like the disciples in the boat on the stormy sea, calling out to Jesus and waking him up, Pope Francis said.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld and six other candidates for sainthood finally will be canonized May 15, 2022, the Vatican announced Nov. 9.

Maturing in the Christian life means learning to trust God and hang on to hope even when daily trials tempt one to complain, Pope Francis said.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments published an executive decree formalizing the responsibility of bishops' conferences for judging the accuracy and suitability of liturgical translations and adaptations.

Pope Francis, Martin Scorsese, Jane Goodall and a group of less famous "over 70s" talk to young filmmakers about love in the first episode of a four-part documentary. 

The presiding council of the Italian bishops' conference urged individual bishops and regional bishops' conferences to consider drawing up vaccination norms.

Pope Francis said he knows "it often annoys people" when he promotes Catholic teaching on social issues like poverty, migration and ecology, but he is going to keep doing so because the Gospel demands it.

A cardinal or bishop who is a member of the Congregation for Saints' Causes and anyone officially appointed as a consultant to the congregation cannot serve as the postulator or official promoter of a candidate's cause for sainthood.

"It is not a matter of beatifying or canonizing a papacy," insisted Cardinal Beniamino Stella, postulator of the late pope's sainthood cause.

The Catholic Church must move to action to protect children and to guarantee justice for victims and survivors, said Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna.

Pope Francis said the Second Vatican Council so shaped his theological and pastoral vision that perhaps he has not been as explicit as he should have been in highlighting those ties, especially when it comes to his contributions to Catholic social teaching.