Justin McLellan

The nearly 400-year-old sculpted canopy towering over the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica will be surrounded by scaffolding for most of 2024 as it is washed, repaired and restored.

Policies that are at the service of humanity "cannot allow themselves to be dictated by finance and the inner workings of the market," Pope Francis said.

The Vatican's doctrine chief said the sometimes-graphic book on sexuality and spirituality that he published 25 years ago is "a book of my youth that I certainly would not write now."

The Catholic Church should revise its celibacy requirement for Latin-rite priests, a senior official in the Vatican's doctrinal office said.

A person does not have to travel far from home to find people living on the margins of society and in need of hearing the message of the Gospel, Pope Francis said.

While Catholic bishops may take a cautious approach to the Vatican's new guidance on blessing same-sex couples, they should not deny their priests the possibility of discerning and imparting blessings on people who ask for them, the Vatican's doctrinal office said.

The world and the Catholic Church must respect and defend women and foster a motherly care for others to end dehumanizing cycles of violence, Pope Francis said Jan. 1. 

Like God's decision to be born in a manger tucked away from the world, good deeds done in silence can express God's love wherever they are performed, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis condemned the Israeli military's killing of two Christian women sheltering at a Catholic parish in Gaza and an attack on a convent, noting that in the current fighting "unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire."

The youngest member of the synod assembly is confident that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Synod of Bishops, but to get out of class he looked for a little extra help from the pope.

"The Amazon really is a symbol, a symbol of the need to change our mentality, to be less consumeristic, to chase after money less," said Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, the first cardinal from the Amazon region. 

Pope Francis called for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the humanitarian crisis and the need to de-escalate violence in the region.

Members of the Synod of Bishops will issue a "Letter to the People of God" at the close of the first session of the synod assembly, which ends Oct. 29, the Vatican said.

The Catholic Church's synodal process, intended to actively solicit input from all its members, is not a threat to the hierarchy, a cardinal said.

Through a vast network of priests, diplomats, ordinary faithful and Jews themselves, the Vatican was one "one of the major points of arrival of news of the Jewish genocide" taking place during World War II, a scholar examining the Vatican's wartime archives said.

Rather than hide behind a facade of faithfulness, Christians should be sincere with God even when telling him "no," Pope Francis said.

"Silence, in the ecclesial community, makes fraternal communication possible, where the Holy Spirit draws together points of view," Pope Francis said to members of the synod, Christian leaders and young people in St. Peter's Square Sept. 30. 

The Vatican urged members of the U.N. Security Council to be "creative and courageous artisans of peace and weavers of constructive dialogue" to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine.

Inspired by the dignity of each human being as revealed by Jesus, Christians are called to fight "every form of slavery," whether physical, social or spiritual, Pope Francis said.

The Vatican urged the international community to press for a "special statute" to guarantee religious freedom in the city of Jerusalem in any agreements regarding a peace deal between Israel and Palestine.