Catholic News Service

During a quick morning visit to Tuscany, Pope Francis praised two lay communities there that are dedicated to living out the Gospel values of reciprocal love and cooperation.

The front-runner in Mexico's presidential election said, if he wins July 1, he would appoint an activist priest as his human rights director.

The baptismal font is a tomb in which a person dies to sin, and it is a womb through which a person is born to new life in Christ, Pope Francis said.

Jesuit Fr. Howard J. Gray, a national and international known scholar on Ignatian spirituality and long serving member of NCR's board of directors, died May 7 from injuries received in an automobile accident in Michigan.

Pope Francis added a reference to the office's responsibility for promoting a deeper reflection on the role of women in the church and society to the statutes of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life.

The devil "seduces us; he knows how to appeal to our vanity and curiosity and we buy it all," the pope said May 8.

Bishop Shelton Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, the new chair of the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, looks forward to helping Catholic church leaders respond to the "sin" of racism.

In his writings on faith and politics, retired Pope Benedict XVI insisted that humans are free to the extent to which they acknowledge being dependent on the love of God, Pope Francis wrote.

Love is not all hearts and flowers or what is presented in a sappy romantic film, Pope Francis said. "Love is something else. Love is taking responsibility for others."

At the White House Rose Garden May 3, President Donald Trump announced, and then signed, an executive order giving faith-based groups a stronger voice in the federal government.

A true bishop always stays close to his people, protecting them from "wolves" and from losing their way, Pope Francis said.

Continuing the legal drama against a program that protects some 800,000 young adults brought into the country without legal documentation as minors, seven states have filed a lawsuit attempting once more to end it.

The changes in canon law Pope Francis made related to marriage annulment cases require some changes in the way church law is taught, said the Congregation for Catholic Education.

Christians must pass on the faith by giving witness through their example and not by persuading others to choose sides, Pope Francis said.

Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre was elected the 80th grand master of the Knights of Malta May 2 and promised to continue the reform of the order begun last year when he was elected its interim head.

Baptism requires rejecting Satan and professing one's full faith in God, Pope Francis said.

In a rare show of unanimity, the House of Commons overwhelmingly supported a motion to call on Pope Francis to apologize on Canadian soil for abuses that occurred at church-run residential schools.

Pope Francis visited Rome's popular Shrine of Our Lady of Divine Love to pray the rosary for peace, especially in Syria.

A federal appeals court upheld two lower court rulings that the assets of Catholic institutions, including parishes, are separate from those of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and that they cannot be consolidated with archdiocesan assets in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard University professor of law and former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, received the Evangelium Vitae Medal from the University of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture.