Justin McLellan

Pope Francis lamented the death of an Israeli-American hostage abducted by Hamas and called for the immediate release of all hostages being held in Gaza. After praying the Angelus in St. Peter's Square Sept. 15, the pope recalled the many conflicts occurring around the globe, including in Ukraine, Myanmar and the Middle East, noting the "many innocent victims" of war.

"It needs to be said clearly: There are those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants, and this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin," Pope Francis said during his general audience Aug. 28. 

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, authorized the local archbishop to issue a document so that the Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows of Chandavila can "continue to offer to the faithful who wish to approach it, a place of interior peace, consolation, and conversion." The cardinal's letter titled, "A Light in Spain," was approved by the pope during an audience Aug. 22 and was published on the dicastery's website Aug. 23.

Dialogue between religious communities in the Holy Land is "in crisis," Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, patriarch of Jerusalem, said Aug. 20 during a presentation at the Meeting in Rimini, an annual event sponsored by the Communion and Liberation movement.

Pope Francis met with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, at the Vatican to discuss climate change.

"The death penalty is in no way the solution to the violence that can strike innocent people," the pope wrote in the preface to a new book on prison chaplaincy, "A Christian on Death Row," written by American lay Catholic prison chaplain and licensed attorney Dale Recinella, and published by the Vatican publishing house.

Just two months before the Synod of Bishops gathers again in Rome, its Latin American members met to discuss how synodality can be implemented in the Catholic Church after the close of the assembly in October.

Vatican rulings on allegedly supernatural phenomena, such as Marian apparitions, will continue to be released publicly, but official validation of an event's supernatural status — as has happened at Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe — would be "exceptional," the Vatican's doctrine chief said.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a "nihil obstat" decree to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rock in Calabria, Italy, effectively ruling that devotion at the shrine may continue but not validating the supernatural status of the apparitions associated with it.

A statement released by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith July 11 revealed that a ruling of "constat de non supernauralitate" — a judgment declaring that a phenomenon is not supernatural — was reached in 1974 by the then-Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by St. Paul VI regarding the alleged apparitions and revelations of "The Lady of All Nations."

"I ask you to show the world that we are united in asking for a proactive commitment to protect human dignity in this new era of machines," Pope Francis wrote in a message to participants of a conference on AI ethics which hosted representatives from 11 world religions.

The Vatican's first-ever auditor general said false information given to the pope is what led to his wrongful termination, a claim he said will be central to his appeal scheduled to be heard before a Vatican court July 3.

While Jesus entrusted St. Peter with the keys to the kingdom more than two millennia ago, and his modern-day successor conferred apostolic authority to newly appointed archbishops June 29, it is ultimately God who holds the power to open the church's doors and lead the Christian community forward in its mission of evangelization, Pope Francis said.

Heaven is not a secure vault protected from outsiders but a "hidden treasure" that is reached by cultivating virtues, Pope Francis said. Before praying the Angelus in St. Peter's Square on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29, the pope reflected on Jesus giving St. Peter, the first pope, the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Pope Francis prayed in thanksgiving for the release of two Ukrainian Catholic priests who were held in Russian captivity for more than 19 months, calling on Christians to pray for the release of all prisoners of war.

Pope Francis expressed his concern that Christians fleeing the Holy Land and the whole of the Middle East will leave no Christian presence in the land "where it all began."

While Christians must treat addicts with care and comprehension, drug traffickers who push their products on the vulnerable are "murderers" who are called to conversion, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis blessed an ambulance filled with medicine and first-aid equipment that will travel some 1,800 miles from the Vatican to support those wounded in Ukraine.

"We are the biggest player in this field, so we have a special obligation," Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, president of the Pontifical Gregorian University's Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care, said.

Condemning the killing of Christians in Congo, Pope Francis said the sacrifices of modern martyrs are seeds that grow into examples of Christian witness for the church.