Pope to kids: A better world can’t be built by being a couch potato
By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY — Peace can spread and grow from “small seeds” like including someone who is left out of an activity,…
Pope tells priests: ‘Don’t ask too much’ during confession, forgive always
By Justin McLellan ROME — Catholics should not be afraid to bear their sins before God whose mercy is a model for the Church’s…
Vatican says abortion, surrogacy, war, poverty are attacks on human dignity
By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY — Being a Christian means defending human dignity and that includes opposing abortion, the death penalty, gender transition surgery,…
‘Embrace truth of who we are’
ROME — In an age when even one’s most intimate thoughts and feelings can become fodder for social media, Lent is a time to…
Year of Prayer a needed rest stop on journey to jubilee
By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY — With little fanfare, Pope Francis officially opened the Year of Prayer after Mass for the Church’s celebration of…
Vatican says bishops shouldn’t stop blessings for gay couples
While bishops may take a cautious approach to the Vatican’s guidance on blessing same-sex or other unmarried couples, they should not deny their priests the possibility of discerning and imparting blessings on people who ask for them, the Vatican said.
Giving is not enough, people must also ‘touch poverty,’ pope says
Giving to others in need is not enough; people must look those they help in the eyes and be willing to touch their poverty with their hands and hearts, Pope Francis said. “Without the heart there is no human knowledge,” he said. “In order to know, we must know with the mind, with the heart and then act with our hands.”
Church and world must ‘respect, defend, esteem’ women, pope says
During Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day Jan. 1, the pope said that the world “needs to look to mothers and to women to find peace, to emerge from the spiral of violence and hatred, and once more see things with genuinely human eyes and hearts.”
‘The devil is a seducer,’ Pope says as he begins new series of talks
The devil is sly and sneaky like a serpent and subtly entices people to sin, Pope Francis said. One of the devil’s first lines of attack is to go after one’s pride just like the serpent who tricked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden did.
Pope’s 2023: a year of health challenges, travel and the synod
Pope Francis’ 2023 was a year of important trips made or postponed, his own 10th anniversary as pope, a call to the world to act on climate change and a call to the Catholic Church to strengthen its mission by implementing “synodality.”
