For the first time in 15 years, Pope Francis was not able to walk along the line of people waiting to get into the Shrine of St. Cajetan to listen to them and bless them.
When he’s riding in the popemobile — at the Vatican or, for example, in Rio de Janeiro — Pope Francis uses his hands not just to bless people and hold the babies he’s kissing. He uses them to catch things.
Pope Francis’ order restricting the use of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in communities of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate addresses problems within the religious order and does not contradict retired Pope Benedict XVI’s permission for wider use of the old Mass throughout the church, the Vatican spokesman said.
In a world that often seems dark and full of suffering and violence, Christians can offer hope by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Pope Francis wrote in a message for World Mission Sunday 2013.
After more than a week with no word from Jesuit Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian priest who worked for decades in Syria, Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said, “it seems he has been kidnapped by an Islamist group” that is a “local version of al-Qaida,” the terrorist group.
Two Madagascar archbishops confirmed in talks with leading U.S. church leaders that Catholic Relief Services is not providing or facilitating access to contraceptives and abortifacients in its health care programs in their archdioceses.
As Zimbabwe’s church leaders called on the country’s political parties to accept the results of July 31 elections, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference said he hoped that the church can help mediate a peaceful resolution.
As a sign of his “esteem and friendship,” Pope Francis said he personally wanted to write this year’s Vatican message to Muslims about to celebrate the end of their monthlong Ramadan fast.
Mercy is a word Pope Francis uses often, and an attitude he believes the Catholic Church must embody and all Catholics must mirror.