Each year, Project Compassion, which runs through the six weeks of Lent, brings hundreds of thousands of Australians together in solidarity with the world’s poor.

Dear Brothers and Sister, Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for all communities and every believer.

A homily at Mass is not a mini catechism class, the Vatican says in a new document on homilies, but it is an opportunity to explain Church teaching using the Scripture readings and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Women’s cultures: between equality and difference, an issue of great interest to Pope Francis, was the theme of this week’s Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, “lit a new light in the Church’s journey toward unity”, Pope Francis has said.

After decades of debate within the Church, Pope Francis formally recognised that Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed “in hatred of the faith” and not for purely political reasons.

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) has written to Indonesian President Joko Widodo expressing concern for the circumstances of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are facing the death penalty.

When their lives are all work and no play, men turn their children into “orphans” who lack a father to guide them, show them love and teach them values, Pope Francis said.

A decision several years ago to plant vineyards to beautify vacant cemetery land and produce wine for Mass has proven to be a win-win for the diocese of Oakland, in California, and its parishes and schools.

Pope Francis has this week named the Vatican’s former chief prosecutor of clerical sex abuse cases to head his new doctrinal team dealing with appeals filed by clergy accused of abuse.