What God asks of people is too difficult and demanding to do without help from Jesus and Mary, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis gave pilgrims attending his weekly public audience Sept. 11 what he called a “homework assignment” to find out the date they were baptized and celebrate it every year.

An English archbishop praised the British government for seeking clarification of a decision not to prosecute two doctors who agreed to abortions on the grounds of gender.

While a military-backed dictatorship in Argentina was conducting a clandestine war on suspected dissidents, then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pope, masterminded a secret strategy to save those being targeted, according to a new book.

A bishop from eastern Congo said people in the area continue to suffer from an ongoing government-rebel conflict, and he hoped pressure from the international community would help relieve the situation.

In the small front room of an apartment in a middle-class district of Istanbul, five young men, some with university degrees or halfway there, talked about why they fled their homes in Syria.

Pope Francis will meet with workers, prisoners, the poor, young people, religious and other special guests when he visits the Italian island of Sardinia Sept. 22.

A veteran diplomat, the Vatican’s new secretary of state, plans to put the church’s vast global diplomatic network into high gear as champions for peace.

At the Church of All Nations at the Garden of Gethsemane, the stone that traditionally has represented Jesus’ agony was scattered with notes in different languages — all asking for peace in Syria.

Pope Francis’ response to a request for a symbolic mooncake donation to prisoners in Hong Kong has generated excitement and a flood of cash donations since it was published in early September.