Catholic News Service

Victor Genina Cervantes, director of integral human development at Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for national Catholic charities around the world, presented the campaign "Turn Debt into Hope" at a Vatican news conference Dec. 23, the eve of the opening of Holy Year 2025.

Israel's minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism asked Pope Francis to clarify his remarks about the need to investigate whether the current war in Gaza constitutes a genocide.

An Italian association for LGBTQ+ Christians, their parents and the priests and religious who minister with them is among the many groups registered to make a pilgrimage together through the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

Three months after the murder of Juan López, a Honduran church worker and environmental activist whose death was publicly mourned by Pope Francis, the bishops of Latin America are raising awareness of attacks against those fighting for social justice in the continent.

The Vatican City State court has returned guilty verdicts against the former director of the Sistine Chapel Choir, its former manager and his wife on charges of embezzlement and misappropriation of funds raised at concerts in Italy and abroad.

Climate change, war, immigration and other global challenges can only be resolved with the input and cooperation of the entire global community, Pope Francis told a group of new ambassadors to the Holy See.

At 53 years old, Capuchin Fr. Roberto Pasolini, the new preacher of the papal household, was among the youngest in the Vatican audience hall when he told Pope Francis and members of the Roman Curia: Be open to change.

The Vatican launched a "dashboard" for the College of Cardinals Dec. 5, allowing users of the web page to see a comprehensive list of the church's cardinals and sort them by age, rank, country of origin, electoral status and religious order. 

The celebration of a Holy Year every 25 years is an acknowledgment that "the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps toward the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus," Pope Francis wrote.

Pope Francis received a new, emission-free, all-electric popemobile from representatives of Mercedes-Benz, the German car manufacturer that has been supplying vehicles for the popes for nearly 100 years.

Often homilies are so long, 20 or 30 minutes, that people will go outside to smoke a cigarette and come back, the pope said.

During two days of meetings, Pope Francis and his closest cardinal advisers discussed the relationship between local churches and other institutional church assemblies, a main topic of discussion to come out of the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Pope Francis praised a new ceasefire reached in Lebanon, prayed for Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza, and appealed to world leaders to help put an end to the war in Ukraine.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Legislative Texts are setting up a working group to study how "spiritual abuse" can be defined and punished in church law, a note from the doctrinal office said.

Approved by the pope, the synod's final document "participates in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter, and as such, I ask that it be accepted," the pope wrote in a note published by the Vatican Nov. 25.

Pope Francis will become the first pope to visit Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, when he makes a daytrip to the French island Dec. 15. The pope will make the roughly one-hour flight from Rome to Ajaccio, Corsica's capital, to participate in a conference on popular religiosity in the Mediterranean region organized by the Diocese of Ajaccio, which encompasses the entire island.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened that the conflict could spread after Ukraine fired U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles Nov. 19 and U.K.-supplied cruise missiles Nov. 20 into Russian territory.

Pope Francis, who will celebrate his 88th birthday in December, has approved simplified liturgical rites for the death of a pontiff.

As the 1,000th day since Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine approached, the Vatican secretary of state said he hoped the milestone would "awaken a sense of responsibility in everyone, especially those who can stop the ongoing carnage."

Pope Francis has appointed a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago to serve as administrative management director of the Laudato Si' Center for Higher Education, which is based at the papal villa and farms at Castel Gandolfo.