Cindy Wooden

The Catholic Church in Europe and other places will, as retired Pope Benedict XVI had said, be smaller and less influential, but the church's mission and joy is not to increase numbers but to share the Gospel, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Malta.

European Catholic and Protestant leaders echoed Pope Francis' appeal for an Easter cease-fire in Ukraine, and they asked Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to support it.

In Russia's war on Ukraine, "the forces of evil" are clearly at work, leading to "abominable" attacks on innocent people and widescale destruction of their homes, Pope Francis said.

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church asked Pope Francis to scrap plans to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the pope's Way of the Cross service at Rome's Colosseum April 15.

While the Vatican confirmed Pope Francis' hope to travel to Kazakhstan this year, it did not confirm a news story that Francis could meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Jerusalem in June.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Joe Donnelly, officially began his duties April 11, presenting his letters of credential to Pope Francis.

Russia's war on Ukraine frighteningly raises the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons, the unleashing of radioactive material from nuclear power plants and a new push to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, including by terrorists, said members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said it appeared Ukraine could keep Pope Francis safe if he made a wartime trip to Kyiv, but the pope's safety was not the Vatican's only concern.

Members of Canada's Assembly of First Nations gave Pope Francis a "cradleboard," a traditional baby carrier, and asked him to keep it overnight as he reflected on what happened to Indigenous children who were sent to residential schools and, particularly, to those who never made it home again.

With his voice often trembling and tears sliding down to his beard, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church spoke via Zoom about the death and destruction Russia is raining down on his people and his country.

Holding together the obligation to protect and promote the Catholic identity of Catholic schools while reaching out to a broader community of students and teachers requires a commitment to dialogue.

While bishops in Ukraine and Russia are grateful Pope Francis will consecrate their nations to Mary, other Catholics are eagerly awaiting the text of the pope's prayer to see if he does it "correctly."

While Pope Francis and bishops around the world will consecrate themselves and all humanity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, they will include the phrase, "especially Russia and Ukraine."

Pope Francis again condemned Russia's war on Ukraine, calling it a "senseless massacre" and "sacrilegious" attack on human life.

Russia's war on Ukraine, and especially its brutality, "leaves us dumbfounded," Pope Francis said; "we never would have imagined we would again see such scenes, which are reminiscent of the great wars of the last century."

The call to prayer is an "active mission," one that does not take a believer from the world but prompts the believer to bring to God the pain and concerns of the world — including the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said.

 Russia's war on Ukraine "seems to have changed" the world, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.

Appealing again for an end to the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said those who invoke God to promote or justify violence "profane his name."

Following news reports about the war in Ukraine is important, Cardinal Michael Czerny said, but meeting the victims of that war — the people forced to flee — has a different impact.

Pope Francis said the Vatican "is ready to do everything to put itself at the service of peace" in Ukraine.