Cindy Wooden

In a world filled with "bellicose rhetoric," religious leaders must make extra efforts to speak of peace and to nurture every action and attitude that lessens tensions and increases dialogue, Pope Francis said.

As Pope Francis poured water over their feet, dried them with a towel and kissed their feet, 12 women inmates at Rome's Rebibbia prison wept.

Pope Francis told Catholics in the Holy Land that he knows Holy Week this year is "so overshadowed by the Passion and, as yet, so little by the Resurrection."

For the first time in his 11-year papacy, Pope Francis has chosen to write his own meditations for the Good Friday Way of the Cross service at Rome's Colosseum, the head of the Vatican press office said.

"War is always a defeat," Pope Francis said, urging people at his general audience to pray that leaders in war-torn nations would have the courage to negotiate for peace.

At the request of Pope Francis, three Jesuit-run institutions of higher learning in Rome — the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute — will formally become one university in May.

The respect religions have for the dignity and value of human life should help them convince their followers that "war must be rejected and peace cherished," leaders of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue said in a message to Muslims around the world.

Pope Francis has decided that some controversial issues raised at the first assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality will be examined by study groups that will work beyond the synod's final assembly in October. 

The Vatican City appeals court upheld the conviction of two Italian climate activists who glued their hands to an ancient sculpture in the Vatican Museums. 

Pope Francis paid a brief visit to Rome's Gemelli Isola Hospital Feb. 28 for "diagnostic tests," the Vatican press office said, without providing specifics.

Saying Pope Francis was continuing to experience "mild flu-like symptoms," the Vatican announced he had canceled his appointments again Feb. 26.

The second assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality will meet Oct. 2-27 and will be preceded by several formal studies coordinated by the synod general secretariat working with various offices of the Roman Curia.

The vice of "acedia," often translated as "sloth," can cause laziness, but it is much more than that; it is a lack of caring for anything and being bored with everything, even one's relationship with God, Pope Francis said.

Bruno Abate, founder and president of Recipe for Change, which offers culinary education, job skills training, art and music activities and mentorships to detainees at Cook County Jail in Chicago, met with Pope Francis.

All forms of clerical abuse begin with a priest thinking he is better than others and somehow over them, Pope Francis said.

The importance of women in the Catholic Church cannot be "reduced" to the question of ministry, Pope Francis told members of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

People who act shocked that a priest would bless a gay couple but have no problem with him blessing a crooked businessman are hypocrites, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals devoted the first morning of their February meeting "to deepening their reflection, begun last December, on the role of women in the church," the Vatican press office said.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said it continues to receive reports of Catholics, including priests, finding out all the sacraments they have received are invalid because they were baptized years earlier with a formula that was not approved.

In cases of a cleric sexually abusing a "vulnerable adult," the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith investigates and judges only cases involving "persons who habitually have an imperfect use of reason," the dicastery said.