Catholic News Service

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.

Pope Francis has chosen a line from Psalm 71 — "Do not cast me off in my old age" — as the theme for the 2024 celebration of the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which will be celebrated July 28.

In an age when even one's most intimate thoughts and feelings can become fodder for social media, Lent is a time to cast aside appearances and to find God at work in the depths of the heart, Pope Francis said.

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.

Pope Francis will go to Venice in April to visit a women's prison where the Holy See has set up its pavilion for the Venice Biennale, a major international contemporary art exhibition.

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.

Making a list of which sinners are welcome in the church and which sinners are not goes against the teaching of the Gospel, Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper.

Today's wars and conflicts have put humanity on the brink of the abyss, Pope Francis said, calling for a worldwide cease-fire.

Pope Francis again insisted that an informal blessing of a gay or other unmarried couple is not a blessing of their union but a sign of the Catholic Church's closeness to them and its hope that they will grow in faith.

Divided Christians will draw closer to one another only by loving God and loving their neighbors, serving one another and not pointing fingers in blame for past faults, Pope Francis said.

The Vatican has ruled against its former auditor general, Libero Milone, who sued the Vatican after claiming that he and his deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, were forced to resign from their positions without just cause in 2017.