Pope Francis will celebrate the fourth annual Sunday of the Word of God Jan. 22 and, like he did last year, will confer the ministries of lector and catechist on several lay people, according to the Dicastery for Evangelization.
Telling parents and godparents to teach their little ones to pray from the time they are small, Pope Francis baptized 13 babies in the Sistine Chapel as their older brothers and sisters looked on — or got away and ran around.
"Peace requires before all else the defense of life," which is threatened by the "alleged 'right to abortion,' " Pope Francis told ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.
Soon after Pope Benedict XVI was laid to rest in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica, an Italian publisher released early copies of a book by the late pope's secretary.
With the same spirit and aims that behind his recent reform and reorganization of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis, as Bishop of Rome, has overhauled the Vicariate of Rome.
The Jan. 5 funeral Mass for Pope Benedict XVI will be a papal funeral with a few changes to fit with the fact that he was not the reigning pope and has not left behind a "sede vacante."
Representatives from the world's Christian churches will travel to the Vatican to attend the funeral Mass of Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square Jan. 5.
"Protocol develops over time, and this has never happened before," the director of the Vatican press office kept repeating in the days after the death of retired Pope Benedict XVI.
Most of the 18 Catholic missionaries murdered in 2022 were not carrying out high-risk missions when they were assassinated but were simply "immersed and submerged in the ordinariness of their lives and their apostolic work," said the editor of Fides, the Vatican's missionary news service.
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with top Ukrainian military chaplains Dec. 29 in Kyiv.
In an end-of-the year decision, the Supreme Court said Dec. 27 that a federal public health rule that allows immigration officials at the border to quickly turn away migrants seeking asylum could stay in place while legal challenges to the policy played out.
Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila called it irresponsible and a "flat out lie" for The Denver Post daily newspaper and some other local media to scapegoat Catholic teaching on human sexuality as a reason for hatred against transgender people and the wider LGBTQ community that led to a mass shooting at a Colorado gay bar.
The birth of Jesus in a stable "shows us God's 'style,' which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness," Pope Francis told visitors and pilgrims at his weekly general audience.