Catholic News Service

While the Second Vatican Council gave the Catholic Church a "beautiful" document on the priesthood, "it did not face the fundamental question" of the difference between Catholic and Protestant understandings of ordained ministry, wrote Pope Benedict XVI in an essay published after his death.

Pope Francis told young people to always "look to the horizon" and open their hearts to other peoples and cultures.

Welcoming a delegation of Cambodian Buddhists to the Vatican Jan. 19, Pope Francis called for "dialogue at all levels" to seek solutions for repairing the broken relationship between humanity and nature.

Christians must develop a pastoral heart to care for those who have not heard the Gospel or who have left the fold, Pope Francis said.

The call to faith in Jesus always is a call to service and mission, Pope Francis told seminarians, priests and staff of the Pontifical North American College.

No physical limitation or setback can diminish the value of any human being because each person is a unique and beloved child of God, Pope Francis said.

Health care is not a luxury, it is a right that belongs to everyone, Pope Francis told health care workers.

Encouraging Catholics to participate in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis also announced that before the assembly of the Synod of Bishops opens in early October, there will be an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square.

The United States' chief advocate for religious freedom expressed his "disappointment" in the Vatican over its provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in the country.

Pope Francis' condemnations of the threat of nuclear war are "indispensable," said the head of the U.N. nuclear energy agency.

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.

Sharing the faith is the "oxygen" that "invigorates and purifies" Christian life, Pope Francis said.

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.

Christians should not seek the Lord by themselves without being part of a faith community and without spiritual accompaniment, Pope Francis said.

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.