Pope Francis is continuing his treatment for a respiratory infection at Rome's Gemelli Hospital but his condition is improving, according to a Feb. 15 update from the Vatican press office.
Pope Francis has written a sweeping letter to the U.S. bishops decrying the "major crisis" triggered by President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans and explicitly rejecting Vice President JD Vance's attempts to use Catholic theology to justify the administration's immigration crackdown.
Pope Francis on Feb. 11 tapped Arizona's Bishop Edward Weisenburger as the new archbishop of Detroit, Michigan, appointing a staunch defender of migrants and an environmental advocate to lead one of the historic centers of American Catholicism.
The head of the Catholic Church's global charity arm has blasted the Trump administration's decision to gut foreign aid as "reckless" and lamented that it will likely "kill millions of people and condemn hundreds of millions more to lives of dehumanizing poverty."
"May all the baptized, as missionary disciples of Christ, make his hope shine forth in every corner of the earth," the pope wrote in in his message for World Mission Sunday, which will be celebrated Oct. 19.
For Syria's post-regime change future to be successful, the head of the Catholic Church's leading humanitarian and social service confederation has one clear message: End the sanctions now.