Catholic News Service

Christians and Hindus must promote harmony among all groups of people despite their differences, especially when ideologies increasingly seek to sow division, the Vatican wrote in a message for the Hindu celebration of Diwali.

Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle, a papally-appointed member of the Synod of Bishops, said that as the second synod assembly nears its conclusion Oct. 27, people might not see what they hoped for in the synod's final document, but the gathering heard them and took their input seriously.

Pope Francis has accepted the request of Indonesian Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur of Bogor to dispense him from becoming a cardinal as planned in December. Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said Syukur wanted "to grow further in priestly life, in his service to the Church and the people of God."

At a Vatican news conference presenting the encyclical, an archbishop said that Dilexit Nos is the "key" to understanding Pope Francis' pontificate, presenting the spiritual and theological foundation underlying the pope's message for the past 12 years — that everything "springs from Christ and his love for all humanity."

Catholics in Asia and Africa have already been leading the way with synodality, two members of the Synod of Bishops on synodality said.

"This is just one synod. There will be others. We do not have to do everything, just take the next step,"  Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe said, and those who come after will "go on beginning. How, we do not know. That is God's business."

The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world rose in 2022, while the number of seminarians, priests, men and women in religious orders, and baptisms declined, according to Vatican statistics.

Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Pope Francis' envoy for peace in Ukraine, returned to Moscow in mid-October for meetings with Russian government officials and leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Before the synodal process began in 2021, "We were a church on a mission, now we are a synodal church on a mission," Cardinal Leonardo Steiner of Manaus, Brazil, said at a Vatican briefing Oct. 15. "The synod on the Amazon helped open up this experience (of synodality) and the participation of everyone."

"Those who are running for public office probably will not satisfy each and every issue that lies before you," so Catholics must decide which issues are most important to them and then "rank them, learn about them, pray about them, make a conscientious decision," Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington said.

Pope Francis called again for "an immediate cease-fire on all fronts" in the Middle East, urging leaders to "pursue the paths of diplomacy and dialogue to achieve peace." The pope made the appeal Oct. 13 after leading the recitation of the Angelus prayer with visitors in St. Peter's Square.

Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met for the third time since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, focusing their discussion on the repatriation of Ukrainian nationals held in Russian captivity.

The Catholic Church cannot be credible in its mission of proclaiming Christ unless it acknowledges its mistakes and bends down "to heal the wounds we have caused by our sins," Pope Francis said. In an unusual penitential liturgy Oct. 1, the pope had seven cardinals read requests for forgiveness that he said he wrote himself "because it was necessary to call our main sins by name."

"Just war theory was not part of the Gospel, it's an evolutionary Catholic practice or thought, and it's an important development in restraining warfare," Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego said at the Sept. 29 inauguration of the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence near the Vatican. "It was not meant to be a justification of war but a restraint on war, and it has lost a lot of that capacity."

Pope Francis, who has called for the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, the former leader of Myanmar and Nobel Peace Prize winner, told Jesuits in Asia that he even had offered to give her refuge at the Vatican.

"In the life of the church, just war theories are a secondary element in Catholic teaching; the first is that we should not engage in warfare at all," Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego said. The cardinal is an adviser to the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, which is scheduled to open in Rome Sept. 29. 

Speaking with representatives of movements and organizations from Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia, Francis told the group that he has been criticized for never speaking up for the middle class, "and I apologize for that," he said. But at the same time, "it was Jesus who put the poor at the center."

Juan Antonio López, a Catholic human rights and environmental activist, was killed in his car by a hitman Sept. 14 after attending Mass, Vatican News reported. The 46-year-old husband and father of two recently had been working to shut down an iron oxide mine in a national park that was said to be contaminating two rivers in the area and threatening the local population's water supply.

With the approval of Pope Francis, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recognized "the abundant and widespread fruits, which are so beautiful and positive," associated with devotion to Mary, Queen of Peace, and with pilgrimages to Medjugorje.

The 87-year-old Pope Francis publicly thanked God for allowing him "to do as an old pope what I would have liked to do as a young Jesuit," and that is to travel to Asia to preach the Gospel. As is customary, the pope used his first general audience after his Sept. 2-13 trip to Asia and the Pacific to tell people about what he did, what he saw and what struck him most from his travels.