In a large, predominantly Catholic village outside Bangkok, tens of thousands of people lined the roads and filled the grounds of a church complex to greet Pope Francis.Read More
Missionaries are not mercenaries, but beggars who recognize that some brothers and sisters are missing from the community and long to hear the good news of salvation, Pope Francis told the Catholics of Thailand.Read More
Calling migration "one of the principal moral issues" facing humanity today, Pope Francis thanked the government and people of Thailand for the way they've welcomed migrants and refugees, but he urged greater efforts to protect migrants and poor Thais from human trafficking.Read More
A commitment to defending and protecting human life requires a commitment to ending wars and to promoting nuclear disarmament, Pope Francis said.Read More
In what he said was his first visit to the catacombs, Pope Francis celebrated Mass for the feast of All Souls with special words of remembrance for Catholics who still today must worship in secret.Read More
The early November feasts of All Saints and All Souls are reminders that God's church exists both on earth and in heaven and that all the faithful, living and dead, can and should pray for each other, a top Vatican official wrote.Read More
The saints were flesh-and-blood people whose lives included real struggles and joys, and whose holiness reminds all the baptized that they, too, are called to be saints, Pope Francis said.Read More
Members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon asked that women be given leadership roles in the Catholic Church, although they stopped short of calling for women deacons.Read More
Pope Francis apologized that two men entered a church near the Vatican, took controversial statues and tossed them into the Tiber River. “As bishop of the diocese, I apologize,” he said Oct. 25, the first time the full membership of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon was gathered since the statues were taken from...Read More
Too often Catholics know what is going on in their neighbor’s house but pay little or no attention to the normal spiritual struggles going on in their own hearts and souls, Pope Francis said. Life involves a continuing battle “between grace and sin, between the Lord who wants to save us and pull us out...Read More
Two men entered a Catholic Church near the Vatican early Oct. 21 and stole copies of a statue of a pregnant woman that had been a centerpiece of several prayer services connected to the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.Read More