Lesser known – but also enjoying Vatican backing and U.N. support – is the work of 29- year-old, Molly Burhans, who while initially discerning to be a nun, discovered that the Catholic Church is one of the world’s largest landowners and is now seeking to steward such property – and the data that goes with it – for the common good.
In a ceremony to create 13 new cardinals, Pope Francis reminded new and old members of the College of Cardinals how much their ministry and service depends on their realizing how much God loves them and has been compassionate with them.
Peace, interreligious dialogue and respectful missionary outreach will be the top themes when Pope Francis visits Thailand and Japan in late November.
Pope Francis named Archbishop Bernardito Auza, who has represented the Vatican at the United Nations since 2014, to be nuncio to Spain and Andorra.
On Monday, Pope Francis met with Jesuit Father James Martin, an American priest who has dedicated most of the past three years to ministering to LGBT Catholics, whom he describes as the “most marginalized group” in the Catholic Church.
Christians have a moral obligation to show God’s care for all those who are marginalized, especially migrants and refugees, Pope Francis said.
In the wake of a recent flap over Pope Francis saying he considers it an honor when “Americans are attacking me,” two U.S. bishops in Rome this week to present the results of a major assembly of Hispanic-American Catholics say their presence delivers a simple message: Not all Americans think alike, and most aren’t anti-pope.
Thousands of Catholics joined in climate strikes on Friday, following the lead of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who ignited the global movement, but also that of 82-year-old Pope Francis who has made environmental concerns a centerpiece of his papacy.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, has urged those considering allowing priests in the Latin rite to marry in order to help solve a crippling shortage, to proceed with caution, saying marriage has not curbed shortages in his own rite.
Pope Francis’s landmark agreement with the Muslim world, signed earlier this year during his visit to Abu Dhabi, was heralded at the annual prayer service on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly as “an antidote to hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism.”
