The “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” are heeded by members of the Care for Creation Ministry of St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Bay Ridge. It is one of 737 similar groups throughout the world responding to Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical letter on the environment, “Laudato Si’.”
A young priest from Myanmar has thanked Pope Francis for his frequent and vocal calls for peace as citizens continue to die protesting for democracy, saying the pope’s support has given people in the country hope.
The injury and death of so many innocent people, especially children, caused by escalating violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip is “terrible and unacceptable,” putting the area at risk of sinking into “a spiral of death and destruction,” Pope Francis said.
The U.S. Bishops Conference chairman of evangelization and catechesis is calling the Vatican’s recently instituted ministry of the catechist a “beautiful thing” to try to evangelize an increasingly secularized nation.
When filmmaker Martin Doblmeier considers the interfaith growth between Catholics and Jews, Pope Francis’ October 2018 Angelus prayer for the 11 victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh comes to mind.
Pope Francis doubled down on his press for global equity regarding COVID-19 vaccines on Saturday, asking countries and companies to temporarily lift the property rights they hold to speed up distribution in a new video message.
Meeting new recruits to the Swiss Guard, Pope Francis thanked the young men for having chosen to serve the successor of St. Peter and he thanked all the guards for their diligence and service.
Under the gaze of a seventh-century icon of Mary, Pope Francis launched a monthlong, global recitation of the rosary, pleading for Mary’s intercession for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. And he prayed May 1 that Mary would move people’s consciences “so that the enormous amounts spent to increase and perfect weapons are instead used to promote research to prevent similar catastrophes in the future.”
The Vatican released a new document “Accompanying People in Psychological Distress in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Members of One Body, Loved by One Love,” which was summoned by Pope Francis to try to imagine a post-pandemic world.
Archbishop Franco Coppola, papal ambassador to Mexico, recently traveled to a town besieged by warring drug cartels to reiterate the church’s commitment to serving populations suffering violence.
