Seven weeks after announcing the new composition of his international Council of Cardinals, Pope Francis led a two-day meeting of the council focused on situations of conflict in the world and on progress in implementing his reform of the Roman Curia.
Two newly appointed Vatican consultants on evangelization told OSV News that prayer, humility and authentic friendship are key to spreading the Gospel, particularly among youth and young adults.
After a half-hour private meeting in the library of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis gave the prime minister of Ukraine a bronze plaque featuring a bird and a flower alongside the inscription, “Peace is a fragile flower.”
Suffering and death are human realities that raise questions people need to ask themselves, Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis confirmed he will travel to Mongolia in September, becoming the first pope to visit the Asian nation, which is home to a cardinal and some 1,300 Catholics.
Pope Francis has chosen “His mercy is from age to age,” a passage from the Gospel of Luke, as the theme for the 2023 celebration of the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly.
The Vatican’s chief prosecutor said Pope Francis has given him free rein to investigate the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican resident.
While the dominant Vatican headline yesterday was Pope Francis’ triumphant return to form in the Palm Sunday liturgy after three days in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for bronchitis, other tidbits, mostly in Sunday’s Italian press, have sort of flown below the radar.
Despite being discharged from the hospital just a day earlier, Pope Francis presided over an outdoor Palm Sunday Mass in a brisk St. Peter’s Square, telling believers to embrace those who feel abandoned as Jesus did on the cross.
“I’m still alive,” Pope Francis joked to reporters who asked how he was doing as he left Rome’s Gemelli hospital April 1.
