Catholic News Service

Pope Francis will go to Venice in April to visit a women's prison where the Holy See has set up its pavilion for the Venice Biennale, a major international contemporary art exhibition.

Bruno Abate, founder and president of Recipe for Change, which offers culinary education, job skills training, art and music activities and mentorships to detainees at Cook County Jail in Chicago, met with Pope Francis.

All forms of clerical abuse begin with a priest thinking he is better than others and somehow over them, Pope Francis said.

The importance of women in the Catholic Church cannot be "reduced" to the question of ministry, Pope Francis told members of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

People who act shocked that a priest would bless a gay couple but have no problem with him blessing a crooked businessman are hypocrites, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals devoted the first morning of their February meeting "to deepening their reflection, begun last December, on the role of women in the church," the Vatican press office said.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said it continues to receive reports of Catholics, including priests, finding out all the sacraments they have received are invalid because they were baptized years earlier with a formula that was not approved.

In cases of a cleric sexually abusing a "vulnerable adult," the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith investigates and judges only cases involving "persons who habitually have an imperfect use of reason," the dicastery said.

Making a list of which sinners are welcome in the church and which sinners are not goes against the teaching of the Gospel, Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper.

Today's wars and conflicts have put humanity on the brink of the abyss, Pope Francis said, calling for a worldwide cease-fire.

Pope Francis again insisted that an informal blessing of a gay or other unmarried couple is not a blessing of their union but a sign of the Catholic Church's closeness to them and its hope that they will grow in faith.

Divided Christians will draw closer to one another only by loving God and loving their neighbors, serving one another and not pointing fingers in blame for past faults, Pope Francis said.

The Vatican has ruled against its former auditor general, Libero Milone, who sued the Vatican after claiming that he and his deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, were forced to resign from their positions without just cause in 2017.

Any Vatican employee, contractor or consultant to the Holy See will have a designated path for reporting suspicious spending, including a dedicated email address to send information to, the Vatican decreed.

Fr. Gabriele Martinelli, acquitted by the Vatican City criminal court in 2021 of sexually abusing a fellow seminarian, was found guilty on appeal of "corrupting a minor" and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

"Wine, the land, farming skills and entrepreneurial activity are gifts from God," the Pope Francis told winegrowers, winemakers and others taking part in an international wine and spirits exhibition in Verona, Italy. The event was dedicated to Italian wine and "the economy of Francesco," an economy inspired by St. Francis of Assisi that respects the earth and promotes peace and justice.

Respect for the dignity of every person and for his or her values is as much a part of the identity of a Catholic university as faith is, Pope Francis said.

The obligation to care for creation is not only about the environment, "it has to do with human life, as the Creator conceived and arranged it," Pope Francis told a group from northern Italy dedicated to remembering the 1,910 people who died from the Vajont dam disaster.

An emphasis on God's mercy has so dominated Pope Francis' pontificate that it should surprise no one that he said he hopes hell is empty.