Catholic News Service

Pornography and lust undermine and rob people from experiencing God's gift of love, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis called for dialogue and cooperation between neighboring nations and appealed for restraint against any actions that could escalate tensions in the Middle East.

Continuing the long-running updating of laws and norms regarding Vatican expenditures and processes for awarding contracts, Pope Francis issued two documents Jan. 16.

Argentine President Javier Milei has invited Pope Francis to visit their "beloved homeland" and he will also come to the Vatican in February.

Pope Francis declined to read his prepared remarks during an audience with Catholic communicators from France, saying he has bronchitis and "can't speak well."

The nearly 400-year-old sculpted canopy towering over the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica will be surrounded by scaffolding for most of 2024 as it is washed, repaired and restored.

Reaffirming their fidelity to the pope and the Gospel, Catholic bishops in Africa have released a common response to a recent Vatican declaration, saying they "generally prefer" not to offer blessings to same-sex couples.

Policies that are at the service of humanity "cannot allow themselves to be dictated by finance and the inner workings of the market," Pope Francis said.

The Vatican's doctrine chief said the sometimes-graphic book on sexuality and spirituality that he published 25 years ago is "a book of my youth that I certainly would not write now."

The Catholic Church should revise its celibacy requirement for Latin-rite priests, a senior official in the Vatican's doctrinal office said.

A person does not have to travel far from home to find people living on the margins of society and in need of hearing the message of the Gospel, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis expressed his condolences and prayers after two bombings in Kerman, Iran, claimed the lives of 84 people and wounded scores more at a memorial for an assassinated Iranian military officer.

Help "de-weaponize" the way language is used in the media by being respectful to others and fostering greater understanding and peace between people, Pope Francis told a group of Catholics journalists from Germany.

While Catholic bishops may take a cautious approach to the Vatican's new guidance on blessing same-sex couples, they should not deny their priests the possibility of discerning and imparting blessings on people who ask for them, the Vatican's doctrinal office said.

An Italian Catholic priest has been excommunicated for having publicly committed "an act of a schismatic nature" while celebrating Mass at his parish near Livorno.

The world and the Catholic Church must respect and defend women and foster a motherly care for others to end dehumanizing cycles of violence, Pope Francis said Jan. 1. 

In its annual report on Catholic missionaries murdered during the year, the Vatican-based news agency, Fides, noted what many of them had in common was living a normal life in areas where violence had become common.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a former top Vatican official, met privately with Pope Francis Dec. 29, about a month after reports that Francis wanted to stop giving him a monthly salary and would ask him to pay the market rate for his Vatican apartment.

For at least the fourth time since Russia began its large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke by telephone Dec. 28.

The Vatican's affirmation that a priest can give an informal blessing to a gay couple that asks for one is not a first step toward the Catholic Church recognizing same-sex marriages, said Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.