Catholic News Service

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.

The devil is sly and sneaky like a serpent and subtly entices people to sin, Pope Francis said at his weekly general audience Dec. 27.

On the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, Pope Francis prayed for people persecuted for their faith or denigrated for living a life marked by Gospel values.

The Vatican publishing house announced it will release a book of some 130 homilies given by the late Pope Benedict XVI at private Sunday Masses -- 30 given while he was pope and more than 100 given to members of his household once he retired.

Pope Francis' 2023 was a year of important trips made or postponed, a predecessor's funeral and his own 10th anniversary as pope, a call to the world to act on climate change and a call to the Catholic Church to strengthen its mission by learning "synodality."

Like God's decision to be born in a manger tucked away from the world, good deeds done in silence can express God's love wherever they are performed, Pope Francis said.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith's declaration on informally blessing same-sex couples or other non-married couples is a reminder that the Catholic Church and its pastors never close the door on people seeking God's help, said a commentary published in Vatican media.

Pope Francis condemned the Israeli military's killing of two Christian women sheltering at a Catholic parish in Gaza and an attack on a convent, noting that in the current fighting "unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire."

Jesus does not wait for sinners to change their lives before he welcomes them, said the preacher of the papal household.

Women who have conceived a child out of wedlock and have the courage to choose life for their baby "should be encouraged to have access to the healing and consoling power of the sacraments," said the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has upheld a rule mandating that the ashes of the deceased be preserved in a consecrated place, but it also said family members could request "a minimal part of the ashes" be kept in a sacred place "of significance for the history of the deceased person."

The Vatican's financial planning, budgeting, auditing, investing and saving are essential for carrying out the Catholic Church's mission and must be handled with the highest sense of responsibility and prudence, Pope Francis wrote in a letter to the staff of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Christians must be open to the Word of God and to welcoming and serving others, Pope Francis said.

The council of the Synod of Bishops will ask Pope Francis to authorize studies on the need to update canon law, revise the rules for priestly formation, deepen a theological reflection on the diaconate -- including the possibility of ordaining women deacons -- and consider revising a document that provides norms for the relationship of a bishop with members of religious orders in his diocese.