Catholic News Service

The fourth commandment does not only imply honoring one's father and mother, but also the respect and care for the dignity of older generations, Pope Francis said.

Catholic priests, nuns and church agencies are providing some relief in East Africa's drought, which scientists and experts describe as the worst in 40 years.

Young people should not allow the darkness of fear to overwhelm them and instead allow the light of Easter to illuminate their lives and give them courage, Pope Francis said.

The allure of power and money can be used to proclaim falsehoods and obscure the joyous announcement of Christ's victory over death, Pope Francis said.

The head of the German bishops' conference responded to an open letter from more than 70 bishops from four continents and expressed surprise at some of what they said — and did not say.

The joy of Jesus' resurrection from the dead gives joy and strength to those who are called to bring peace, reconciliation and justice to the suffering and the downtrodden, Pope Francis said.during the Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica.

More than 10,000 people gathered outside Rome's Colosseum prayed with Pope Francis for peace in the world, while a Ukrainian and a Russian woman held a cross together during the nighttime Way of the Cross April 15.

Jesus invites everyone to repent and to turn swords into plowshares and missiles into factories and homes, the papal preacher said during the Good Friday service at the Vatican.

The Catholic Church in Europe and other places will, as retired Pope Benedict XVI had said, be smaller and less influential, but the church's mission and joy is not to increase numbers but to share the Gospel, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Malta.

Tropical Storm Megi continues to inflict damage in the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines after making landfall April 10. By April 14, the death toll surpassed 120, with dozens remaining missing.

Pope Francis has appointed Stanley Prusiner, an American neurologist and Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, and Zeresenay Alemseged, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who discovered the fossilized remains of the "world's oldest child," to be members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

To wage war, which marks a failure of politics and humanity, is to surrender to the forces of evil, Pope Francis wrote in a new book.

European Catholic and Protestant leaders echoed Pope Francis' appeal for an Easter cease-fire in Ukraine, and they asked Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to support it.

Jesus brings peace to today's shattered world through meekness and not through an "armed peace" that seeks to subjugate others, Pope Francis said.

More than 6,000 Indigenous from 172 tribes gathered in Brasília, Brazil's capital, to march in defense of their land and against the policies of the Brazilian government. Along with Indigenous and environment groups, many religious also came out to Brasília to show their support.

In an open letter, 74 bishops from North America, Africa, Italy and Australia have expressed their "growing concern" about the German Synodal Path process and content, warning about its "potential for schism."

In Russia's war on Ukraine, "the forces of evil" are clearly at work, leading to "abominable" attacks on innocent people and widescale destruction of their homes, Pope Francis said.

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church asked Pope Francis to scrap plans to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the pope's Way of the Cross service at Rome's Colosseum April 15.

While the Vatican confirmed Pope Francis' hope to travel to Kazakhstan this year, it did not confirm a news story that Francis could meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Jerusalem in June.

Russian forces in Ukraine attacked a Caritas office in Mariupol and a Catholic seminary in a small village north of Kyiv, prompting renewed calls for an end to the war and to the targeting of innocent civilians.