Catholic News Service

Prosperous nations where foreign women are forced into prostitution need to drop their hypocrisy and "face the idea that they are part of the problem, rather than turning away, proclaiming their innocence," Pope Francis said.

For the first time in six years, Pax Christi USA has a bishop president.

Just as people are "struggling to survive" in Congo, aid agencies are struggling to meet their needs, said Chiara Nava, an advisor to an agency focusing on education and child protection.

An Indiana bishop said he supports the University of Notre Dame's Feb. 7 decision to stop coverage of abortion-inducing drugs and add natural family planning services to the school's health plan, but he said coverage of artificial birth control by a Catholic institution is unacceptable.

A devotion to and meditation on the five wounds of Christ "may sound a bit medieval," but anyone who recognizes he or she is wounded will find mercy and healing in the passion of Christ, Pope Francis said.

Even though the Catholic Church has all the necessary norms and laws in place to safeguard minors from abuse by clergy, the problem continues to be a lack in understanding or caring about those rules and guidelines and applying them effectively, said one Jesuit expert.

Since China's new regulations for religious affairs took effect Feb. 1, minors have been banned from entering places of worship in several regions.

The arrest of a retired Boise Catholic priest on multiple charges of sexual exploitation of a child, distribution of child pornography and drug possession has shocked Catholics in the statewide Diocese of Boise.

Though not as fast as a speeding bullet, Superpope will fly across the world, gathering autographs of sports stars and eventually being auctioned off to raise money for the pope's charity. 

A bishop in South Sudan has won an award that recognizes the peace village he founded as the visible embodiment of his peacemaking efforts.

"I am on a pilgrimage toward Home," retired Pope Benedict XVI wrote in a letter to a journalist, five years after announcing his intention to be the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign.

A Vatican court found two former top managers of the Vatican bank liable for mismanagement and ordered an injunction for them to pay damages.

Highlighting the Feb. 8 World Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, the pope noted this year's theme was dedicated to ending the trafficking of migrants.

Catholic priests must deliver good homilies so the "good news" of the Gospel can take root in people's hearts and help them live holier lives, Pope Francis said.

The late Germain Grisez, an influential Catholic philosopher, ethicist and moral theologian, was "a remarkable man" and a "very firm believer" whose faith "was unswervingly orthodox," Jesuit Father Peter Ryan said Feb. 6.

Two priests were gunned down as they returned from Candlemas celebrations in a corner of Mexico rife with drug cartel violence and increasingly lethal for prelates.

In the complex peace process now underway in Colombia after 52 years of violent conflict, the Catholic Church works on many levels to replace a culture of violence with one of encounter.

Catholics should use the season of Lent to look for signs and symptoms of being under the spell of false prophets and of living with cold, selfish and hateful hearts, Pope Francis said.

Usury is a grave sin that must be fought by building more just and humane economic and financial systems as well as by teaching people to live within their means, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Vatican Feb. 5 for a discussion that included the status of Jerusalem and the need to achieve peace in the Middle East.