Cindy Wooden

To protect the sacrament of reconciliation as a "channel of grace" for victims of sexual abuse, the Catholic Church must do a better job instructing priests on what to do if a victim recounts his or her abuse in the confessional and in the unlikely case that an abuser confesses.

Honoring two reporters who have covered the Vatican for more than 40 years, Pope Francis paid tribute to all journalists who work to explain what is going on in the world and "make it less obscure."

The pope's pilgrimage to Assisi Nov. 12 was dedicated totally to the poor in preparation for the celebration Nov. 14 of the World Day of the Poor.

In times of trouble, Christians must be like the disciples in the boat on the stormy sea, calling out to Jesus and waking him up, Pope Francis said.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld and six other candidates for sainthood finally will be canonized May 15, 2022, the Vatican announced Nov. 9.

Maturing in the Christian life means learning to trust God and hang on to hope even when daily trials tempt one to complain, Pope Francis said.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments published an executive decree formalizing the responsibility of bishops' conferences for judging the accuracy and suitability of liturgical translations and adaptations.

Pope Francis, Martin Scorsese, Jane Goodall and a group of less famous "over 70s" talk to young filmmakers about love in the first episode of a four-part documentary. 

The presiding council of the Italian bishops' conference urged individual bishops and regional bishops' conferences to consider drawing up vaccination norms.

Pope Francis said he knows "it often annoys people" when he promotes Catholic teaching on social issues like poverty, migration and ecology, but he is going to keep doing so because the Gospel demands it.

A cardinal or bishop who is a member of the Congregation for Saints' Causes and anyone officially appointed as a consultant to the congregation cannot serve as the postulator or official promoter of a candidate's cause for sainthood.

"It is not a matter of beatifying or canonizing a papacy," insisted Cardinal Beniamino Stella, postulator of the late pope's sainthood cause.

The Catholic Church must move to action to protect children and to guarantee justice for victims and survivors, said Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna.

Pope Francis said the Second Vatican Council so shaped his theological and pastoral vision that perhaps he has not been as explicit as he should have been in highlighting those ties, especially when it comes to his contributions to Catholic social teaching.

The fear, sickness, death, mourning and economic impacts of COVID-19 should make people who are relatively well off and have access to health care think about "what it means to be vulnerable and live in precariousness on a daily basis," Pope Francis told members of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

While denouncing as an "abuse of power" coercive measures to promote vaccination against COVID-19, a leader of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X said getting vaccinated "may sometimes be an eminently prudent act in the moral sense of the term."

Bishops and others in the Catholic Church often lament the declining number of Christians, but rarely do they examine their own behavior and failure to show others how much God loves them, Pope Francis told the presidents of European bishops' conferences.

A living faith draws strength from remembering the past while continuing to grow in love of God and service to others, Pope Francis said.

Visitors, tourists and employees who want to enter Vatican territory will be required beginning Oct. 1 to show proof of vaccination, recovery from the coronavirus or a negative COVID-19 test.

In God's view, human greatness is measured by how one serves or helps someone who cannot offer anything in exchange, Pope Francis said.