Cindy Wooden

Pope Francis began his first full day in Japan Nov. 24 with a somber visit in the pouring rain to Nagasaki's Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park, a memorial to the tens of thousands who died when the United States dropped a bomb on the city in 1945. In the evening, he visited the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, honoring the tens of thousands killed by an atomic bomb there, too.

Visiting Nagasaki, Japan, Nov. 24, Pope Francis paused for prayer on the hill where St. Paul Miki and 25 others were crucified in 1597, then after a brief break, went on to celebrate Mass in the city's baseball stadium.

Finally setting foot in the country for the first time less than a month before his 83rd birthday, Pope Francis told the bishops it "has been long in coming."

Meeting Thai religious leaders and then celebrating Mass with Catholic young adults, Pope Francis encouraged them to strengthen a culture that treasures the past, holds fast to faith, is unafraid of differences and always seeks a way to promote dialogue and cooperation.

In a large, predominantly Catholic village outside Bangkok, tens of thousands of people lined the roads and filled the grounds of a church complex to greet Pope Francis.

Missionaries are not mercenaries, but beggars who recognize that some brothers and sisters are missing from the community and long to hear the good news of salvation, Pope Francis told the Catholics of Thailand.

Calling migration "one of the principal moral issues" facing humanity today, Pope Francis thanked the government and people of Thailand for the way they've welcomed migrants and refugees.

The poor are the church's treasure because they give every Christian a chance to "speak the same language as Jesus, that of love," Pope Francis said, celebrating Mass for the World Day of the Poor.

Pope Francis' translator in Thailand will be Salesian Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, the pope's second cousin and a missionary in Thailand for more than 50 years. 

The devil is real and is so jealous of Jesus and the salvation Jesus offers that he tries everything he can to divide people and make them attack each other, Pope Francis said.

Visiting the imprisoned is an act of mercy that has implications for all Christians and not just those involved in prison ministry, Pope Francis said.

At a time when "situations of injustice and human pain" seem to be growing around the globe, Christians are called to "accompany the victims, to see in their faces the face of our crucified Lord," Pope Francis said.

While other U.S. bishops are preparing for their general meeting in Baltimore Nov. 11-13, the bishops of New York state are packing their bags for Rome.

Bishops from New England shared with Pope Francis some of the joys, challenges and sufferings of the church in the Northeast and, really, throughout the United States, three of the bishops said.

In what he said was his first visit to the catacombs, Pope Francis celebrated Mass for the feast of All Souls with special words of remembrance for Catholics who still today must worship in secret.

The saints were flesh-and-blood people whose lives included real struggles and joys, and whose holiness reminds all the baptized that they, too, are called to be saints, Pope Francis said.

Molly Burhans has a treasure trove of information about the global Catholic Church and she's giving the public the maps to find it.

The bishops of every diocese in the United States have prepared detailed reports on the life of the Catholic Church in their dioceses and have made or are making reservations to fly to Rome.

Too often Catholics know what is going on in their neighbor's house but pay little or no attention to the normal spiritual struggles going on in their own hearts and souls, Francis said.

More than a half century after a group of bishops at the Second Vatican Council made a solemn pledge to live a simple lifestyle close to their people, a group of participants from the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon signed a new pact in the Catacombs of Domitilla.