Cindy Wooden

God is patient and merciful, but people should not put off their conversion because they never know how long they will live, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis urged legislators from the Czech Republic and Slovakia to honor their nations' Christian heritage by working to increase "mutual acceptance and solidarity."

The Vatican's tentative agreement with the government of mainland China obviously has a diplomatic component, but it was motivated by a desire to spread the Gospel and ensure the appropriate freedom of the Catholic Church, the Vatican secretary of state wrote.

Lent is a time to ask for God's grace to chip away at hypocrisy, which is seen in the natural human attempt to appear "worthier than we are," Pope Francis said.

The clerical abuse scandal has caused everyone in the Catholic Church "pain and unbearable suffering," Pope Francis said, but it also is a call to repentance and the renewal of the church.

What makes a politician "Catholic" is not party affiliation, but dedication to promoting the common good, particularly through listening to and empowering people who often are overlooked, Pope Francis said.

Lent is a good time to concentrate on fighting the urge to gossip about others and instead trying to correct one's own faults and defects, Pope Francis said.

Just a few days after the Vatican summit on child protection and clerical sexual abuse, the bishops' conference and major religious superiors of Switzerland adopted new guidelines, which include mandatory reporting of all allegations to the police.

When the Vatican Congregation for Clergy developed guidelines a decade ago for handling cases of priests who father children, the first objective was to make it easier for those men to leave the priesthood.

The holiness of God is a power that is constantly expanding and will defeat all evil once and for all, Pope Francis said.

The day Australian Cardinal George Pell was jailed in Melbourne, the Vatican announced his case would be investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Pope Francis will issue a document on "young people, faith and vocational discernment" five months after the world Synod of Bishops gathered to discuss the topic.

Vatican City: The Vatican summit on child protection and the clerical sexual abuse crisis affirmed the U.S. bishops' strong belief that bishops and cardinals who abuse children or cover up abuse must be held accountable, said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.

Immediately after asking bishops and religious superiors to be concrete in confronting the clerical sexual abuse crisis and the need to protect children in the church, Pope Francis handed them a list of 21 action items to consider.

U.S. Msgr. Joseph Punderson, a senior official of the Vatican's highest court, was "removed from ministry," according to the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey.

Pope Francis has lifted the canonical penalties imposed 34 years ago on Father Ernesto Cardenal, 94, the Nicaraguan poet and former member of the Sandinista government.

Pope Francis has confirmed the removal from the priesthood of Theodore McCarrick, the 88-year-old former cardinal and archbishop of Washington.

Even if Christians struggle to recognize him with his "torn clothes (and) dirty feet," Jesus is present in the migrants and refugees who seek safety and a dignified life in a new land, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis has signed a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed John Henry Newman, the English cardinal, clearing the way for his canonization.

The leaders of three branches of the French religious Community of St. John insist their order has enacted strong protections against clerical sexual abuse, including the abuse of its nuns.