Cindy Wooden

Mary's assumption into heaven was a special sign of God's favor, but it also indicates God's desire to save all people, body and soul, Pope Francis said.

Members of the Catholic Church sin and give scandal, it's true, Pope Francis said, but it is up to each Catholic to live the faith as authentically as possible and witness to the world the love of Jesus.

A Jesuit priest who has been on the frontline of advocating for survivors of clerical sexual abuse said the crisis unfolding, again, in the United States is a summons to a new way of envisioning the church and taking responsibility for it.

After the bishops of Chile issued a formal apology for failing to listen to clerical abuse victims and drew up national guidelines for responding to abuse allegations, Pope Francis sent them a handwritten letter of thanks.

Doing God's will means first of all believing in Jesus and allowing love for him to translate into love for one's neighbors, Pope Francis said.

The courage, prayer and creativity that should characterize every Jesuit's ministry must be especially present when ministering to young people who are unemployed and feel hopeless, Pope Francis said.

Vatican City -- Building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis has ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican office for laity and family, said he was "shocked" when he heard allegations of years of sexual abuse and harassment by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the man who ordained him a bishop and whom he served as an auxiliary bishop for six years.

Documents in the Vatican Secret Archives and the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prove it was a "myth" that Blessed Paul VI largely set out on his own in writing Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical on married love and the regulation of births.

Tweeting with hashtags that translate as "Closed ports" and "Open hearts," Italy's interior minister disputed claims that the Italian government was complicit in leaving a migrant to die in the Mediterranean Sea as she clung to a board from a destroyed fishing boat.

All Christians are called to be missionaries, concerned more with sharing the Gospel than with earning money or even with being successful at winning converts, Pope Francis said.

The gap between philanthropic donations and what governments in developing countries can spend on projects to improve the lives of their people is the place where impact investing can make all the difference, said speakers at a Vatican conference.

Pope Francis told Italian schoolchildren that he grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, "the most beautiful city in the world," and that besides playing soccer, he loved to fly kites as a child.

A Vatican court indicted Msgr. Carlo Alberto Capella, a former staff member at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, and ordered him to stand trial beginning June 22 on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.A Vatican court indicted Msgr. Carlo Alberto Capella, a former staff member at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, and ordered him to stand trial beginning June 22 on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.

Pope Francis has asked the Catholic bishops' conference of Germany not to publish nationwide guidelines for allowing Protestants married to Catholics to receive Communion at Mass.

The Catholic Church does not have "a product to sell, but a life to communicate: God, his divine life, his merciful love, his holiness," Pope Francis told national directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies.

Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople called on Christians to work together to build a culture of solidarity in the face of growing economic inequality and a lack of respect for the human dignity of the poor and of migrants.

Continuing his occasional series of "Mercy Friday" visits, Pope Francis surprised the students at a school renamed in March in honor of a student who died of leukemia at the age of 11.

Christians should begin each day invoking the Holy Spirit, praying that the Spirit will lead them and the church closer to God and closer to any person in need, Pope Francis said on Pentecost.

Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a longtime Vatican official, died early May 18 in Rome at the age of 88.