Joshua J. McElwee

In a Via Crucis prayer service during World Youth Day, Pope Francis told crowds packed along Panama City's Pacific shoreline that the church should help create societies that welcome those leaving their homelands due to violence.

Choosing to spend the morning of his third of five days in Panama with the 192 young people held at the Las Garzas Juvenile Detention Center in the small town of Pacora, Pope Francis advised them: "Each of us is more than our labels."

Pope Francis called on the Catholic bishops of Central America Jan. 24 to emulate the ministry of Archbishop Oscar Romero, exhorting them to follow his example by listening to the needs of their people and embracing a church of the poor.

Pope Francis framed panic over the arrival of migrants as irrational Jan. 23 as he was headed to Central America for a five-day visit and as a second migrant caravan is headed to the U.S.-Mexico border.

A Catholic priest serving as an official of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation has remained in his role after being publicly accused of soliciting a woman for sex in the confessional.

Pope Francis issued a stark warning about the fragility of the international order Jan. 7, saying in an annual address to the Vatican's diplomatic corps that "the same attitudes" that led to the failure of the League of Nations now endanger the system of diplomacy set up after World War II.

The director and vice-director of the Vatican's press office have resigned together, in a move that appears to indicate sharp tensions at the top of the city-state's complicated communications structure.

Three former members of Pope Francis' commission on clergy sexual abuse are calling on the pontiff's February Vatican summit on child protection to re-evaluate the structure of the group in order to make it more effective in pursuing policy reforms.

Pope Francis has called on Catholic priests and clergy who have abused children to turn themselves over to authorities, in what appears as the first such blanket command of a pontiff towards perpetrators his global institution long sought to hide or protect.

Two abuse survivors are asking Pope Francis to meet with them during his January trip to Panama, hoping to press him on his appointment of an archbishop in neighboring Costa Rica who they say covered up for their abuser.

Pope Francis has reorganized the group of cardinals advising him on how to reform the Vatican bureaucracy, removing two prelates under scrutiny for allegations of sexual abuse or cover-up and a third who is nearing the traditional retirement age.

Pope Francis will be the first Catholic pontiff to visit the United Arab Emirates, traveling to Abu Dhabi in February for an interfaith meeting.

Experts say that a proposal made at last month's meeting of U.S. Catholic bishops for investigating future allegations of misconduct by prelates appears likely to receive Vatican approval.

A proposed new system for reporting allegations of misconduct by U.S. Catholic bishops was met with wide criticism on the floor of the prelates' annual assembly, with clerics across the ideological spectrum raising a diverse set of concerns.

Baltimore -- A surprise Vatican request that the annual gathering of U.S. Catholic bishops delay planned votes on proposals to address clergy sexual abuse has evoked outcry, even leaving some of the prelates at the meeting confused.

Pope Francis' advisory Council of Cardinals has suggested that the pontiff reorganize the Vatican to make a "decisive shift" toward putting the city-state at the service of local Catholic dioceses around the world, said one of the council's nine members.

A worldwide gathering of hundreds of the Catholic Church's prelates ended Oct. 27 with the issuing of some of the global institution's strongest language yet for the inclusion of women in its all-male decision-making structures, calling the matter a "duty of justice" that requires a "courageous cultural conversion."

In new "testimony," Viganò asserts again that he informed Pope Francis about allegations against McCarrick in 2013, and calls homosexuality "the principle cause" of the clergy abuse crisis.

Vatican City - The two umbrella groups representing male and female religious orders are planning to present Pope Francis with a proposal to give women a larger role in future synods.