Catholic News Service

No physical limitation or setback can diminish the value of any human being because each person is a unique and beloved child of God, Pope Francis said.

Health care is not a luxury, it is a right that belongs to everyone, Pope Francis told health care workers.

Encouraging Catholics to participate in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis also announced that before the assembly of the Synod of Bishops opens in early October, there will be an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square.

The United States' chief advocate for religious freedom expressed his "disappointment" in the Vatican over its provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in the country.

Pope Francis' condemnations of the threat of nuclear war are "indispensable," said the head of the U.N. nuclear energy agency.

Pope Francis will celebrate the fourth annual Sunday of the Word of God Jan. 22 and, like he did last year, will confer the ministries of lector and catechist on several lay people, according to the Dicastery for Evangelization.

Sharing the faith is the "oxygen" that "invigorates and purifies" Christian life, Pope Francis said.

Telling parents and godparents to teach their little ones to pray from the time they are small, Pope Francis baptized 13 babies in the Sistine Chapel as their older brothers and sisters looked on — or got away and ran around.

"Peace requires before all else the defense of life," which is threatened by the "alleged 'right to abortion,' " Pope Francis told ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Soon after Pope Benedict XVI was laid to rest in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica, an Italian publisher released early copies of a book by the late pope's secretary.

With the same spirit and aims that behind his recent reform and reorganization of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis, as Bishop of Rome, has overhauled the Vicariate of Rome.

Christians should not seek the Lord by themselves without being part of a faith community and without spiritual accompaniment, Pope Francis said.

The Jan. 5 funeral Mass for Pope Benedict XVI will be a papal funeral with a few changes to fit with the fact that he was not the reigning pope and has not left behind a "sede vacante."

Representatives from the world's Christian churches will travel to the Vatican to attend the funeral Mass of Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square Jan. 5.

"Protocol develops over time, and this has never happened before," the director of the Vatican press office kept repeating in the days after the death of retired Pope Benedict XVI.

A collection of notable quotes from Pope Benedict XVI from homilies, documents, messages and speeches from 2005 to 2013, the years he served as pope.

A timeline of important events in the life of the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31.

Most of the 18 Catholic missionaries murdered in 2022 were not carrying out high-risk missions when they were assassinated but were simply "immersed and submerged in the ordinariness of their lives and their apostolic work," said the editor of Fides, the Vatican's missionary news service.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with top Ukrainian military chaplains Dec. 29 in Kyiv.

Eritrean authorities have freed Catholic Bishop Fikremariam Hagos Tsalim after 75 days in prison.