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The enthusiasm, joy, and missionary zeal of Congolese Catholics give oxygen to the whole Church, Pope Francis said during his final meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday.
Pope Francis has paid special attention to Africa, a Catholic theologian has said, noting that the Holy Father’s focus on Africa, which he says has always been the periphery, is “disruptive in a good sense.”
On the first day of his peace pilgrimage, Pope Francis begged the leaders of South Sudan to work together to put an end to bloody conflict in their country.
The pope has called his Feb. 3-5 visit to Juba, South Sudan’s capital, a “pilgrimage of peace.”
On the World Day of Consecrated Life, Pope Francis thanked the more than 18,000 priests and religious in the Democratic Republic of Congo for serving others amid the country’s “difficult and often dangerous conditions.”
Pope Francis, as part of his visit to Africa this week, is meeting with the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, this Friday. He will meet the leader for a photograph before retreating to a private setting for a talk.
In a moving encounter with Pope Francis, children from eastern Congo laid down the machetes and knives used to kill their families at the foot of Christ’s cross to symbolize their forgiveness.
In his first speech in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, Pope Francis urged the international community to give the central African country its autonomy while not turning a blind eye to exploitation and violence.
Pope Francis has written a letter to clarify his comments on sin and homosexuality from a recent interview with the Associated Press.
Pope Francis on Friday reiterated the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman.
In an interview published Wednesday, Pope Francis decried the German Synodal Way as elitist, unhelpful, and running the risk of bringing ideological harm to Church processes.
Pope Francis has reiterated that homosexuality is “not a crime” in a new interview published Wednesday.
Pope Francis told Christians Wednesday that if they want to understand Jesus they should pay close attention to the “good news” he brings in his sermon in the Nazareth synagogue when he says he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s Old Testament prophecy.
Pope Francis has urged Christians to “speak the truth and to do so with charity” amid polarization and divisions within the Church.
Pope Francis is calling on Catholics and people worldwide to remember those suffering from leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, ahead of World Leprosy Day.
Pope Francis on Friday encouraged diocesan leaders to prioritize awe, evangelization, and silence before mere aesthetics in liturgical celebrations like the Mass.
World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, will open horizons and hearts, Pope Francis said in a video message to the young adults who will attend the international gathering in August.
Like the two years’ prior, Pope Francis and the Roman Curia will again do the Vatican’s annual Lenten retreat on an individual basis.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has posthumously defended Christianity against claims of intolerance “in the name of tolerance.”
Pope Francis spoke with Buddhist monks from Cambodia on Thursday about the need for “ecological conversion.”