Carol Glatz

A local Italian group launched an online petition urging Pope Francis, the Vatican and others to stop the "fir tree-icide" of cutting down a 200-year-old red pine to decorate St. Peter's Square for Christmas.

The private meeting with 16 people, including two children, took place at the Vatican Nov. 14.

Predatory practices and technology for the benefit of the powerful few have disrupted the relationship between human labor and the natural environment, said Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Pope Francis appointed a new preacher of the papal household: a 53-year-old Italian Capuchin priest who studied computer science and mathematics and discovered his vocation while reading a free copy of St. Matthew's Gospel on the subway.

Pope Francis has accepted the request of Indonesian Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur of Bogor to dispense him from becoming a cardinal as planned in December. Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said Syukur wanted "to grow further in priestly life, in his service to the Church and the people of God."

At a Vatican news conference presenting the encyclical, an archbishop said that Dilexit Nos is the "key" to understanding Pope Francis' pontificate, presenting the spiritual and theological foundation underlying the pope's message for the past 12 years — that everything "springs from Christ and his love for all humanity."

Catholics in Asia and Africa have already been leading the way with synodality, two members of the Synod of Bishops on synodality said.

"This is just one synod. There will be others. We do not have to do everything, just take the next step,"  Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe said, and those who come after will "go on beginning. How, we do not know. That is God's business."

The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world rose in 2022, while the number of seminarians, priests, men and women in religious orders, and baptisms declined, according to Vatican statistics.

Before the synodal process began in 2021, "We were a church on a mission, now we are a synodal church on a mission," Cardinal Leonardo Steiner of Manaus, Brazil, said at a Vatican briefing Oct. 15. "The synod on the Amazon helped open up this experience (of synodality) and the participation of everyone."

There have been "various signs" in modern times that have prompted a new awareness of the Gospel and how great God's love for humanity is, a theologian and consultor for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said. These signs include the Catholic Church's hope of salvation for infants who die without being baptized, the inadmissibility of the death penalty and the recent declaration opening the possibility of non-liturgical blessings to gay and other couples not married in the church, the consultor, Michelina Tenace, said in an article published in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, July 30.

Pope Francis visited an amusement park an hour outside of Rome to greet workers, their families and the two nuns providing pastoral care there.

Thanks to Jesus' promise to be with his disciples always, the faithful can be fully present for others, especially those in need, Pope Francis told thousands of altar servers from around the world.

"These results have been achieved out of the conviction that we need to work steadily to increase the income stream and to cover expenses without eroding the Holy See's assets and without calling for the sale of institutional properties," Archbishop Giordano Piccinotti, president of APSA, said in a comment to Vatican News.

The day marked the Catholic Church's celebration of World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, whose theme was, "Do not cast me off in my old age."

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of State, visited Ukraine to hold high-level meetings, meet local Catholics and represent Pope Francis at the final stop of a pilgrimage to the Marian Shrine of Berdychiv.

"My presence in Ukraine (is) to bring in person the closeness of the pope," the cardinal said July 22 on the Secretariat of State's official X account.

Pope Francis expressed his condolences for the death of Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party, and his appreciation for his role in fostering improved relations with the Vatican.

There is a danger that "can threaten us when, for instance, our enthusiasm in carrying out our mission or our work, as well as the roles and tasks entrusted to us, make us fall victim to a kind of activism which is overly concerned with things to do and with results, and this is a bad thing," Pope Francis said.

With world peace under serious threat, Pope Francis called on all nations to observe the Olympic truce and cease all conflicts for the traditional period before, during and after the Olympic Games in Paris.

Pope Francis' visit to Luxembourg and Belgium Sept. 26-29 will come just 13 days after wrapping up the longest trip of his pontificate. After visiting Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore Sept. 3-13, the pope will travel to the tiny European nation of Luxembourg Sept. 26 and neighboring Belgium Sept. 26-29, traveling to Brussels, Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve.