Catholic News Service

Pope Francis led prayers for the people of Albania after the country was struck by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake.

Belgium's Salesian order defended its decision to send a priest convicted of child abuse to work with Caritas in Central African Republic, where he has been accused of abusing children again.

Bishop Mark Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, has asked the former bishop of the diocese to pay back more than $792,000 to cover the "inappropriate expenditure of diocesan funds to support a luxurious lifestyle."

Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller released an archdiocesan review committee report on clerical sexual abuse, the culmination of a months-long survey of sexual abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Vancouver since 1950. It is the first report of its kind released by any diocese in Canada.

Pope Francis has named Msgr. Robert McClory, rector of the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica in Royal Oak, Michigan, to head the Diocese of Gary, Indiana.

Questions about Vatican finances, especially those involving a real estate deal in London, are serious, but they also are a sign that reforms begun by Pope Benedict XVI are working, Pope Francis said.

An independent inquiry into St. John's Seminary has been completed, finding some internal shortcomings regarding the governance and culture of the seminary, but no evidence of illegal activities or a culture of sexual misconduct by students or faculty members.

At the end of his trip to Thailand and Japan, Pope Francis said he found truth in the saying, "Lux ex oriente, ex occidente luxus," or, as he roughly translated it, "the light comes from the East, and luxury, consumerism from the West."

Since the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church broke open in 2002 in the United States and intensified globally last year, responses to it have focused on legal matters and administrative reforms. But theologians and other faithful thinkers are focusing now on a higher dimension, and the question of where God is calling his people at this moment.

First impressions of Pope Francis in 2013 revealed his style and pastoral priorities, and since then, his words and actions have continued to inspire and challenge the Catholic Church and the world, panelists said at a Nov. 21 dialogue on the "Francis Factor Today" at Georgetown University.

For the third consecutive year, states in the Gulf South of the U.S. ranked near the bottom of a 2018 "social justice" index that measures poverty, racial disparity and immigrant exclusion.

Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, is the new chairman of the board of Catholic Relief Services following his appointment by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life announced it is setting up a specialized team of young Catholic leaders as advisers.

While not adopting the Japanese bishops' opposition to nuclear power plants as his own, Pope Francis insisted the 2011 meltdown at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Fukushima raises serious questions.

Beauty, creation and each human life are gifts of God to be treasured and shared, not enslaved to current societal ideas of what is valuable, perfect or productive, Pope Francis said at a Mass in the famous Tokyo Dome.

Pope Francis began his first full day in Japan Nov. 24 with a somber visit in the pouring rain to Nagasaki's Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park, a memorial to the tens of thousands who died when the United States dropped a bomb on the city in 1945. In the evening, he visited the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, honoring the tens of thousands killed by an atomic bomb there, too.

Visiting Nagasaki, Japan, Nov. 24, Pope Francis paused for prayer on the hill where St. Paul Miki and 25 others were crucified in 1597, then after a brief break, went on to celebrate Mass in the city's baseball stadium.

Finally setting foot in the country for the first time less than a month before his 83rd birthday, Pope Francis told the bishops it "has been long in coming."

For three days, the 20,000 teenagers form a joyful, energetic and unifying representation of how much their Catholic faith means to them, of how much they have to offer the church.

A religious liberty index unveiled by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty shows a comfort level among Americans with the degree of religious freedom they have in the country.