Catholic News Service

The Vatican announced that Pope Francis will formally launch the process of the Synod of Bishops with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

All Christians are called to be missionaries, which at its most basic level involves living in such a way that other people ask what motivates their love and concern, Pope Francis said.

Against the background of lay Catholics' anger about a Vatican decision not to censure Cologne clergy for mishandling abuse cases, German Catholics — bishops, clergy and laity — gathered in Frankfurt for the start of the three-day Synodal Path Assembly.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco is asking "all Catholics and others of goodwill" to join a prayer and fasting campaign for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic Democrat who supports legal abortion.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, said diocesan celebrations coinciding with the World Meeting of Families 2022 will allow Catholic families to be in "spiritual communion" with Pope Francis and delegates in Rome.

Pope Francis appointed a dozen new members to the International Theological Commission, including two professors from the Catholic University of America, the Vatican announced.

Panelists at one Sept. 27 forum during an online conference on immigration law and policy noted that the asylum process, like much else in the U.S. immigration system, is in need of its own fixes.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said current conditions in Haiti allowed for the return of some of the estimated 14,000 Haitian migrants who crossed earlier in September from Mexico into Del Rio, Texas.

The ceremony is due to be held on Oct. 21, and to be attended by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Irish President Michael Higgins. However, Higgins has now pulled out of the event, claiming that it had been "politicized.

The pope's message Sept. 29 came during a "Youth4Climate" gathering, which included Greta Thunberg, in Milan Sept. 28-30, ahead of the U.N. COP26 climate summit in November.

In the search for truth, Catholic communicators must learn how to listen above all else, the Vatican said.

Even the greatest sinners can become just in God's eyes if they allow the grace offered by Jesus' death and resurrection to give them the strength to be holy, Pope Francis said.

Fr. Stan Jaszek, a missionary priest from Poland who is serving Native Alaskans in the Diocese of Fairbanks, has been named the recipient of Catholic Extension's 2021-2022 Lumen Christi Award.

Ninety-six priests, brothers, sisters and laypeople on five continents now have the chance to study in Rome as part of The Papal Foundation's St. John Paul II Scholarship Program.

 Death row inmates in Florida's prisons refer to their 6-foot-by-9-foot cell as their "house," with some having lived in their "house" for 40 years -- longer than one Catholic lay chaplain said he has lived in his family home in Tallahassee.

As German Catholics prepare for their second Synodal Assembly, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of German bishops' conference, called for courageous change in church and society.

Bishop Raymundo J. Peña, retired bishop of Brownsville who was an advocate of immigrant rights and opposed the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, died Sept. 24 at age 87.

Pope Francis said the Second Vatican Council so shaped his theological and pastoral vision that perhaps he has not been as explicit as he should have been in highlighting those ties, especially when it comes to his contributions to Catholic social teaching.

The chairman of the U.S. bishops' committee dealing with international affairs has called on the United States to move toward preventing a modern-day nuclear arms race.