Cindy Wooden

The 86-year-old pope, who had been hospitalized since March 29 for treatment of bronchitis, stopped his car and got out to greet well-wishers and reporters waiting outside the hospital.

The Catholic Church formally “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery,'” a Vatican statement said.

Pope Francis went to Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 29 for “some previously planned tests,” the Vatican press office said, providing no further details.

Meeting participants at the Vatican March 18, Pope Francis told them to “wage war, but another kind of war, an inner one, a war on ourselves to work for peace.”

The secret to lovingly ministering to others is first allowing oneself to experience the overwhelming love of God, Pope Francis told priests belonging to the Josephites of Murialdo, the Murialdine Sisters of St. Joseph and the laypeople who work with them.