Cindy Wooden

The requirement that most priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church be celibate has theological and spiritual foundations and not only practical motivations, said speakers at an international conference on priesthood.

Meeting leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches — many from countries at war, facing the threat of war or dealing with the destruction left by war — Pope Francis said human beings seem to be “attached to wars, and this is tragic.”

Pope Francis told an Italian interviewer that forgiveness is “a human right.”