Vatican

In a country where most people are Christian and all are suffering from decades of violence and atrocities, Pope Francis told the Congolese to lay down their weapons and their rancor.

More than three-quarters of a century after the largest genocide in history, the United States and the Catholic Church are still making sense of their response to the Holocaust.

After flying across the equator, Pope Francis was welcomed warmly — in every sense — to Congo where Catholics make up the majority of the population and where, for decades, the Catholic Church has been at the forefront of efforts to bring peace, education and health care to the people.

Pope Francis reaffirmed that homosexuality is not a crime, and that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin, in a written response to a request for clarification about his remarks during a recent interview with the Associated Press.

Christians must combat the prevalent culture of wastefulness by becoming poor in spirit, Pope Francis said.