World News

The injury and death of so many innocent people, especially children, caused by escalating violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip is “terrible and unacceptable,” putting the area at risk of sinking into “a spiral of death and destruction,” Pope Francis said.

Young members of the clergy who are tempted to avoid the complex realities of the world — finding solace and safety instead in the sacred — can be vulnerable to the illusions of the mafia, said the priest heading a new department on the Mafia and other criminal networks.

Calling for formal recognition of “those lay men and women who feel called by virtue of their baptism to cooperate in the work of catechesis,” Pope Francis has instituted the “ministry of catechist.”