Two days after opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica to inaugurate the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis will travel to a Rome prison to open a Holy Door as a “tangible sign of the message of hope” for people in prisons around the world, the Vatican announced.

Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus is being hailed as “a simple and powerful cure” for a fractured world, said the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference — and that sentiment was echoed by other experts on devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Members of the Synod of Bishops experienced a new way of being church and are committing to sharing it, said the two cardinals who guided its work.

Three years after he asked the world’s Catholics to walk together in faith on a synodal journey, Pope Francis said that the church cannot risk becoming “static” but must continue as a “missionary church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world.”

Parishes and dioceses must move quickly to give life to the consultative bodies and broad participation in mission and ministry already foreseen by church law if the Catholic Church is to have any hope of becoming a more “synodal” church, members of the Synod of Bishops said.

After a two-day trip to Ukraine Oct.19-20, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore said that U.S. Catholics must thoughtfully consider the implications of recent escalations in the region without succumbing to polarized political discourse.

Catholics in the Diocese of Rome must come up with concrete projects to help the tens of thousands of poor people who live in the city and must ensure religious education classes teach the social doctrine of the church, Pope Francis said.

The Catholic Church must take concrete steps — and soon — to recognize and empower women’s leadership and ministry in the church, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, told members of the Synod of Bishops.

Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican’s publishing house, has granted Word on Fire the exclusive English-language rights to translate and publish the collected works of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, which were written in the late pope’s native German.

The 18 cardinals who head Vatican offices will find a little less in their pay envelopes starting Nov. 1.