Jesus calls believers not only to be servants of his kingdom, as the prophets and Mary were, but also to be his friends, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor John J. McDermott to be the bishop of Burlington, Vt.

As young people across the globe feel increasingly adrift and overlooked, Catholic religious orders and agencies must redouble their efforts to help young people stay in school, learn a trade and find a decent job, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis signed a letter on synodality in the presence of parish priests and urged them to be “missionaries of synodality,” said several of the priests present.

Pope Francis said that some universities are “too liberal” and do not place enough emphasis on forming their students into whole people.

Pope Francis received assurances from Jordan’s King Abdullah II that Christian and Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem will be protected amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Sudden peace negotiations or an intervention by the United States will not deliver Israelis and Palestinians from the suffering caused by the war in Gaza, a Jerusalem-based cardinal said.

The greatest enemy of faith is fear, Pope Francis said at his weekly general audience.

Seminarians and religious men and women need well-rounded formation throughout their lives, not only at the onset of their religious training, Pope Francis said.

The collaboration of laity and priests in the life of a parish and in outreach to the surrounding community “is not a strategy,” but the result of taking the sacraments of baptism and confirmation seriously rather than allowing it to remain “a beautiful principle, a virtuous and pious intention,” a Canadian theologian told hundreds of pastors.