God works in mysterious ways, but the Holy Father is even more mysterious, Cardinal-designate Mykola Bychok, eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Australia and Oceania, told The Catholic Weekly on the day of his appointment.

Almost half of the 21 cardinals-to-be Pope Francis recently announced were already in Rome attending the Synod of Bishops on synodality, but that didn’t necessarily mean they all heard the news when it happened.

With one current member of the College of Cardinals — Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Porras Cardozo of Caracas — about to celebrate his 80th birthday, when the new cardinals are inducted into the college in December, there could be as many as 141 “cardinal electors.”

Evangelization does not have to be complicated or “sophisticated,” even in highly secularized places, Pope Francis told Jesuits living in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

On the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with all those suffering because of conflicts throughout the Middle East, urged Christians to be peacemakers and warned warmongers they will face God’s judgment.

Members of the Synod of Bishops have voted to give up one of their few free afternoons to “dialogue” with the leaders of the study groups Pope Francis set up to reflect on important questions raised by the synod in 2023.

Members of the Synod of Bishops have begun looking for ways to make relationships within the Catholic Church “more transparent and more harmonious, so that our witness may become more credible.”

As fighting in the Middle East intensified and spread, Pope Francis turned to Mary, begging her to “intercede for our world in danger.”

Love is demanding, but it is also beautiful when a woman and a man love each other fully, “without half measures,” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis announced he would create 21 new cardinals Dec. 8, including a 99-year-old former nuncio and the 44-year-old Ukrainian bishop who heads his church’s eparchy in Melbourne, Australia.