Peering just over the windowsill of Pope Francis’ studio above St. Peter’s Square, five children aged 7-10 joined the pope to announce a special gathering of children at the Vatican in November.

Every bishop in the world has made a promise to live and work in communion with the pope, a promise that includes obedience, said new U.S. Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the first of 20 cardinals to receive his red hat from Pope Francis at a consistory Sept. 30.

– Many of the prelates Pope Francis will make cardinals Sept. 30 will be taking part in the synod on synodality or have been very active in its preparatory phases as leaders of their dioceses.

Speaking to Catholic News Service Sept. 29, the eve of his induction into the College of Cardinals, the French prelate insisted the key to Catholic unity is “not to take refuge in ideologies.”

Speaking to reporters a few days before receiving their red hats, many of the 21 new cardinals said their induction into the College of Cardinals was less about them and more about their local church and its contribution to the universal church.

Hope and fraternity must be kept alive, organized and coordinated into concrete action so every crisis can be read as an opportunity and dealt with positively, Pope Francis said.

Speaking Sept. 26 during a high-level meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, called eliminating nuclear weapons a “moral imperative.”

Child pornography is “criminality available to everyone through their phones,” Pope Francis said.

In a visit of under 30 hours to Marseille, France, Pope Francis highlighted his key appeals and positions concerning migration and the mandate for people of faith to care for the “stranger” in one’s land.

Four months after soliciting public input on the development of safeguarding guidelines, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said it had reviewed 300 responses and 700 suggestions that “largely confirmed the approach adopted” for establishing rules and procedures to handle abuse in the Catholic Church.