While many Catholic movements go through a period of confusion after their founder dies, the key to continued flourishing is to remember with gratitude the founder’s gifts and to be open to new ways or new places the Holy Spirit wants them to grow, Pope Francis told members of Communion and Liberation.

Saying he did not want to rush the process of discerning how the Holy Spirit is calling the church to grow in “synodality,” Pope Francis announced that the next assembly of the Synod of Bishops would take place in two sessions.

Prayer is medicine for one’s faith and it reinvigorates the soul, Pope Francis said.

Success in eradicating hunger will require acts of love and solidarity, not just carefully planned and executed international programs, Pope Francis said.

Young people in the United States are looking for a sense of community and a safe space in the church to express themselves freely, two representatives of Catholic youth told Pope Francis.

The Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations told a committee of the world body that “civilian populations continue to be victims of widespread and systematic attacks.”

Complaining can be “a poison to the soul, a poison to life” and “almost a sin” when it prevents people from building and strengthening “the desire to move forward,” he said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 12.

The Second Vatican Council was of great interest to the Orthodox world, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople wrote in an article published in the Vatican newspaper.

The Second Vatican Council was the universal Catholic Church’s response to God’s love and to Jesus’ command to feed his sheep, Pope Francis said, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the council’s opening.

While the term “synodality” is not found in any of the 16 documents of the Second Vatican Council, the council’s vision and definition of the church is at the heart of what synodality is, said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops.