Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner, 71, who has headed the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, since 2007.

Increasing vocations to the priesthood, improving the way laypeople and priests work together and ensuring that service, not power, motivates the request for ordination are all possible outcomes of a major symposium being planned by the Vatican in February 2022.

Italian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Gianluigi Torzi, an Italian broker who served as the middleman in the Vatican’s majority stake purchase of a property in London’s posh Chelsea district.

Like the disciples, who experienced Jesus’ divine mercy after the resurrection, all Christians are called to become missionaries, sharing the Gospel of God’s love and mercy with others, Pope Francis said.

Australian Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, a longtime Vatican diplomat and former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, died April 10 at the age of 96 in Newcastle, Australia.

Pope Francis said he was “moved” by a photo of an old registry that showed his participation as a young man at sessions of overnight eucharistic adoration at a basilica in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“It is always possible to begin anew, because there is a new life that God can awaken in us in spite of all our failures,” the pope said April 3 during his celebration of the Easter Vigil.

For the second year in a row, Pope Francis led the Way of the Cross from St. Peter’s Square rather than Rome’s Colosseum because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

As Pope Francis presided over the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, the preacher of the papal household called on bishops and all Catholics to examine their consciences for ways they may be harming the unity of the Catholic Church.

Signaling further reforms of the Vatican City State penal code, particularly when it comes to financial crimes, Pope Francis said the laws must reflect “the equality of all members of the church” by doing away with “privileges that go back in time and are no longer in keeping with the responsibility of each for building up of the church.”