Pope Pius VII, a prisoner of Napoleon from 1809 to 1814, endured humiliation but successfully resisted all attempts to fracture the unity of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said.

Catholic university professor Samuel Shephard suggests that Catholics can bring a unique viewpoint to Earth Day, celebrated April 22, because “as Catholics, we can understand we’re doing that as stewards of creation.”

When Jesus called himself the “good shepherd,” he was telling people not only that he was their guide, but that they were important to him and “that he thinks of each of us as the love of his life,” Pope Francis said.

Ukrainian Catholics in the U.S. are breathing a sigh of relief and prayers of gratitude, after a bill for aid to Ukraine cleared the House of Representatives following months of delay, political infighting and even openly anti-Ukrainian sentiment among some lawmakers.

A bipartisan coalition the U.S. House of Representatives, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., voted April 20 to approve a $95 billion package providing aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and other U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific region, over the objections of some far-right lawmakers who indicated they would attempt to remove Johnson from his role over the deal.

The Catholic Church in the United States is grappling with a tendency to become more “auto-referential” and withdraw itself from the international stage and universal church, Pope Francis’ representative to the United States said.

The pope’s diplomats are men of faith located all over the world to uphold the pope’s positions on international matters, to edify the universal church and to serve the Gospel, said Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister.

Be loving and compassionate fathers to the marginalized, Pope Francis told members of the Brothers of Christian Instruction, commonly known as the La Mennais Brothers.

Catholics will come to Indianapolis in the tens of thousands for the National Eucharistic Congress July 17-21 — some as individuals, some as couples, some as groups.

Experts in history, philosophy, sociology, political science, psychology and education came together at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University April 17-19 to present talks including: the effects of mass violence waged by colonial powers; the misuse of the memory of the Holocaust; sexual predation in the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages; and slave holding by Jesuits in the the United States.