A Japanese woman religious and Marian visionary has died some five decades after witnessing the miraculous weeping of a statue of Mary and receiving urgent messages to pray in reparation for humanity’s sins.

When receiving the Eucharist, Catholics should respond with gratitude and awe that Jesus offers himself as nourishment and salvation, Pope Francis said.

As the Israel-Hamas war edges toward the one-year mark, OSV News spoke with Jesuit Father John Paul, rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, ahead of his return to Israel following a brief visit to the U.S. in early August.

On the first day of talks in Geneva aimed at ending the 16-month Sudanese conflict, a Catholic bishop in the region stressed that addressing the humanitarian situation in the northeast African country cannot not wait for “tomorrow.”

Capital punishment promotes a deadly attitude of revenge and denies the possibility of change in the lives of incarcerated people, Pope Francis said.

A group of Catholic medical professionals is hailing recent remarks by U.S. plastic surgeons questioning surgical interventions for teens experiencing gender dysphoria.

The Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist didn’t just survive the violence of the Lake Atitlán region back then, but they flourished during the war’s 36 years and now have missions in San Pedro Ayampuc; Tamahu; Cobán; Santiago Atitlán in Sololá; Tecpán in Chimaltenango; Joyaba and Santa Cruz in El Quiché; and San Andrés Semetabaj.

Mary is not a “motionless wax statue,” but a disciple who wants to share the good news of Jesus with everyone and reaches out to help and comfort them, Pope Francis said.

Students — many of whom are exploring careers in science — conduct hands-on, faculty-mentored research, design and perform experiments, analyze and interpret data, and present their results.

In his homily during St. Maximilian Kolbe’s canonization Mass Oct. 10, 1982, St. John Paul II said the Polish Franciscan was granted the grace of carrying out “in an absolutely literal manner” the words of Christ: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”