Pope Francis was not asking Ukraine to consider surrendering to Russia when he called for negotiations to end the war, but he was calling for both Russia and Ukraine to cease hostilities and engage in peace talks, the Vatican’s top diplomat said.

Amid persecution, Christians must “be a sign of hope,” said the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Suggestions for what to do during private eucharistic adoration.

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Ukraine’s Greek Catholic bishops, led by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, have said their nation will continue to fight Russian aggression, “notwithstanding the suggestions for need for negotiations coming from representatives of different countries, including the Holy Father himself.

Recent kidnappings of hundreds of people in Nigeria, including almost 300 schoolchildren March 7 in Kuriga in the central part of the country, have left church leaders and parents, including Catholics, speechless in the face of another wave of senseless violence.

Stanislawa Leszczynska, a Polish midwife imprisoned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Nazi Germany-occupied Poland, delivered 3,000 babies of different nationalities and treated them and their mothers with heroic humanity.

Christians should pray for the grace to look at others with the same mercy and care with which Jesus looks at them, Pope Francis said.

The Irish prime minister, known as the Taoiseach, has conceded that his government was defeated “comprehensively” when voters rejected amendments to the constitution that the country’s bishops warned would have weakened supports for marriage and undermined motherhood.

Pope Francis’ comment that Ukraine should have the “courage of the white flag” and engage in negotiation to end its war with Russia was dismissed by the Ukrainian government and church leaders.