Pope Francis said he knows people wonder why he traveled close to 6,000 miles to Mongolia to visit a Catholic community of only 1,450 people.

On a day when history was made 60 years earlier with the March on Washington, Father Robert Boxie III, the Catholic chaplain at Howard University in the nation’s capital, noted that the campus ministry program there was making history of its own, with the blessing and dedication of its new Sister Thea Bowman Catholic Student Center.

Local and national organizers of the National Eucharistic Congress — which will take place in Indianapolis July 17-21, 2024 — have been meeting virtually for some time.

With a beatification Mass for the Ulma family set for Sept. 10, the Vatican emphasized that all nine members of the Polish family are considered martyrs, including the child that was born during the massacre.

Mexico’s Supreme Court overturned a state-level abortion ban, a decision observers say could hasten the removal of restrictions on the procedure nationwide.

Visiting Mongolia Sept. 1-4, Pope Francis encouraged the nation’s tiny Catholic community to grow in faith and charity, but the visit also was designed to reassure the government that it has nothing to fear from the Catholic missionaries who arrived in the country in 1992.

The pope admitted Sept. 4 it was not his best moment when he cited the examples of Peter the Great and Catherine II, who conquered and subjugated neighboring nations and who Russian President Vladimir Putin has evoked as role models in his war on Ukraine.

The Synod of Bishops is not a television show or a parliamentary debate, and its discussions will not be open to the public or to reporters, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis ended his four-day visit to Mongolia where Catholic missionaries began — with charity.

Campaign rhetoric often offers simple solutions to complex problems of drug trafficking and migration, an immigration policy expert told OSV News, with a notable example taking place at the recent first Republican primary debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle.