The world needs courageous leaders who will fight for abolishing the death penalty even when there is no clear majority against it, said a leading Catholic activist opposed to capital punishment.

In the first Lenten reflection for the Roman Curia delivered by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa March 3, the Capuchin friar said that Vatican II showed the church how “to walk through history, alongside humanity, trying to discern the signs of the times.”

The departments of Labor and Health and Human Services said they would audit the vetting process of adults who sponsor migrant children out of government custody, and increase their efforts to investigate and prosecute cases of child exploitation.

During 50 years between 1969 and 2019, Catholic marriages declined 69 percent even as the Catholic population increased by nearly 20 million, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

A pandemic-era program that provided extra payments to Americans who qualify for food stamps ended March 1, causing concern for some Catholic advocates about how low-income individuals and families will put food on the table.

Archbishop Angelo Raffaele Panzetta of Crotone-Santa Severina joined other faith leaders, local officials and members of the public March 1 in praying for migrants aboard a wooden boat who died in a Feb. 26 shipwreck off the southern Italian coast.

Blunt remarks by New York City Mayor Eric Adams at a Feb. 28 interfaith breakfast made waves amid critics’ accusations of intolerance. However, some Catholic leaders praised the mayor’s remarks about the importance of faith to society as being on point.

For the month of March, the pope dedicated his prayer intention for the victims of abuse. Child Abuse Prevention Month is observed in April in the United States.

Along with the Our Father sung at the end of his weekly general audience or his Sunday Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis has added to these public events for the last year his own heartfelt prayers for the martyred people of Ukraine.

Pope Francis praised the late Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell of Los Angeles for his “profound concern for the poor, immigrants and those in need” in a telegram following his murder.