To end “Catholic Woodstock” — as World Youth Day has been called by the Portuguese press — Pope Francis told 1.5 million weary-eyed and sleep-deprived young people in Lisbon not to let their “great dreams” of changing the world be “stopped by fear.”

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ international policy committee called on Catholics and all people of goodwill to pray that the leaders of the United States and other nations around the globe “who govern the control” of nuclear weapons “will earnestly seek to make critically needed progress on arms control.”

Lay men and women carrying out missionary work in parishes, either on a full time or volunteer basis, are helping Catholic clergy expand the evangelizing reach of their ministry wherever they are, from urban centers to prairie towns.

A pro-life group has launched a multimillion dollar ad buy in the final days before an Aug. 8 Ohio special election that could significantly impact an abortion ballot initiative in the state in November.

Before 200,000 pilgrims at Fátima, many of them with tears in their eyes, Pope Francis called for a new Marian devotional title — “Our Lady in a Hurry” — to describe how Mary hastens to care for all her children.

When feelings of suffering, anxiety and loneliness bring young people to tears, Jesus cries with them and walks alongside them on the way of the cross, Pope Francis said.

How do thermometer-bursting digits relate to wider concerns about climate change, a warming earth, and the call to action of Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si'” — and can individual Catholics make a difference?

While Pope Francis was visiting Portugal for World Youth Day, talk of future papal trips — including to Kosovo and Argentina — was making headlines as were some of his thoughts about the need for the Catholic Church to be open to all.

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against a new Illinois law, blocking the law’s restrictions on speech that was affecting the state’s 100 pregnancy resource centers.

Rivers of young people flowed through the streets of Lisbon on their way to Eduardo VII Park on Aug. 3 for the World Youth Day welcome ceremony with Pope Francis.