Catholics must place the Eucharist at the center of their lives to transform their relationships with God and their neighbors, Pope Francis said.

The Vatican will establish a new commission to identify and catalogue Christians who have died for their faith in the last 25 years, Pope Francis said.

In order to eradicate hunger in the world, committed and experienced action must be taken that includes local and traditional cultures and peoples, Pope Francis said.

A priest on the road to sainthood, who has united millions of Catholic men across the world, is drawing faithful together in the town where he first served.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine hit the 493-day mark June 30, OSV News sat down with Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, papal nuncio to Ukraine, to discuss his experiences of the war.

The Vatican is developing a plan to return to Ukraine children illegally deported to Russia but is not jockeying to mediate the war, Pope Francis’ peace envoy said upon his return from his mission to Moscow.

Amid the heat of combat, “the most important thing is not just to do the medicine, which comes automatically, but to be able to gather your thoughts and be focused in these stressful situations.”

The leaders of the Conference of Religious Leaders in France, representing Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Buddhist communities, issued a June 30 joint statement appealing for peace, harmony and fraternity amid violent protests that have engulfed the country.

Christians are called to be modern-day prophets who guide others to see the Holy Spirit at work in everyday life and not to be superstitious people who try to predict or control the future, Pope Francis said.

For Father Crabtree, music drove him closer to Christ and, eventually, closer to the church.