The conference, “Women Building a Culture of Encounter Interreligiously,” was sponsored by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue and the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations.

A Catholic pro-life advocate is on trial for allegedly violating a federal law that protects access to abortion clinics, and the lead lawyer defending him said the charges against his client are being pursued “solely to intimidate people of faith and pro-life Americans.”

Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant representatives joined the pope at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls for vespers closing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The AP interview with the pope also covered topics ranging from his health to the ongoing clerical sexual abuse crisis and from homosexuality to potential policies for regulating the retirement of a pope who renounces his office.

As war ravages Ukraine, the country cannot be divided among religious confessions but must be united behind “mother Ukraine,” Pope Francis said.

After the shooting Jan. 21 in Monterey Park, California, that killed 11 people and injured nine others, Pope Francis said that “the world is obsessed with having guns.”

Conflict and division hurt the mission of the Knights of Malta, and craving for power creates distance from Christ, Pope Francis told members of the religious, charitable and chivalric order.

Pope Francis did not need to launch listening sessions for the Synod of Bishops for people to discover there are tensions in the Catholic Church, said the cardinal serving as the synod’s relator general.

Catholic organizations applauded the announcement of a new State Department program that allows groups of private individuals to directly support refugees resettling in the U.S.

Dolores R. Leckey, who was founding director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for the Laity in 1977 and at the time one of the highest ranking women in the U.S. Catholic Church, died peacefully of natural causes Jan. 17 in her home in Arlington. She was 89.