Being able to go to school and study is a gift that not every young person in the world has and is something to thank God for, Pope Francis told a group of Swiss students.

Jesus throwing money changers out of the temple and talking about how difficult it is for a rich person to get to heaven make it easy to assume that there is little hope for the salvation of a business owner, Pope Francis said, but that is not true.

Like Mary, who after the Annunciation went in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth, young Catholics are called to welcome Jesus into their lives and then to go out and share their joy with others, Pope Francis said.

The Catholic Church “embraces and encourages a passion for scientific research as an expression of love for the truth and for knowledge about the world,” Pope Francis told members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The first task of a catechist is to love the Lord and to live the faith in a way that makes others want to live it, too, Pope Francis told more than 1,400 people attending the International Congress on Catechesis.

Pope Francis asked Christians to pray for him before he embarks on a three-day visit to Kazakhstan.

The Supreme Court in Michigan said voters will decide in the upcoming November elections if a woman’s right to an abortion can be part of the Michigan Constitution.

The 10th Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the United Nations headquarters in New York led to widespread consensus on numerous issues related to nuclear safety, but could not satisfy the Russian delegation’s objection even though the document did not mention Russia by name.

Laymen and laywomen make up the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Office of Restorative Justice’s volunteer network across Southern California. Some visit inmates in jails and prisons, while others dedicate their time to ministering to the relatives they’ve left behind.

Amid a U.N. warning that a famine is looming in Somalia, Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services is calling for increased humanitarian support in the Horn of Africa country.