After the Vatican Secretariat of State missed a Nov. 1 deadline to hand over the management and monitoring of its own assets to two separate Vatican bodies, Pope Francis set up a commission to make the transfer and external oversight happen.

Praying for the dead and asking God to welcome them into his presence forever helps Christians remember what life and death are really about, Pope Francis said.

If the monster movie “Come Play” (Focus) is only reasonably effective in frightening its audience, it is at least refreshingly free of objectionable material, including gore.

The U.S. remains in uncertainty about the presidential race after Election Day, as a counting of the vote continues, showing Democratic candidate Joe Biden ahead in electoral votes, but not by much.

Bishops who want to establish a religious order in their dioceses must first obtain the written permission of the Holy See, Pope Francis said.

When life is difficult and when one is mourning the passing of a loved one, it is time to pray for the gift of hope and the ability to say with the prophet Job, “I know that my redeemer lives,” Pope Francis said.

The penitential rite was necessary to purify the church from the stain of a “gravely injurious act,” such as a homicide, before normal religious activities could resume, according to a Nov. 1 statement on the website of the Diocese of Nice.

Blessed Michael J. McGivney was a priest of the Eight Beatitudes because he lived them “so consistently and thoroughly” as a parish priest and as the founder of the Knights of Columbus, said Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, the Knights’ supreme chaplain.

The Supreme Court, with a full bench, will hear oral arguments by teleconference Nov. 4 about a Catholic social service agency that had been excluded from Philadelphia’s foster care program for not accepting same-sex couples as foster parents.

The Vatican Secretariat of State has sent an explanatory note to nuncios around the world insisting that when Pope Francis spoke about civil unions, he was not changing or challenging “the doctrine of the church, which he has reaffirmed numerous times over the years.”