With messages about honesty and friendship thrown in with slapstick humor and benign mayhem, “Tom & Jerry” can be enjoyed by the entire family.

Pope Francis told the people of Iraq he was going to their country as a “penitential pilgrim,” asking God’s forgiveness for years of war, persecution and destruction, and as a “pilgrim of peace,” hoping to remind people that they are all brothers and sisters no matter their ethnic or religious identity.

Pope Francis has named Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, a member of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that advises the pope on the nomination of bishops around the world.

Although it took obvious effort to pronounce each word and sometimes his secretary repeated what he said to make it clear, retired Pope Benedict XVI spoke to an Italian newspaper about his retirement and about Pope Francis’ planned trip to Iraq.

Reading the Bible has had a positive effect on people’s “mental well-being” during the pandemic, according to a Christian Research survey conducted in the United Kingdom.

Use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, approved Feb. 27 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, raises moral concerns because it was “was developed, tested and is produced with abortion-derived cell lines,” the chairmen of two U.S. bishops’ committees said March 2.

On the House floor ahead of the vote — which came at 2 in the morning (EST) — Rep. Chris Smith, N.J., criticized Pelosi and the House Rules Committee for refusing to allow a vote on an amendment to add language to the bill “to ensure that taxpayers aren’t forced to subsidize abortion,” as provided by the long-standing Hyde Amendment.

A special working group of the U.S. bishops formed last November to deal with conflicts that could arise between the policies of President Joe Biden, a Catholic, and church teaching has completed its work, Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a March 1 memo to all the U.S. bishops.

Pope Francis said he believes he will die in Rome, either in office or retired, and will not be buried in his native Argentina.

“This suffering on a daily basis takes an emotional toll, ” said Sandra Michocki, a chaplain at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. “In order for it not to swallow us,” she said, chaplains have to remember that God is always with them and “when we’re weary or we’re tired, we show up anyway; that’s all we can do.”