Gossip is “a plague worse than COVID,” Pope Francis said, asserting that while speaking ill of others comes almost naturally, it is a tool of the devil to divide the church.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Father Michel J. Mulloy — who had been appointed but not installed as bishop of Duluth, Minnesota — after an allegation of sexual abuse was raised against him from the 1980s when he was a priest in South Dakota.

Pope Francis will travel to Assisi Oct. 3 to sign an encyclical on the social, political and economic obligations that flow from a belief that all people are children of God and therefore brothers and sisters to one another.

Given the “somber” realities imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, for companies to put profits over safety is “unjust,” said Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, in the U.S. bishops’ annual Labor Day statement.

Courses at the pontifical universities begin in October, but seminarians will only begin to explore Rome once their quarantine has ended.

Pope Francis has asked Catholics and all people of goodwill to observe Sept. 4 as a day of prayer and fasting for Lebanon.

Louisiana priests are now providing essential hurricane relief to priests and the parishes they serve in areas that were devastated by recent storm damage.

Hurricane Laura destroyed six churches in the Diocese of Lake Charles, left a dozen others “highly compromised” and did heavy damage to chancery offices.

Christ’s cross is a powerful symbol of God’s love for humanity and not just a decoration or trinket, Pope Francis said.

Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory announced during the Mass an archdiocesan initiative to “fight against racial injustice everywhere.”