VATICAN CITY — In its efforts to help advise the pope, the Roman Curia, bishops’ conferences and local churches on protecting minors from abuse, a Vatican commission listened to abuse survivors from Great Britain and discussed the results of Australia’s public inquiry into its country’s institutional responses to abuse. The plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) April 20-22 was the first gathering with a group of new members appointed in February. Pope Francis met with the commission members in a private audience April 21 and met the day before with Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who is president of the 17-member commission. The commission secretary is U.S. Msgr. Robert Oliver, a Boston priest, canon lawyer and former promotor of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The pope said he wanted to confirm the commission’s statutes, which were issued April 21, 2015, “ad experimentum” for a period of three years, according to a press statement by the commission April 22.
Seek contact with nature to change polluting lifestyles, pope says Humanity must have more direct contact with nature to counter the modern lifestyles that are destroying the planet, Pope Francis said.
Apostolic nuncio delivers annual Cardinal Bernardin lecture Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, delivered the 2024 Cardinal Bernardin Lecture at Loyola University Chicago on April 11, titled “Pope Francis: Discernment and the Dialectic of Mercy.”
On Easter, pope asks Christ to 'roll away' the stones of war worldwide Just as Jesus removed the stone that sealed his tomb on the morning of the Resurrection, on Easter Christ alone "has the power to roll away the stones that block the path to life" and which trap humanity in war and injustice, Pope Francis said.