The pope also answered questions about tensions within the Church and spoke about his desire to go to India next year.
Pope Francis urged Christians in the war-torn South Sudan to make a decisive contribution to changing history by refusing to repay evil with evil.
Speaking in Our Lady of Congo Cathedral in Kinshasa on Feb. 2, the pope encouraged priests and religious to continue to bring the Congolese people Jesus.
The moving encounter with the pope provided a potent reminder of the horrors taking place in eastern Congo.
The 91-year-old cardinal wrote on his blog on Jan. 31 that he is receiving treatment in the hospital after experiencing difficulty breathing.
Among the refugees who met with the pope was Bidong, who spent much of his childhood in a refugee camp in Ethiopia after fleeing the war in his home of South Sudan.
The pope departs Rome on Tuesday morning for the capital city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country home to more than 52 million Catholics.
Cardinal Mario Grech and Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich stressed that the Synod of Bishops is not meant “to address all the issues being debated in the Church.”
Bishop Robert Francis Prevost will lead the Vatican office responsible for evaluating new members of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.
In his Sunday Angelus address, the pope expressed “great sorrow” for the death of Palestinians killed in an Israeli military raid and seven Israelis killed in a shooting.
In his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Francis decried a culture that “throws away” unborn children, the elderly, and the poor if they are not useful.
The pope sent a telegram to L.A. Archbishop José Gomez on Jan. 25 expressing his sadness and assuring his spiritual closeness to “those affected by this tragedy.”
The interview with the Associated Press covered a wide range of topics, including laws that criminalize homosexuality and sodomy.
“The war that erupted between Russia and Ukraine last February has brought home to humanity just how valuable peace is,” Tsai Ing-wen wrote in a letter to the pope.
Pope Francis has urged Christians to “speak the truth and to do so with charity” amid polarization and divisions within the Church.
Father Timothy Radcliffe, whose statements on homosexuality have previously sparked controversy, will lead a three-day retreat to kick off the Synod of Bishops.
Following Jesus “means giving up the time wasted on so many useless things,” the pope said.
Pope Francis conferred the lay ministries on the Sunday of the Word of God, a day that he declared in 2019 on the 1,600th anniversary of the death of St. Jerome.
In a decree signed on Jan. 19, Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtue of an Italian stigmatic, four 20th-century priests, and a holy laywoman.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said he is praying this week that “we can re-find peace between Christians in Ukraine.”