VATICAN CITY – Three months after the publication of Pope Francis' exhortation on marriage and family, bishops and bishops' conferences around the world are studying practical ways to apply it. Some still disagree on what exactly the Pope meant.

CANTERBURY, England – The Church of Scotland will launch a two-year investigation into the possibility of introducing online baptisms, Communion and other Christian sacraments.

Recently I received, on the same day, articles from three different sources. One was about the 219 girls captured by Boko Haram who are still missing. The second, about “way more” than 1,200 aboriginal Canadian women missing or murdered. And the third, about 4,472 baby girls “unaccounted for” in Canada over the past 20 years, referring to female fetuses aborted in favour of male children.

Sex is not something the Church fears or is trying to control. Sex is not the opposite of prayer and spirituality, it’s not something we grudgingly concede to the young. Sex is not merely the mechanism of reproduction, although there’s no such thing as a full and true understanding of sex that can’t live with our human capacity to make babies.

WASHINGTON - On the International Space Station there's a place, while filled with robotic equipment, where astronauts like to hang out. Called the Cupola, the small module has seven large bay windows that give crew members a panoramic view of Earth.

VATICAN CITY – Simple gestures such as a kind look or a morning kiss and family prayer can strengthen couples in living out their vocation to marriage, Pope Francis said in his apostolic exhortation.

VATICAN CITY – The same mercy and patience that are essential for building a strong family must be shown to those whose families are in trouble or have broken up, Pope Francis said in his highly anticipated post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis’ landmark text on the family, scheduled for release on Friday, is expected to encourage a more open attitude toward the non-nuclear family but contain no change in Church doctrine.

VATICAN CITY - As discussions continue between Vatican officials and leaders of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, Pope Francis met at the Vatican with Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the society.

There is intense anticipation in the Catholic Church — and no small amount of anxiety for traditionalists — over what Pope Francis will say about Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics in a key document expected in the coming weeks.

The Anglican Communion voted to censure its American branch, the Episcopal Church, during a meeting in Canterbury, England, called to reflect on the future of the communion.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican spokesman described as obviously "unreliable" an Italian journalist's claim that Pope Francis told him that following the Synod of Bishops on the family, "all the divorced who ask" will be admitted to Communion.

ROME - Even as Pope Francis and Catholic leaders from around the world debate ways to make the Catholic Church more inclusive, Newark Archbishop John Myers has given his priests strict guidelines on refusing Communion to Catholics who, for example, support gay marriage or whose own marriage is not valid in the eyes of the church.

In a just-released book Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has poured cold water on arguments that the Church should allow communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has welcomed the election of a new patriarch for the Armenian Catholic Church, extending what is known as "ecclesial communion" to Patriarch Gregoire Pierre XX Ghabroyan of Cilicia, who was elected by his fellow Armenian bishops July 24.