TBILISI, Georgia – Subtly acknowledging Georgia's ongoing territorial dispute with Russia, Pope Francis urged greater efforts to sow peace throughout the Caucasus region.

VATICAN CITY – Leaders of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith spent three days in late September listening to women theologians, canon lawyers, Scripture scholars and specialists in other academic fields talk about roles women have played in the Catholic Church and roles they could play in the future.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis and the Vatican are concerned about continuing tensions on the Korean peninsula "on account of the nuclear tests carried out by North Korea," the Vatican spokesman confirmed.

VATICAN CITY – With some stoic and others sobbing, survivors and family members of the victims of the July terrorist attacks in Nice met Pope Francis during a special audience at the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY – Catholics and Orthodox need to explore ways authority can be understood and exercised so that is not an obstacle to unity, a group of top-level theologians said.

VATICAN CITY – The Holy See has adhered to the UN Convention Against Corruption, an international treaty focused on preventing, outlawing and prosecuting corruption within nations and internationally.

VATICAN CITY – In a change to church law, Latin-rite Catholic deacons may not preside at a wedding when one or both of the new spouses are members of an Eastern Catholic church.

VATICAN CITY – The sacredness of human life is so absolute that performing or helping procure an abortion or attempting suicide is an obstacle to ordination as a Catholic priest, even if the man was not Catholic at the time the events occurred, said a new Vatican ruling.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis thanked a group of bishops in Argentina for providing their priests with concrete guidelines for implementing the section of his apostolic exhortation on the family about circumstances in which divorced and civilly remarried couples might eventually be allowed to receive Communion.

ROME – A room with a view of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica from a monastery atop the Aventine Hill is very nice, but Abbot Gregory Polan knows he will miss his brother monks at Conception Abbey in Missouri very, very much.