VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal John Tong Hon as bishop of Hong Kong. Coadjutor Bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung, 70, succeeds the cardinal as head of the diocese, the Vatican announced Aug. 1.

ROME, Italy – To mark Monday's feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, Pope Francis as usual visited his brother Jesuits at their General Curia house in Rome.

VATICAN CITY – Human trafficking is "brutal, savage and criminal," Pope Francis said, but often it seems like people see it as a sad, but normal fact of life.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis' decree to beatify two Colombian martyrs from two troubled eras in the South American country's history underscores his call for courageous witness amid violence and persecution.

Rome in June is notoriously hot. But Rome in June wearing a wedding veil is even hotter.

CZESTOCHOWA, Poland – Three hundred years ago this September the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa was crowned Queen and Protector of Poland by Clement XI.

Let’s face it, we live in a world of complainers.

MANCHESTER, England – Pope Francis is praying for the parents of Charlie Gard after a U.S. doctor told them nothing could be done to help their son.

LORETO, Italy – Nine-year-old Andrea is an Italian boy who joined 130 children last month for a “Pilgrimage of Joy” to the Marian Shrine of Loreto, Italy.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis called on Muslims and Jews in the Holy Land to "moderation and dialogue" as tensions continued around a key site in Jerusalem that is sacred to members of both faiths.

LIMA, Peru – When Pope Francis visits Colombia in September, he will take his message of mercy and reconciliation to Cartagena, a city that still bears scars of its painful history as a slave port. And he will walk the streets where another Jesuit, St. Peter Claver, put that message into practice four centuries ago.

VATICAN CITY – Fr. Pierangelo Pietracatella and Fr. Hans-Peter Fischer are the newest members of the Roman Rota, and mark the latest in a string of appointments Pope Francis has made this summer as part of his ongoing effort to restructure the Roman Curia.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Maximiliano Acuña is a garbage collector in Buenos Aires who earlier this year was injured in a serious accident that left him without legs.

A close confidant of Pope Francis, writing Thursday (July 13) in a Vatican-approved magazine, condemned the way some American evangelicals and their Roman Catholic supporters mix religion and politics, saying their worldview promotes division and hatred.

WASHINGTON – Pope Francis cannot change Church’s long-standing teaching on contraception, despite the hopes of Melinda Gates, says a theology and ethics professor.