VATICAN CITY - During Holy Week and in the Easter season, the Vatican will take part in several initiatives highlighting the importance of ecology and the care for creation.

Resurrection of the Lord (Year C) March 27 (Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 118; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18)

The most profound and gripping theologies take the form of a story. Few people are moved by dry metaphysical speculations or hairsplitting, but many are moved by a powerful story. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is as one movie title had it, The Greatest Story Ever Told. Perhaps that is part of the problem in our own time — we have opted for an overly rationalized and skeptical approach to our faith, allowing the power and excitement of the great story to slip away.

Several years ago, while teaching a summer course at Seattle University, I had a female student who, while happily married, was unable to conceive a child. She had no illusions about what this meant for her. It bothered her a great deal. She found Mother’s Day very difficult. Among other things, she wrote a well-researched thesis on the concept of barrenness in Scripture and developed a retreat on that same theme which she offered at various renewal centres.

VATICAN CITY - Although he lives a relatively hidden life in a villa in the Vatican Gardens, retired Pope Benedict XVI continues to study modern theological questions and, occasionally, to comment on them publicly.

VATICAN CITY - Firming up his presence on social media, Pope Francis will make his debut on the photo-sharing app Instagram, a Vatican official announced. 

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will declare Blessed Teresa of Calcutta a saint at the Vatican Sept. 4.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis celebrated the third anniversary of his election with a simple Tweet — “Pray for me" — and the usual Sunday recitation of the Angelus prayer with tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square.

VATICAN CITY - The sainthood cause of Argentine Cardinal Eduardo Francisco Pironio, who organized the first World Youth Days as president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, has been forwarded to the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has approved new rules to tighten financial oversight of the canonization process after leaked documents revealed abuses and high costs in creating saints.

DETROIT - When Fr. Benjamin Kosnac decided to start offering confessions 30 minutes before every Mass, he wasn't sure anyone would come.