VATICAN CITY – Christ's call for his disciples to be one requires that even as they try to resolve their differences on doctrinal and moral questions, they must get used to working and praying together, Pope Francis said.

MUNICH - A German Catholic Church leader condemned an arson attack that destroyed a reception centre for asylum seekers.

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's Catholic bishops pledged to resist changes to Catholic teaching on marriage and family life at October's synod on the family at the Vatican and rejected demands for reform by German-speaking Catholics.

OXFORD, England - Catholic organizations in Germany welcomed changes to their church's employment rules, so staffers will no longer face being fired for remarrying without an annulment or for forming gay unions.

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's Catholic Church has urged a fitting tribute to hundreds of its priests who died during World War II at the Nazi concentration camp in Dachau, Germany.

BEUERBERG, Germany - Cold winter light is streaming through the ancient windows of Beuerberg Abbey. It plays on the wood of the empty choir stalls, shimmers on the bronze hand bell of the prioress. Everything is quiet and ready for the next prayer.

One of the dynamics of last year’s Synod on the Family was the contrast between the German-speaking bishops, who have been preoccupied with finding a way for those in invalid marriages to receive Holy Communion since Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper were young theologians, and the African bishops. The latter, not to put too fine a point on it, objected that it was not possible for the Church to teach that simultaneous polygamy was immoral for poor black Catholics in Africa while serial polygamy was okay for rich, white Catholics in Europe.

Toronto - Maria Luxbacher credits Fr. Karl Hoeppe with influencing both her boys’ decisions to enter the seminary. He was an example to children that priests do more than just preach on Sunday, she said. 

TRIER, Germany - The president of the German bishops' conference has asked Pope Benedict XVI's forgiveness for "errors committed against him" in his homeland, adding that most Germans respect him as a "spiritual and intellectual authority."