ROME - Jesus' gesture of washing his disciples' feet, an act once reserved to servants and slaves, is one that all Christians, especially bishops, must imitate, Pope Francis told hundreds of inmates and prison employees on Holy Thursday.

VANCOUVER – For someone like Thad, once convicted of a sex crime and now trying to put his old life behind him, a near-record-breaking year for Project Advance means another year of funding for the prison ministry program he relies on.

Canon law prescribes that Mass be celebrated in a “sacred place” such as a church or a chapel consecrated by a bishop. That is why, for example, there are strict rules forbidding the celebration of wedding Masses at locations such as a beach or garden patio. 

VATICAN – Calling torture a "mortal sin," Pope Francis called on Christians to help victims of this crime against human rights.

A year ago, The Catholic Register printed an article of mine about writing to condemned prisoners. 

CARACAS, Venezuela – A jail riot and fire that killed 68 people in Venezuela's deadliest tragedy in decades could have been prevented, according to the Venezuelan bishops' conference.

VATICAN – Pope Francis once again will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper in a prison and will wash the feet of 12 inmates.

NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. – Five years ago, Joannie Moses was in her late 60s and widowed.

MEXICO CITY – A priest in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca has been sentenced to 16 years and 6 months in prison for sexual abuse, marking the first ever conviction of a Catholic clergyman for such a crimes in the country.

MEXICO CITY - A prison riot in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey has claimed 52 lives, offering another example of the problems plaguing Mexico's prison system and casting a pall over the arrival of Pope Francis in the country.

PHILADELPHIA - While pilgrims in Philadelphia put up with a long weekend of lines and security checks at the papal venues, the pope reached out to a group of people whose lives are lines and security checks for years at a time.

There was a day when we would sit by the phone anxiously waiting for it to ring with important news. Nowadays, the phone is often muted, and it is a text message that intrudes into our vigil. So it was that at 3 a.m. I received the simple text message: “Gordie has passed. May he rest in peace.”

WASHINGTON - Readers of the Bible may recall the passage in Chapter 4 of Luke that presages the start of Jesus' public ministry, in which Jesus said, in part: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives."

WASHINGTON - A sign at the entrance to the exhibit warns of the shocking nature of the images beyond — photos smuggled out of Syria that show emaciated and grotesquely mutilated victims of dictator Bashar Assad’s prisons and torture chambers.

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia - Fernando Fernande brought toilet paper, soap and food to the Palmasola prison, where his son has been locked up for the past two years.