VATICAN CITY -- The Eight Beatitudes describe the path to holiness, but the call to meekness seems particularly challenging today, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- As protests against a near-total ban on abortions gripped Poland, Pope Francis urged the people of the country to defend life.

VATICAN CITY -- When Pope Francis said gay people have a right to be in a family and that gay couples needed some form of civil law to protect their rights, he was not saying that gay couples should have a right to adopt children.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis announced he will create 13 new cardinals Nov. 28, including Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Washington.

VATICAN CITY -- While there is no doubt that Pope Francis said civil laws should protect the rights of gay couples, some mystery shrouds the context in which he said it and the way it is used in a new film.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis often has expressed openness to the idea of laws recognizing civil unions, including for gay couples, to protect their rights.

VATICAN CITY -- The mission of the church and of all Christians is to proclaim and live the Gospel in daily life, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY - Repeating a call first made by St. Paul VI, Pope Francis urged a global move to divert money from national military spending and use it to "definitely defeat hunger."

VATICAN CITY - As the world's attention is focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and its dire economic consequences, the Vatican urged nations not to forget the people of Syria, who are still living in a situation of violence and extreme need.

VATICAN CITY - The purpose of crying out to the Lord in prayer is not to get used to suffering, but to remember that God, and not humankind, is the only source of salvation and consolation, Pope Francis said.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has asked Pope Francis to apologize for the church's role in the conquest of the Americas. It's the second time he has made such a request of the Pope in less than two years.

ASSISI, Italy - Thousands sang and applauded as Italian teen Carlo Acutis was beatified in a town dear to him and to many Christians around the world: Assisi.

It has been 794 years since St. Francis of Assisi left this Earth, but you can find his fingerprints all over the Pope’s latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti .

VATICAN CITY - Four years after the Pontifical Council for Culture instituted a Permanent Women's Consultation Group to bring women's experiences and voices to the council's deliberations, Pope Francis noted that they represent a "novelty" at the Holy See.

In an encyclical that might be characterized as ripped from the headlines, Pope Francis speaks some hard truths to Canadians, to Catholics and to the world.