Pope Francis “is a man who has a great empathy. He’s a man who understands that part of his Christianity is to reach out and forgive,” U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters in Rome Oct. 31.

“It’s clear that the pope does not agree with the president about abortion. He’s made that exceptionally clear.”

In a new Netflix show, Pope Francis, Jane Goodall and Martin Scorsese answer the question, “What is love?”

Pope Francis prayed for the tens of thousands of victims of clerical sexual abuse in France and urged the Catholic Church in the country to “undertake a path of redemption.”

Three members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard have hung up their halberds rather than be vaccinated against COVID-19, and three others were temporarily suspended in early October as they were completing the vaccination cycle, the spokesman for the guards told a Swiss newspaper.

In the preface to a new book, Pope Francis writes how Vatican II has been central to his personal spirituality, and discusses how the church must continue to implement its insights.

In many countries, hundreds or thousands of cases of clerical sexual abuse have made the need for conversion in the church painfully obvious.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne will take a “spiritual sabbatical” after a Vatican investigation found he did nothing illegal in his handling of clerical sex abuse allegations, but he did contribute to a “crisis of trust” in his archdiocese.

The anti-Covid ordinance was released by the Vatican press office Sept. 20.

Archbishop Di Noia: Pope Francis “fearlessly hits the nail on the head: the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) movement has hijacked the initiatives of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI to its own ends.”