Carol Glatz - Catholic News Service

Building peace, he said, is not accomplished by words alone, but through the grace of God.

The Vatican announced details about the pope’s Feb. 12-17 trip to Mexico, during which he will stop in six cities, including two in the state of Chiapas and—across from El Paso, Texas—Ciudad Juarez, which just five years ago was considered the “murder capital of the world” as drug cartels disputed a trafficking corridor.

Pope Francis is inviting people to strike out on a yearlong spiritual journey to recognize a loving God who’s already knocking on their door. He says he wants the Year of Mercy to usher in a “revolution of tenderness.”

Pope Francis has said “it would be tragic” if special interests “manipulated information” and won out over the common good, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said Nov. 30.

Meeting workers and addressing a major gathering of the Catholic Church in Italy, Pope Francis demanded an end to economic exploitation, to clerics “obsessed” with power, to apathy among youth and to a cold, fearful church that forgets Christ is always by its side.

After checking with the pope himself and other sources, Father Lombardi told reporters “the pope enjoys good health” and that the unsubstantiated news report was “a serious act of irresponsibility, absolutely unjustifiable and unspeakable.”

All of Christ’s disciples, especially its pastors, are called to model themselves after Jesus and “suppress our instinctive desire to exercise power over others, and instead exercise the virtue of humility,” Pope Francis said.

Discussing a number of proposals he offered the synod fathers to think about, Canadian Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher said, “I think we should really start looking seriously at the possibility of ordaining women deacons because the diaconate in the church’s tradition has been defined as not being ordered toward priesthood but toward ministry.”