“It’s difficult to imagine it,” the pope said when asked how he imagines hell. “What I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I like to think hell is empty; I hope it is.”

“I believe that your trip will bring fruits of pacification and the fraternity of all Argentines, eager to overcome our divisions and conflicts,” the Argentinian president said in a letter sent to the pope.

Pope Francis declined to read his prepared remarks during an audience with Catholic communicators from France, saying he has bronchitis and “can’t speak well.”

Reaffirming their fidelity to the pope and the Gospel, Catholic bishops in Africa have released a common response to a recent Vatican declaration, saying they “generally prefer” not to offer blessings to same-sex couples.

A Wisconsin judge suspended charges against defrocked Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused of sexually assaulting a boy in the 1970s, ruling he is incompetent for trial because of dementia.

In a lengthy Jan. 10 post on his website, Legionary of Christ Father Matthew Schneider took credit for alerting Loyola Press, and described Father Jim Sichko as a “habitual plagiarist.”