Vatican

Catholic bishops and diocesan tribunals are making steady progress in implementing Pope Francis' reforms to make the annulment process quicker, but it is taking longer to achieve the pope's goal of making the process less expensive for couples.

Mara Grassi told Pope Francis, “We wish to create a bridge to the church so that the church too can change its way of looking at our children, no longer excluding them but fully welcoming them.”

“Fratelli tutti,” the title of Pope Francis’s new encyclical is to be understood as including both men and women, the Vatican stated today in a front-page editorial in L’Osservatore Romano, its daily newspaper, headlined “an encyclical for all brothers and sisters.”

Veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell joins host Colleen Dulle to unpack the protests Pope Francis has his eye on, from Greece to Belarus to Hong Kong and the United States.

Vatican officials have publicly defended the agreement with enthusiasm. Privately, they are more sober in their analysis.

Pope Francis called on protestors to express their demands “peacefully” and appealed to government leaders to meet their "just aspirations."