Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY -- Saints are people who recognized their need for God's help, who took risks to discover God's will and to help others and who nurtured a habit of thanksgiving, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican hung banners of the Catholic Church's newly canonized saints four days before the Mass that would officially recognize that they are in heaven with God.

VATICAN CITY -- Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, said the people who portray him as an opponent of Pope Francis are being used by the devil to help divide the church.

VATICAN CITY -- Too many Christians today are "as long as" Christians, obeying God "as long as" God and the church meet their conditions and criteria for what is acceptable, just and righteous, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- While the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is focused on one small, but important geographical area, the issues involved impact the universal Catholic Church, said Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops.

ROME -- Cardinal-designate Michael Czerny, a Canadian Jesuit priest who is one of Pope Francis’ point men responsible for the pastoral care and political advocacy for migrants and refugees, calls becoming a cardinal “an intensification” of his ministry.

ROME -- The provisional agreement signed in 2018 by the Holy See and the Chinese government has "opened the way to the two most important things: pastoral activity and dialogue," said Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli.

ROME -- While his responsibilities are greater and his prayer list longer, Pope Francis said he's basically the same person he was before he was elected in 2013, so he still goes to confession every two weeks.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has named Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston and the other members of his international Council of Cardinals to be voting members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.

VATICAN CITY -- The bishops of Germany, reacting to an independent study of the extent of clerical sexual abuse in their country and its possible causes, chose to initiate a "synodal" process that was not a synod or a plenary council.