Cindy Wooden

On a bright spring morning, Pope Francis prayed that Christians would experience the joy of Easter and allow Christ's resurrection to be "the light that illumines the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped."

In an apparent breach of the Vatican's agreement with China on the appointment of bishops, the bishop of Haimen was installed as the bishop of Shanghai April 4.

Saying he wanted to protect the rights of members of religious orders facing expulsion, Pope Francis made small changes to canon law, giving them more time to appeal their dismissals.

The Catholic Church formally "repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political 'doctrine of discovery,'" a Vatican statement said.

After having difficulty breathing, Pope Francis went to Rome's Gemelli hospital March 29 where he was diagnosed with a respiratory infection that will be treated in the hospital for several days, the Vatican press office said.

Pope Francis has updated the procedures for investigating allegations of sexual abuse or the cover up of abuse, specifying that the leaders of Vatican-recognized international Catholic lay associations and movements have the same responsibilities over their members that a bishop has over the priests of his diocese.

The mission to spread the Gospel message of God's love and of salvation in Christ is entrusted to all the baptized who are called to work together and never set out alone, Pope Francis said.

Diocesan bishops must have Vatican authorization to allow the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Mass in a parish church, to establish a new "personal parish" for devotees of the old Mass or to allow its celebration by a priest ordained after July 2021 when Pope Francis issued rules restricting the celebration, he said.

At the end of six days in African countries bloodied by war and conflict, Pope Francis said that "the biggest plague" afflicting the world today is the weapons trade.

Ladislas set a machete under the crucifix. Bijoux laid a wicker mat there. And Emelda dropped military fatigues.