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A number of Catholic bishops around the world, including in Africa and Poland, say they will not implement the new Vatican policy allowing blessings for same-sex couples announced by Pope Francis.
2023-12-22

Pope Francis arrives in Mongolia, marking the first papal visit to the country, which has a small Catholic population.
2023-09-1

Kidnapped Auxiliary Bishop Moses Chikwe, of the Owerri Archdiocese in Nigeria, is freed by his captors. Kidnapped last Sunday, police allege that no ransom is paid. International condemnation includes Pope Francis, during his new year message calling for Bishop Chikwe's release. While in Imo state, a Catholic women's organization, stage a peaceful protest at the Imo state government house, calling on Governor Hope Uzodinma, to quicken action for the release of the Auxiliary Bishop.
2021-01-4

Pope Francis prays for victims of the earthquake in Albania and sends “heartfelt condolences” to Albanian President Ilir Meta. The quake's epicenter is less than 20 miles from Tirana, the country’s capital city, which has a population of 900,000. Additional earthquakes occurred in southern Bosnia and the Greek island of Crete.
2019-11-26

Pope Francis criticizes naming the U.S. military's biggest non-nuclear explosive as the Mother of All Bombs, saying that the word "mother" should not be used in reference to a deadly weapon.
2017-05-6

Pope Francis pleads for peace in a Christmas Mass in the Vatican.
2016-12-25

Pope Francis encourages bishops from around the world to sign an appeal to world leaders, meeting in Paris next month, for crucial climate change talks. In a major teaching document in June, the encyclical Laudato Si' (Latin: Praised be), Francis denounced what he called the “structurally perverse” fossil fuel-based world economy that exploits the poor and destroys the habitability of the Earth for humans.
2015-10-19

Pope Francis presides at the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2013 at Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach for a crowd estimated at 3-million.
2013-07-28

Pope Francis names a new Pontifical Commission to investigate current accounting practices among all Vatican offices and bodies and to help devise new strategies for greater fiscal responsibility and fiscal transparency.
2013-07-19

Pope Francis, on June 3, meets with Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni of Cilicia, the leader of the Armenian Catholic Church. The Armenian Patriarch was selected by the Armenian Synod in 1999, leads about 350,000 Armenian Catholics worldwide.
2013-06-4