International

Pope Francis began his first full day in Myanmar on Tuesday with an unscheduled encounter at the Archbishop’s House, meeting with a group of 17 leaders from the different religious traditions present in the country.
 

In the great work of national reconciliation and integration, Myanmar’s religious communities have a privileged role to play. Religious differences need not be a source of division and distrust, but rather a force for unity, forgiveness, tolerance and wise nationbuilding.

Pope Francis met with 17 leaders of Myanmar’s religious communities Tuesday morning, exhorting them that peace consists in unity in diversity, not in uniformity. The Pope met leaders of Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Catholic and other Christian communities at the Archbishop’s House in Yangon,...

“Dialogue is going out of ourselves, with a word, to hear the word of the other. The two words meet, two thoughts meet. It is the first step of a journey...

Hassan said the Pope met the families at the airport and asked about their stories and situations: “we said to them how much we appreciate the efforts he is making for all refugees...

The President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, met on Monday with the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.

Pope Francis met on Monday with the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin Archange Touadéra, recalling the warm welcome he received during his pastoral journey to that country last November.

Pope Francis took three Syrian families and their six children back with him on the plane to Italy when he left the Greek island of Lesbos after his 6-hour visit there.

Pope Francis, along with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, released a joint declaration during their visit to the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday.

Pope Francis has arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos to visit and show solidarity with the many refugees there. The Pope touched down just after 9am Rome time after a flight from the city's Fiumicino airport.

Pope Francis’s journey Saturday 16 April to the Greek island of Lesbos is a show of solidarity for migrants “who are people; they have a history, they have dreams, they have names.” That’s according to Fr. Leon Kiskinis, the only Catholic parish priest on the island.  He told Vatican Radio's Francesca Sabatinelli that migrants need “to be treated with dignity, as human beings.”

President Morales came to Rome to attend a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences marking the 25th anniversary of Pope St. John Paul II’s social encyclical "Centesimus Annus."

Pope Francis will spend six hours on the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday, April 16, where – together with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Ieronymus II – he will spend time with refugees.

 I ask you, please, to accompany me with prayers, invoking the light and strength of the Holy Spirit and the motherly intercession of the Virgin Mary.

Pope Francis called for “the active witness of non-violence” to work “as a ‘weapon’ to achieve peace” in his message to a conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace as well as by Pax Christi International on Monday afternoon, 11 April.

The Vatican Press Office confirmed next week’s papal visit which aims to show support and solidarity for refugees on the front line of Europe’s migrant crisis.

Pope Francis received the Republic of Croatia’s head of government, Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković, on Thursday morning at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Pope Francis said on Thursday that Catholics and Methodists have much to learn from one another as they work together in loving service to the world.

On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis will spend time in Castelnuovo di Porto with young refugees who are hosted by the Reception Centre for Asylum Seekers, known as the Centro di Accoglienza per Richiedenti Asilo, or CARA.