Pope Francis urges Europeans to reject ‘throwaway culture’

STRASBOURG, France - Pope Francis has urged European leaders to reject a “throwaway culture” that treats people like “cogs in a machine”  too easily discarded through abortion and euthanasia.

Church launches Year for Consecrated Life

VATICAN CITY - The first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 30, marking the start of the new liturgical year, will also inaugurate the Year for Consecrated Life.

Pope, creating six new saints, uses newly abbreviated formula

VATICAN CITY - Using a newly simplified rite, Pope Francis proclaimed six new saints and praised them for the love and self-giving with which they served God and built up his kingdom by serving the poor and needy.

Pope meets Curia to discuss reform; names new head of worship office

VATICAN CITY - The same day he spent three hours meeting the heads of Vatican offices to discuss the reform of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis named 69-year-old Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah to be the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

Create jobs, don't just expand welfare, handouts, Pope says

VATICAN CITY - The Catholic Church calls for the creation of job opportunities and the recognition of the dignity of the poor, not simply for more handouts or expanded government welfare programs, Pope Francis said.

Italy promises to return 23 million euros to Vatican bank

VATICAN CITY - In what the Vatican bank described as recognition that it has established serious measures to prevent money laundering, it announced the Italian government has promised to return 23 million euros (U.S. $29 million) that had been blocked for more than three years.

Pope condemns attack on Jerusalem synagogue, urges end to violence

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis condemned the "unacceptable episodes of violence" in Jerusalem, episodes that "do not spare even places of worship," after an attack in a synagogue left four worshippers, a policeman and the two attackers dead.

Sexual revolution is destroying families, Russell Moore tells Vatican conference

VATICAN CITY - Prominent U.S. evangelicals Russell Moore and Rick Warren blasted the sexual revolution at a Vatican conference Nov. 18 and said it is destroying the institution of marriage.

Catholic defense of family means aiding migrant families, bishop says

VATICAN CITY - Migrants are among the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world, and a church committed to defending strong families must be particularly engaged in assisting migrant couples and their children, a U.S. bishop told a Vatican conference.

Pope warns against the ‘false sense of compassion’ in euthanasia

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has warned doctors and ethicists on several hot-button social issues, attacking abortion, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia as “playing with life” and “a sin against God.”

Pope calls abortion, euthanasia, IVF sins 'against God the creator'

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis denounced a "false compassion" that would justify abortion, euthanasia, artificial reproduction technologies and medical research violating human dignity. And he urged medical doctors to "go against the current" and assert "conscientious objection" to such practices, which he called sins "against God the creator."