VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis led prayers for the people of Albania after the country was struck by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake.

TOKYO -- Beauty, creation and each human life are gifts of God to be treasured and shared, not enslaved to current societal ideas of what is valuable, perfect or productive, Pope Francis said at a Mass in the famous Tokyo Dome.

NAGASAKI, Japan -- While the world knows Nagasaki as the site of a U.S. atomic bomb blast, for the Catholic Church it is also the site of one of the fiercest campaigns of anti-Christian persecution.

BANGKOK -- Missionaries are not mercenaries, but beggars who recognize that some brothers and sisters are missing from the community and long to hear the good news of salvation, Pope Francis told the Catholics of Thailand.

VATICAN CITY -- A commitment to defending and protecting human life requires a commitment to ending wars and to promoting nuclear disarmament, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis warned that violence against Jewish people, which reached a state of horror during World War II, is on the rise again.

ROME -- No one is so far from God that Christ cannot bring them back, Pope Francis told members of the Diocese of Rome's new pastoral teams responsible for outreach.

VATICAN CITY -- Christians who preach the Gospel must see people who do not know Christ as children of God and not as nonbelievers worthy of hostility and contempt, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- In life, Christians face the choice of either being open to encountering God's generosity or closed in on their own interests, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- Jesus invites everyone to always go to him, which, Pope Francis said, also means no longer making life revolve around oneself.