NATION/WORLD

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading safeguarding expert, resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors because of his concerns over how the advisory body had been working over the past years.

Like St. Paul, Christians must not only know Jesus with their heads but invite him into their hearts through a personal encounter with Christ, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis asked tech leaders to measure the value of their innovations not in processing power or profit potential, but in their capacity to promote human dignity.

Jesus can offer everyone hope and new life, Pope Francis said.

Gossip is the enemy of a parish's sense of community and acceptance, Pope Francis said.

The desecrated face of a statue of the crucified Christ in a Jerusalem church should move Catholics around the world "to recognize the pain of so many of our brothers and sisters" in the Holy Land, who have experienced the tragedy of violence and natural disasters, said a top Vatican official.

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.

Silence can be compassionate and, sometimes, anger can be prayer, Pope Francis told families who lost loved ones in two coal mine disasters in Poland a year ago.

Clericalization led to the separation of the clergy from the faithful in the church's liturgy celebrated before the Second Vatican Council, said Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household.

In a world where "there is no shortage of hotbeds of hatred and revenge," Pope Francis told priests and seminarians that "we confessors must multiply the 'hotbeds of mercy,'" by making it easy for people to access the sacrament of reconciliation.