IMAGE: CNS/Reuters By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Leaked and published information about Vatican financial problems and irregularities were already known and are the reason “measures have already been taken that have begun to bear fruit,” Pope Francis said. At his first public appearance since the release Nov. 5 …

IMAGE: CNS/Reuters By Mike O’Maera NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) — Kenyans are working on final preparations for Pope Francis’ Nov. 25-27 visit, his first stop on a three-nation visit to the continent. Construction of the stage for the papal Mass is almost complete. For his Nov. 26 open-air Mass at the …

IMAGE: CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano, handout By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians are called to go out and serve others, not live a sheltered, comfortable life just serving themselves, Pope Francis said in a homily. “When the church is lukewarm, closed up inside itself, even many times a wheeler-dealer,” …

By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Inundated with requests from major media outlets around the world, Pope Francis chose to sit down for an interview with a homeless man who makes his living selling newspapers in Netherlands. The pope met with 51-year-old Marc, who was accompanied by Frank …

IMAGE: CNS/Bob Roller By Gus Hardy SANTA CLARA, Calif. (CNS) — Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, the lead consultant on Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, issued a call to action in the heart of the world’s technology and communications industries — Silicon Valley. The president of the Pontifical Council for …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn By Nancy Frazier O’Brien BALTIMORE (CNS) — A new 120-page document marks the progress in Catholic-Lutheran relations over the past 50 years and maps the remaining steps needed to achieve full unity. The “Declaration on the Way” was prepared by a joint task force of the …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A group of young adults from North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia received scrolls commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World; dangling from the ribbon around each …

By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The persecution and martyrdom of Christians around the world have become “a shared experience” and a common journey that unites all who give witness to Christ, Pope Francis said. The pope sent a message addressed to Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the …

By Jerry Donohue GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio (CNS) — Arminda “Armi” Crawford is the first woman to lead a national veterans organization as national commander of the Catholic War Veterans. One of only a dozen or so female veterans in the 7,520-member organization, Crawford ran unopposed when she was elected at …

IMAGE: CNS By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Financial wrongdoing at the Vatican, leaked documents and arrests by the Vatican police may make it seem like 2012 all over again, but the situation — while serious — is not the breach of papal privacy that the earlier “VatiLeaks” scandal …