Vatican City, Jul 2, 2021 / 07:40 am Pope Francis called Friday for local gatherings to be held across the globe at the same time as next year’s World Meeting of Families in Rome. “At past meetings, most families stayed at home,” the pope said in a video message July

by Hannah Brockhaus Vatican City, Apr 20, 2020 / 10:00 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis has decided to postpone by one year World Youth Day and the World Meeting of Families, according to the Vatican. The events were expected to take place during the summers of 2022 and 2021. World

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis planned two gatherings of the Synod of Bishops to focus on the family and urged participants to use the year between the assemblies as a time for “true spiritual discernment” with both study and prayer. In the months leading

By Catholic News Service In 1967, Aretha Franklin released her hit, “Respect.” Maybe the song isn’t an anthem for Respect Life month, but when she sang for Pope Francis at the Festival of Families in Philadelphia Sept. 26, that 1967 song was on people’s minds, if not on her lips.

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY  — The family is the answer to the two extremes facing the world — fragmentation and “homogenization,” in which everything is forced to be the same, Pope Francis said. The family based on marriage between a man and a woman is the

By Elizabeth Fisher Catholic News Service PHILADELPHIA  — Marita Thomas was among those in the crowd at the Festival of Families Sept. 26 who were moved to tears as they listened to families selected to come onstage to tell Pope Francis how they coped with hardship by clinging to God.

By Kate Turgeon Watson Catholic News Service RALEIGH, N.C. — The Walker family filed through the side entrance of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Raleigh. A bag on her shoulder and a 3-year-old on her hip, mom Noel Zemborain smiled. A pack at his waist, dad Catire Walker held the door

By Laura Ieraci Catholic News Service PHILADELPHIA — Irish pilgrims in Philadelphia shared their excitement after Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, announced the 2018 World Meeting of Families would be held in Dublin. Irish pilgrim Mary Fitzgibbon’s reaction was raw when she spoke with

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service PHILADELPHIA — Among the pilgrims gathered for Pope Francis’ Mass on Benjamin Franklin Parkway Sept. 27 was Nga Bich Tham, who was wearing a traditional hat of her native Vietnam. The hat bore the words, “I came here for Jesus and Pope Francis.” “I

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service PHILADELPHIA — Pope Francis speaks often about memory and motion, the importance of remembering where you came from and setting off without fear to share the Gospel. That’s what he did in the United States. He circled the Statue of Liberty in a helicopter