Building harmony is not only a way of improving the church or being polite, Pope Francis told them, but “an intrinsic demand of the life of the Spirit.”

A state report released Wednesday revealed that more than 150 priests and others sexually abused more than 600 children over the past 80 years in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In an apparent breach of the Vatican’s agreement with China on the appointment of bishops, the bishop of Haimen was installed as the bishop of Shanghai April 4.

“If those full seminaries had forged holy pastors, and the traditional formation imparted to them (were) solid and true, we wouldn’t have to mourn so many scandals today,” Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, said.

Becquart has been traveling the globe in recent weeks as an ambassador for the Synod on Synodality, planned for October in Rome.

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley expressed his surprise, disappointment and disagreement with statements challenging the commission’s effectiveness made by Father Hans Zollner.