Walter Reed National Military Medical Center abruptly ended a long-standing contract with a community of Franciscan priests before Holy Week began, a move Archbishop Timothy Broglio called "incomprehensible."

"As believers, it is our duty to show what there is behind or underneath" proclamations of relativism and nihilism, that is, to show the truth and new life brought by Christ's resurrection, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa said in his homily on April 7 in St. Peter's Basilica.

Instead of presiding over the torch-led procession at the Colosseum, Francis will watch from the hotel where he lives in the Vatican.

In a Holy Thursday ritual symbolizing humility, Pope Francis washed and dried the feet of a dozen residents of a Rome juvenile prison, assuring them of their dignity and telling them “any of us” can fall into sin.

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.