Pope Francis is expected to encourage solidarity in the face of the ever greater humanitarian crisis arising from the war in Ukraine and to appeal for an end to the war.

For the first time in the history of the synod, Pope Francis has given women the right to vote and has also made a radical change to the membership of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality.

Pope Francis wants to visit Argentina, his homeland, in 2024 and has told Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the private secretary of the late Pope Benedict XVI, that he has to leave his Vatican apartment in the coming months.

In a Sunday audience with pilgrims, Pope Francis denounced the “offensive and baseless allegations” made against St. John Paul II by Pietro Orlandi, the brother of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-old “Vatican girl” who disappeared on June 22, 1983.

On Easter Monday, Pope Francis marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which, he said, “put an end to the violence that had troubled Northern Ireland for decades.”

He asked Christ to help the international community “to make haste to surmount our conflicts and divisions, to open our hearts to those in greatest need” and “to pursue paths of peace and fraternity.”