While Mary was given a special grace, the pope said, the feast day should remind Catholics that the church professes faith in "the resurrection of the body" for all who are saved by Christ.

Gov. Pete Ricketts helped finance a ballot drive to reinstate capital punishment after lawmakers overrode his veto in 2015.

A former head of the E.P.A. warns that the pope’s message on the death penalty, like his message on the environment, may not make it to the pews.

It is true that “sometimes we are the ones who betray the Gospel,” the pope said.

The unborn and the condemned have the same right to life, and all citizens, especially Catholics, have a duty to defend that right.

Immorality destroys the Gospel; sin—yours and mine—is precisely what puts people in the field hospital to begin with.