In a message to Rome's government officials, Pope Francis expressed the importance of the city staying close to its nature of welcoming hospitality as it prepares to enter the Holy Year in 2025.

Pope Francis announced that he is preparing a document on the Sacred Heart of Jesus to be released in September.

Pope Francis formally recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old Italian teenager whose birth in 1991 will make him the first “millennial” to become a saint.

“Human life is not a problem, it is a gift,” said Pope Francis at a meeting on Italy's longtime decline in births and population growth on May 10. “The problem is not how many of us there are in the world, but what kind of world we are building.”

During his visit to Venice, Pope Francis encouraged young people to embrace their worth, urging care for one another's vulnerabilities and emphasizing the importance of remaining connected to God to bear fruits of justice, peace, and solidarity.

Pope Francis: “Let us respect women. Let us respect their dignity, their basic rights. And if we don’t, our society will not progress.”

Those chosen to lead the Way of the Cross included minors living in foster homes, people with disabilities, migrants, catechists, priests and cloistered nuns.

"The concern of the risen Jesus is not to confuse his enemies, but to go and reassure his dismayed disciples," he said.

The gifts of men and women are “fruitful” together, and to erase the difference between men and women “is to erase humanity,” Pope Francis said.

“I believe that your trip will bring fruits of pacification and the fraternity of all Argentines, eager to overcome our divisions and conflicts,” the Argentinian president said in a letter sent to the pope.