Pope Francis said he wanted to respond to a "storm of chattering" that had developed around his expansion of synod membership.

The Catholic Church cannot be credible in its mission of proclaiming Christ unless it acknowledges its mistakes and bends down “to heal the wounds we have caused by our sins,” Pope Francis said.

Some members of the Synod of Bishops may need to let go of old ways of doing things and others may need to let go of a desire to make everything new, Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe said at the pre-synod retreat.

Pope Francis, who has called for the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, the former leader of Myanmar and Nobel Peace Prize winner, told Jesuits in Asia that he even had offered to give her refuge at the Vatican.

To fully experience love and hope, young people must approach the journey of life as pilgrims and not just sightseers seeking the perfect selfie, Pope Francis said.

Not long after Pope Francis left Indonesia, authorities there announced they had arrested seven people for making online “terror threats” against the pope.

During the Aug. 25 recitation of the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis expressed his concern over a recent Ukrainian law that proscribed the Russian Orthodox Church.

Celebrating Mass for the feast of Our Lady of the Snows at Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major, Pope Francis urged Catholics to remember the unexpected beauty of God's grace.

Every Christian, but especially seminarians, should set aside their screens regularly and spend time with a book of literature or poetry, Pope Francis said.

Lorenzo Michele Noè Caruso wrote to Pope Francis after seeing reports that the pope had used a homophobic slur when telling members of the Italian bishops’ conference to exercise caution in admitting gay men to seminaries.