violence

Anti-Indigenous racism in North America also plays a significant role in devaluing Indigenous women and girls and fueling horrific levels of violence against them.

The Vatican’s United Nations mission condemned in remarks to the U.N. Security Council what it said was a worldwide increase in violence against women, and a decline in women’s involvement in the decision-making process.

The call to make sacrifices for others out of love remains urgent as so many people continue to suffer from war, violence, exclusion and poverty, Pope Francis said.

A year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis asked, “Can the Lord forgive so many crimes and so much violence? He is the God of peace.”

In the spotlight: papal trip to Congo and South Sudan, feast of St. Blaise, Cardinal Pell funeral

In focus: prisoners and organ donation, bishops united against abortion, U.S.-born priest appointed to oversee Dicastery for Bishops

The pope met Feb. 2 with 65,000 screaming, singing, swaying young people in Kinshasa’s Martyrs’ Stadium, a soccer stadium named to honor four politicians hanged there in 1966 by the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

In a country where most people are Christian and all are suffering from decades of violence and atrocities, Pope Francis told the Congolese to lay down their weapons and their rancor.