Like St. John Paul II, Pope Francis knows the “cross of Christ is never abandoned” and that everything is in God’s hands, said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was the late pope’s personal secretary for 39 years.

The infinite and inalienable dignity inherent in every human being has practical consequences which include protecting everyone’s right to life from conception to a natural end and opposing the “technocratic” ideology of gender, said the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office.

In what is billed as a first in history, India’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal seeking to end discrimination against socially poor Dalit Catholics in a parish in southern India.

Archbishop William E. Lori took the occasion of Ash Wednesday, March 5, to release an update to his original 2015 pastoral letter, “A Light Brightly Visible,” to focus on the pastoral implications of implementing the archdiocese’s Seek the City to Come planning that was announced a year ago.

A funeral Mass was offered Feb. 28 for Franciscan Sister Evelyn Grudza (formerly Sister Philip Marie), a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia for 70 years. Sister Evelyn, who ministered in the Archdiocese of Baltimore for 64 years, died at Assisi House in Aston, Pa., Feb. 25 at 92.