Nearly 2,300 members of the Knights of Columbus, spouses and family members gathered together from all parts of the globe Aug. 1-3 in Orlando under the theme “First in faith and charity.”

After a five-day trip to Portugal, which recently came to terms with its own clerical sex abuse crisis, Pope Francis said the Catholic Church must abandon its practice of covering up abuse and instead be “very open” about how it is confronting the crime.

To end “Catholic Woodstock” — as World Youth Day has been called by the Portuguese press — Pope Francis told 1.5 million weary-eyed and sleep-deprived young people in Lisbon not to let their “great dreams” of changing the world be “stopped by fear.”

On the Feast of Transfiguration, I’ve been reflecting on the transfiguration moments in my own life, when I look at our children and see God at work within them.

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ international policy committee called on Catholics and all people of goodwill to pray that the leaders of the United States and other nations around the globe “who govern the control” of nuclear weapons “will earnestly seek to make critically needed progress on arms control.”