Carl Bohman trains young people in his rural southeastern Indiana parish how to assist at Mass as altar servers, much like adult volunteers do in parishes across the Indianapolis Archdiocese.

The world’s cultures, traditions, spiritualities and languages must be acknowledged, respected and protected, especially those of Indigenous peoples, Pope Francis said.

Arizona’s governor recently rejected legislation that would have made crossing the state’s international border a state crime separate from a federal one in a move praised by the state’s Catholic conference, as other controversial measures work their way through the state’s Legislature.

Pope Francis has decided that some of the most controversial issues raised at the first assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality will be examined by study groups that will work beyond the synod’s final assembly in October.

Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood cause of U.S. Sister Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he recognized the martyrdom of a German priest executed by the Nazis and a German nun and her 14 companions who were raped and murdered by Russian soldiers during World War II.