ROME – Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, celebrated Mass for Pope Francis’s health and recovery today, praying for the Pontiff’s swift return from his month-long hospitalisation.

Reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew, Cardinal Parolin also condemned what he said is a rhetoric of hatred among people that leads to violence, and called for a greater sense of fraternity and reconciliation.

It has been said many times, he said, “that to seek peace we must first of all disarm language, don’t use aggressive, offensive language in the face of others … it is there, the Lord reminds us, that the war begins: words of contempt and hatred toward others.”

An annual day dedicated in thanksgiving for abortion up to birth has met with severe criticism from an American archbishop.

Following a proclamation from Oregon Governor Tina Kotek that March 10 would henceforth be “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day”, Archbishop Alexander Sample of Oregon lamented the move as a moment “when you realise just how far culture can drift from reality”.

Pope Francis is today marking the 12th anniversary of his papal election from a hospital bed at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been since mid-February. The pontiff’s recovery from double pneumonia – complicated by chronic respiratory disease and the partial removal of one lung decades ago – is proceeding slowly and has seen a couple of setbacks already.

The fact remains, though, that many didn’t expect him to be here at all. The election of a 76-year-old cardinal from Buenos Aires – Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as he was then known to the world – was a big surprise, and only five other popes have reached the age of 88.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has commended Pope Francis on the 12th anniversary of his election as Pope and offered prayers for the Holy Father’s recovery on behalf of Catholics in the United States.

“On behalf of the people of the United States of America, and during this Jubilee Holy Year, I extend my best wishes to His Holiness Pope Francis on the twelfth anniversary of his election,” Rubio, a Catholic, said in a March 13 statement.

The US secretary of state also highlighted the shared commitment both the United States and the Vatican have in advancing global peace as well as freedom of religion, conscious and speech around the world.

Pope Francis today celebrated the 12th anniversary of his election to the papacy by sharing a cake with staff assisting him at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been admitted since mid-February for what has become a month-long hospital stay.

The Vatican said that in the afternoon, 13 March, “healthcare staff brought a cake with candles to the Pope’s room to celebrate the 12th anniversary of his election”.

President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has stated in his Senate confirmation hearing that he is “absolutely committed” to finding alternatives to vaccines developed using aborted foetal cell lines.

His comments came last week during his hearing with the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions when he was asked whether he would prohibit the use of aborted foetal tissue in NIH-funded research.

Cardinal Robert McElroy has officially become archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington. It means an outspoken liberal within the Church and a vocal critic of Donald Trump will now lead the diocese that houses the US seat of government that has taken a significant conservative turn since President Trump returned to power.

My husband has a coaster on his desk printed with the words, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”. It brings a wry smile every once in a while, largely because we know that trope to be far from true. As a wife and mother, I am happy to admit I need my husband a whole lot more than a finned creature needs a velocipede. Sadly, though, not all men know this to be true.

An old saying about the Vatican holds that “the pope is never sick until he’s dead”, and this position has held true in various cycles of papal health crises throughout recent history, until now, with Pope Francis’s current hospital stay.

Throughout Francis’s nearly month-long hospital stay, one of the most noteworthy elements of the ordeal has been the unprecedented level of detail provided in his daily medical bulletins.

With his medical status continuing to be stable, according to a Vatican statement today Pope Francis continued his various treatments and therapies and met with two top aides who informed him about various situations in the Church and in the world.

He continues to use non-invasive mechanical ventilation during the night and high-flow oxygen therapy through nasal cannulas during the day, to aid in breathing and to prevent further respiratory crises.

Francis also received a visit from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, and the department’s substitute for general affairs, Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, “who among other things updated him on some situations in the Church and in the world.”

There is a real need for more Catholic literature for young (and not so young) people. But the reality is that in comparison with the past, relatively few books aimed at Catholic teenage and young adult readers are being published. The present focus of the current young adult book scene is on worldly, secular and romantic fiction or magical and occult stories; there is very little in the way of wholesome modern literature for this age group.

There are some Catholic children’s books available, but most of these seem to focus on younger children. There are some outlets which reprint out-of-copyright children’s books, which are also available as e-books or PDFs online, but in terms of up-to-date works there is a definite scarcity. Sometimes it seems that the Catholic faith is not being passed on to young people, whose worldview is influenced more and more by modern secular media.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump issued a greeting to Catholics and other Christians for Ash Wednesday and the start of the Lenten period this year.

“This Ash Wednesday, we join in prayer with the tens of millions of American Catholics and other Christians beginning the holy season of Lent – a time of spiritual anticipation of the passion, death and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” the joint message issued on March 5 stated on the White House website.

The statement described how “during the Lenten season, Christians spend 40 days and 40 nights praying, fasting and giving alms to deepen our faith and strengthen our belief in the Gospel”.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump issued a greeting to Catholics and other Christians for Ash Wednesday and the start of the Lenten period this year.

“This Ash Wednesday, we join in prayer with the tens of millions of American Catholics and other Christians beginning the holy season of Lent – a time of spiritual anticipation of the passion, death and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” the joint message issued on March 5 stated on the White House website.

The statement described how “during the Lenten season, Christians spend 40 days and 40 nights praying, fasting and giving alms to deepen our faith and strengthen our belief in the Gospel”.

When US Vice President JD Vance stood up at the Munich security conference and told European elites that the internal threats to Western values alarmed him more than external menaces, he voiced concerns held by many citizens across European.

Yes, falling under the iron rule of China or Russia is a fearful prospect; but more urgent is the erosion of individual freedom right now at the hands of the very European governments supposedly responsible for protecting it.

It is all very well knowing what we are defending ourselves from, warned Vance, but do we know what we are defending ourselves for? The latter is well worth pondering this Shrove Tuesday and as we embark into Lent.

Vance’s point echoes the warning by both the Russian dissident Aleksandyr Solzhentizyn and Pope St John Paul II at the end of the Cold War. The West had won, the Soviet Union collapsed. In part, free market capitalism had proven a more effective means of generating wealth and lifting people out of poverty than a state-run economy. The human cry for freedom had triumphed.

The voice of Pope Francis has been heard for the first time since he was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital in an audio message thanking believers for their prayers for his recovery.

The Pope’s message was played aloud in St. Peter’s Square this evening just before 9 p.m., local time in Rome, March 6. It is the first time his voice has been heard publicly in three weeks. In his audio recording, the Pope, speaking in Spanish with a laboured and breathless voice, said:

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for my health from the Square, I accompany you from here.

“May God bless you and the Virgin protect you. Thank you,” the Pope said.

The Pew Research Center released a new survey on religion in the United States last week, the first such major study since 2014. While it revealed that the precipitous decline in the Catholic share of the US population experienced in the early 2000s through to the early 2010s has more or less levelled off, the overall picture still wasn’t good for the Catholic Church.

According to the Pew report, only 19 per cent of Americans self-identify as Catholic. That’s down from 24 percent in 2007. That 19 per cent includes anyone one who listed “Catholic” as their religion in the survey, meaning it counts not only people who go to Mass at least semi-regularly but also those who haven’t darkened the door of a church in years or even decades.

A US archbishop and leading Catholic voice on nuclear disarmament has said he shares the US president’s concerns over nuclear proliferation. His comments come as the third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons takes place at the United Nations headquarters in New York this week.

The nuclear states – countries with nuclear weapons – are headed by the United States and Russia, who each have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads. China is a distant third with just north of 400 nuclear warheads.

In the latest March edition of the Catholic Herald magazine, we are reminded by Dom Henry Wansbrough that, properly observed, the Lenten season is meant to be joyful.

“St Benedict’s Rule twice mentions the joy of the Holy Spirit, once by making an offering to God ‘with the joy of the Holy Spirit’ and once by waiting for Easter ‘in the joy of holy desire’,” he observes.

That is a salutary reminder of the nature of Lenten observances: they should be practical as well as uplifting.

The administration of US President Donald Trump recently said it was terminating US-funded projects worldwide that do not align with the administration’s America First policy.

It said it was eliminating more than 90 per cent of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall US assistance around the world.

“In the changing world order, Africa must wean itself from the disease of aid dependency,” says Father Stan Chu Ilo, a research professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago.

The Vatican issued a statement this morning stating that “the night passed quietly” for Pope Francis who “is still resting” in hospital.

Francis, 88, has been at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since Feb. 14, after he experienced a prolonged respiratory crisis. On 3 March, the Pope suffered two incidents of “acute” respiratory difficulty that required him to be put back on a ventilator, giving cause for alarm. By March 4, Pope Francis was reported to be stable but that he had to be on a non-invasive ventilator overnight.