At his May 1 general audience, held in Paul VI Audience Hall, Pope Francis reflected on the theological virtue of faith, in the latest talk in a series of Wednesday general audiences devoted to the virtues and vices.

Andriy Yermak thanked Cardinal Zuppi for his efforts, and had agreed with the cardinal that efforts to release prisoners should be ramped up as the Orthodox churches prepare to celebrate Easter.

Yermak’s announcement came just after Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, had disclosed that there was “great movement” in negotiations for prisoner releases.

At the Cairo conference, the Holy See worked with many Muslim nations to head off attempts to declare an international right to abortion.

The push for abortion “is not just a harmful misunderstanding” of the Cairo conference’s program of action, “but of development in a wider sense,” Archbishop Caccia said in an April 29 statement. “It also leads to the erosion of respect for the sanctity of human life and the inalienable dignity of the human person.”

After urging prayers for peace, particularly in Gaza and Ukraine, the Pope said that “today the investments that yield the most income are the factories of weapons.” Pope Francis has made the same claim in the past, citing an economist whose name he did not mention as the source of his analysis.

The president “praised Pope Francis’ role as one of the world’s great leaders to stand up against war and inequality,” according to the president’s office, as he and Cardinal Parolin discussed “the need to overcome inequalities, the importance of religious freedom, and the Brazilian government’s efforts on behalf of indigenous peoples.”

Cardinal Parolin also spoke about the importance of prayer for peace as he visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida.

Brazil has more Catholics than any other nation. Cardinal Parolin’s visit had added significance because he led a two-day retreat for the nation’s bishops, allowing the cardinals there to become better acquainted with the papabile Secretary of State.

“I don’t want my daughter to be Catholic, not if this is the Roman Catholic Church that is coming.” said one woman in a Wisconsin parish, after “contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.” (The AP reporter was presumably referring to Gregorian chant, which the Second Vatican Council decreed “should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”)

The Pope told the members of the “Drachma Parents,” an organization in Malta, that he respected their “very beautiful and good” work of welcoming homosexuals into the Church.

In the previous generations?the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the Millennials?men have been more likely than women to disaffiliate.

“There is a cultural misalignment between more traditional churches and places of worship and young women who have grown increasingly liberal,” said Daniel Cox and Kelsey Eyre Hammond of the Survey Center on American Life. “Since 2015, the number of young women who identify as liberal has rapidly increased ... This has also coincided with the rise in LGBTQ identity among young women?nearly three in ten women under the age of 30 now identify as something other than straight.”

Carmel Richardson of The American Conservative commented, “What might it mean for young women to outnumber young men at elite universities, while young men outnumber young women at church? Certainly, these two pieces?women leaving church and men leaving college?say something about the relative status of men and women today, and perhaps also about the two sexes’ penchant for prestige ... Young women leaving church might be doing so due to a staunch commitment to egalitarianism, but more likely they are leaving because of a more general sense that church is not cool.”

St. Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan province there in 1217, and the Holy Land’s principal shrines are entrusted to the care of the Franciscan friars.

“I found the brothers better than I thought: hurt by what is happening, but also determined to stay here,” said Father Fusarelli. “So the first word is please, brothers, stay here.”

“Stay not locked in, but stay with the people, next to the people, as you can,” he continued. “Remain as intercessors, from the Latin intercedere, to walk between God and people, in the midst of the battlefield. We are in a battlefield.”

The Republican lawmaker said that IVF clinics in the US operate without significant oversight, whereas in European countries laws bar the clinics from “practicing eugenics or carelessly destroying human life.” He said that the US has become “the Wild West of assisted reproductive technology.”

Father Paul Tatu Mothobi was a former public-relations official for the South African bishops’ conference. His body was found in his car on a roadside, riddled with gunshot wounds.

Noting the shooting death of another priest, Father William Banda, in March, the South African bishops’ conference said that the latest killing “is not an isolated incident but rather a distressing example of the deteriorating state of security and morality in South Africa.”

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales had pushed for the elimination of the rule, which was introduced in 2010, saying that it conflicted with religious freedom. Bishop Marcus Stock, who chairs the Catholic Education Service, welcomed the change, saying that it would allow Catholic schools to provide for more children with special needs.

“The prosecutor’s argument was that sales of Bibles by an illegal house church not affiliated with the government-controlled Three-Self Church is a crime, even if the Bibles are in themselves legal,” according to Bitter Winter, an online magazine that covers religious liberty in China.

The trial took place in Hohhot, a city of 3.5 million that is the capital of Inner Mongolia (map), a Chinese region that is distinct from Mongolia, the independent nation.

“They remained at the mercy of the Atlantic Ocean for two days, their hands desperately clinging to the wreck of their boat, their mouths parched with thirst, their eyes wide with fear,” the unsigned article began. “Two days, 48 hours, 3,000 minutes of suffering for nine migrants, the only survivors of the shipwreck of their boat which occurred yesterday off the coast of the Canary Islands.”

A spokesman for the Hong Kong government reacted angrily to the proposal, saying that the lawmakers were “maliciously interfering” in Hong Kong’s internal affairs.