NATION/WORLD

HAVANA (CNS) — At long last, Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow embraced, kissing each other three times. “Finally,” the pope told the patriarch Feb. 12 as they met in a lounge at Havana’s José Martí International Airport. “We are brothers,” he told the patriarch.

Making his 12th trip abroad didn't prepare Pope Francis for requests and gifts while en route to Mexico via Cuba Feb. 12

The reassuring strength of God's love — not the "bludgeon of judgment" — will bring the "lost sheep" back to the fold, Pope Francis told his newly appointed "missionaries of mercy."

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CNS) — Saying the future of the pro-life movement is “cultural not political,” Archbishop José H. Gómez of Los Angeles called upon Catholic Latinos to work toward a “new Christian humanism, a new vision of society and human destiny that is rooted in the Gospel.”

The students are all sport and recreation management majors at Niagara University's College of Hospitality and Tourism Management, a campus founded in the Vincentian tradition.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After almost three decades of tense Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations, Pope Francis will meet Patriarch Kirill of Moscow Feb. 12 in Cuba on the pope’s way to Mexico. It will be the first-ever meeting of a pope and Moscow patriarch, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Feb. 5.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — An encounter with Jesus changes people’s lives, and that should be especially noticeable in those who are consecrated completely to serving God, the Church and others, Pope Francis said.

Luke Kuechly, a product of a Catholic boys school and a graduate of Boston College, is known as a fierce competitor who does not give up plus a natural and humble leader, the person everyone calls "the nicest guy on the team."

In the days before Lent, there's nothing more traditional at Kiedrowski's Simply Delicious Bakery than delectable paczki -- pronounced poonch-key in Polish -- deep-fried sugary doughnuts that taste like what Mom and Grandma used to make.

An estimated 30,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square for the first of a series of jubilee audiences to be held one Saturday each month throughout the Holy Year of Mercy.