Vatican City, Mar 19, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis on Friday encouraged Catholics to support and defend families by making an effort to be close to them in the struggles and joys of their daily lives.

Vatican City, Mar 19, 2021 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has blessed a statue of Blessed Carlo Acutis which will be sent to an orphanage in Cairo, Egypt.

The pope received the family of Carlo Acutis in a private audience at the Apostolic Palace on March 18 after his general audience. Acutis’ parents, Andrea and Antonia, were present for the blessing of the statue of their recently beatified son, as were Carlo’s younger twin siblings, Francesca and Michele.

Vatican City, Mar 18, 2021 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- The sainthood cause of a Swiss priest whose “supernatural conceptions” made an impression on St. Maximilian Kolbe has advanced, along with those of six other Servants of God.

Franciscan Conventual Friar Léon Veuthey was a professor of ascetical and mystical theology in Rome when he first met St. Maximilian Kolbe in 1933 -- after which Kolbe described Veuthey in his private journal as “a supernatural man,” according to the Swiss priest’s biographer.

Vatican City, Mar 18, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The alleged victim in an ongoing trial for sexual abuse in a Vatican youth seminary testified in court Wednesday that he was sexually assaulted over a six-year period by a slightly older student.

The alleged victim, 28-year-old L.G., was questioned for almost three hours March 17 about accusations that he was sexually abused by the defendant Fr. Gabriele Martinelli while they were students at the Pius X pre-seminary.