Vatican City, Feb 13, 2016 / 07:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Already in his brief, three-year pontificate Pope Francis has a track record of papal firsts, but in March he will add yet another to his list: authoring a children's book.

“This book could be useful to the entire family. The questions are deep, fresh, sharp – involving desires of understanding, but also tough feelings and experiences to be faced and lived,” Fr. Antonio Spadaro SJ told CNA Feb. 9.

Vatican City, Feb 11, 2016 / 02:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In his new book on Benedict XVI, Vatican journalist Marco Mancini argues that while the retired pontiff became known for his shocking resignation three years ago, his real legacy began far earlier.

“Unfortunately, we remember Benedict for the great gesture of the renunciation, but if we go on remembering Benedict only for that act, it would not be doing a service to truth of the facts,” Mancini told CNA.

Vatican City, Feb 11, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The first, historic meeting between a Pope and a Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church does not come from nowhere. Both the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate and the Holy See have been working on such an event for decades.

In at least three cases under recent Popes, such a meeting seemed about to take place. Once under St. John Paul II and twice under Benedict XVI. But then nothing happened.

Vatican City, Feb 10, 2016 / 06:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For Pope Francis, mercy isn’t just spiritual, but is something that ought to be expressed in concrete acts, such as service and sharing one’s goods with the poor, which was a key tradition during jubilee years throughout scripture.

Referring to the current Holy Year of Mercy, the Pope explained that the Jubilee is time “for conversion, so that our heart can become bigger, more generous, more like a child of God, with more love.”