October 31, 2023

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - At the Vatican, Pope Francis will mark the first days of November, a holy and significant season, with prayer and two liturgies. On the solemnity of All Saints on November 1, Pope Francis will give a short address and lead the Angelus, a traditional Marian prayer, from a window overlooking Saint Peter’s Square at noon Rome time. Since All Saints’ Day falls on a Wednesday this year, Francis will not hold his usual weekly general audience. For All Souls’ Day on November 2, he will continue his recent custom of holding a Mass at a cemetery to pray for the dead. The following morning, on November 3, Pope Francis will preside over a Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica for the repose of the soul of Pope Benedict XVI and the bishops and cardinals who have died in the previous year. It is the pope’s practice to offer this Mass sometime during the first week of November. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255871/here-is-what-pope-francis-is-doing-for-the-week-of-all-saints-and-all-souls-days An assault at a San Francisco Catholic church on Sunday led to a police pursuit that reportedly included the possible use of a pipe bomb. It happened at Saints Peter and Paul Church, run by the Salesians of Don Bosco of the Western United States. Archdiocesan spokesman Peter Marlow told CNA on Monday that the incident began after an individual received Communion but did not consume the host, and then punched a person who tried to stop him and fled. It is unclear what happened to the Host. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255869/assault-at-san-francisco-catholic-church-leads-to-police-pursuit-reported-pipe-bomb For the first time since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, the Catholic Church of the Holy Land gathered around its patriarch on the feast day of Our Lady, Queen of Palestine