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Pope Francis signed a decree clearing the way for the canonization of Canada-born Blessed Marie-Léonie Paradis, founder of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family.

The Vatican's doctrine chief said the sometimes-graphic book on sexuality and spirituality that he published 25 years ago is "a book of my youth that I certainly would not write now."

The Catholic Church should revise its celibacy requirement for Latin-rite priests, a senior official in the Vatican's doctrinal office said.

On New Year's Eve, believers and non-believers alike give thanks for all they have received in the last 12 months and express their hopes for the coming year, but Christians are called to cultivate their gratitude and hope following the example of Mary, Pope Francis said.

As an expression of ongoing affection and gratitude for the late Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis led tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square in a round of applause for his predecessor on the first anniversary of his death.

The Vatican publishing house announced it will release a book of some 130 homilies given by the late Pope Benedict XVI at private Sunday Masses -- 30 given while he was pope and more than 100 given to members of his household once he retired.

More than two millennia after the Holy Family was denied a room at the inn and Jesus was born in a manger, war once again renders his birthplace in the Holy Land inhospitable, Pope Francis said.

A Catholic priest can bless a gay or other unmarried couple as long as it is not a formal liturgical blessing and does not give the impression that the Catholic Church is blessing the union as if it were a marriage, the Vatican doctrinal office said.

Pope Francis condemned the Israeli military's killing of two Christian women sheltering at a Catholic parish in Gaza and an attack on a convent, noting that in the current fighting "unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire."