Pope Francis took back up his weekly General Audience in August after a pause for the month of July. At his first audience of the month, he returned to the Paul VI Audience Hall walking with a cane instead of using a wheelchair.
The Pope continued to dedicate much attention to the war in Ukraine. At the Vatican, he met with the number two of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Just one month after traveling to Canada with the Pope, Cardinal Marc Ouellet faced allegations of inappropriately touching and massaging a female intern when he was Archbishop of Quebec. The Vatican said there are not sufficient grounds to begin a Church-led investigation, and the Cardinal denied the allegations.
At the end of the month the Pope gathered all the world's cardinals to Rome for a consistory for the creation of cardinals, the eighth of his pontificate.
There, Pope Francis said that becoming a cardinal is a special calling from God.
POPE FRANCIS
He calls us by name. He looks into our eyes, each one of us, let us look into our eyes and he asks: tell me, you, new cardinals and you, brother cardinals: can I count on you? That is the Lord's question.
In total, Pope Francis created 20 new cardinals, 16 under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote a in a future Conclave.
Just after receiving their traditional red hats, they then met with Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, as has become custom during Francis' pontificate.
The new cardinals, who came from places as diverse as Mongolia, India, East Timor, Spain, and the United States, gathered in Rome to study the new Apostolic Constitution, reforming the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium.
JM
