Pope Francis’ Holy Week and Easter will be celebrated primarily in St. Peter’s Basilica with a very small congregation.

An interview with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, on Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq and what’s next for Vatican diplomacy in the Middle East.

According to three sources, it was significant that Francis called on Christians and the church to give witness to Jesus “not with theoretical condemnations but with gestures of love.”

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” America’s Rome correspondent Gerard O’Connell reveals that the document was drafted by a much smaller group of people than would ordinarily be involved in writing this type of statement and that Pope Francis reviewed it just before his Iraq trip.

L.G.B.T. Catholics and their allies are reacting with dismay to a statement released Monday by the Vatican prohibiting priests from blessing same-sex unions, in which church officials assert that God “does not and cannot bless sin.”

The pope in late February accepted the resignation of Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, who had reached the normal retirement age of 75 last June. The cardinal had been prefect since 2014.