World News

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, asked Italian lawmakers to put Christ at the center of their lives. “Christmas must serve to reaffirm the centrality of Christ in our lives,” Cardinal Parolin said to 400 legislators in the Sistine Chapel on the evening of December 16. “Advent is the time ... read more

Across Africa, faith is a profound source of hope, charity, and community. Yet in nations like Nigeria, it has also become the continent’s most volatile political fault line, often manipulated for power and dominance. In [...] ... read more

"We want to replant hope within the Christian community over here in the Holy Land," said Anton Asfar, secretary-general of Caritas Jerusalem. ... read more

As we face a changing past, Jason Berry looks back on years of reporting on clerical abuse, and reflects on the influence of the beloved dead: a jazz-playing Jesuit, and Berry's daughter Ariel, whose radical innocence radiates. ... read more

The pontiff had barely stepped onto the loggia wearing the mozzetta and papal stole before social media was ablaze with traditionalists claiming "we're so back." ... read more

Sept. 30 marked the 100th anniversary of the Medical Mission Sisters, an international community of women whose outsized impact on the well-being of those made poor could be compared to the proverbial mustard seed. ... read more

At a Dec. 8 press conference in Nashville, leaders noted that Pope Leo XIV — as well as his predecessors St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis — has expressed opposition to the death penalty. ... read more

At the conclusion of his December 17 general audience, Pope Leo XIV recommended Confession in preparation for Christmas and praised the custom of the Christmas novena. ... read more

“Peace exists; it wants to dwell within us,” Pope Leo XIV writes in his message for the 59th annual World Day of Peace. ... read more

Lucy Talgieh, the deputy mayor of Bethlehem, attended Pope Leo’s December 17 general audience and expressed gratitude for the Pontiff’s peace appeals. “In all of us there is the desire for an end to the armed conflicts that only cause pain and death,” Talgieh, a Catholic, told the Vatican newspaper. “We can only be ... read more

In a front-page article in its December 17 edition, the Vatican newspaper highlighted rising global inequality in wealth. ... read more

On December 18, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a series of decreed, moving fifteen candidates forward on the bath to beatification. The decrees: certified a miracle attributed to the intercession of Enrico Ernesto Shaw, an Argentine layman who died in 1962; attested to the martyrdom of Ignacio Aláex Vaquero, a seminarian, ... read more

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,but before they lived together,she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,yet unwilling to expose her to shame,decided to divorce her quietly.Such was his intention when, behold,the angel of the ... read more

The Blessed Virgin, by becoming the Mother of God, received a kind of infinite dignity because God is infinite; this dignity therefore is such a reality that a better is not possible, just as nothing can be better than God. — St. Thomas Aquinas ... read more

Today is the Second of the O Antiphons, O Adonai (O Almighty God/O Lord and Ruler). As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. "Put off the shoes ... read more