Catholic News Service

While many people involved with the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative continue to hope Pope Francis will issue an encyclical promoting nonviolence as a spirituality and way of life, they also know that Catholics already are engaged in teaching and supporting nonviolence in situations of conflict and exploitation around the globe.

Catholic bishops from four dioceses in the southern Philippines have called on the country's lawmakers to draft a law to impose a ban on mining across the entire Mindanao region.

Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals met in-person at the Vatican Dec. 5-6, discussing the continental phase of the synod process, safeguarding and the U.N. climate change summit, the Vatican press office said.

The mayor of Lviv, Ukraine, and a team of doctors treating those injured in the war gave Pope Francis a cross with an embedded piece of shrapnel removed from the body of a young girl.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Dec. 5 announced a redesignation of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and an extension of TPS for Haitian migrants already residing in the United States for an additional 18 months, from Feb. 4 through Aug. 3, 2024.

Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby spent three days in Ukraine to show solidarity with the people there. It was the first visit of an archbishop of Canterbury to an independent Ukraine.

The state-appointed chairman of the commission to investigate abuse in the Archdiocese of Cologne has quit, saying he doubted the independence of the commission and wondered whether its main aim was to protect Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.

Making churches accessible and services understandable is important, but having wheelchair ramps and sign-language interpreters is not enough for a parish to call itself "inclusive," Pope Francis said.

Stopping to gaze at and perhaps pray before a Nativity scene is one of the best ways to remember the real meaning of Christmas, Pope Francis said.

The season of Advent is a moment of grace to help believers stop being presumptuous and pretending to be self-sufficient, Pope Francis said.

Slovenian Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate chapels in the Vatican, all over Europe, in the United States and Australia, has been barred from hearing confessions or offering spiritual direction after what the Jesuits described as complaints about his ministry.

A Ukrainian bishop warned huge numbers of citizens could flee to Western countries during winter, and he appealed for continued international support in the face of a threatened "humanitarian catastrophe."

In a year that had little good news for immigrants in a nation of immigrants, there were some wins.

Saying they are outraged by growing "antisemitic rhetoric" across the country, members of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs urged Christians to decry hate-filled statements and violence aimed at Jewish individuals, homes and institutions.

Three years after Pope Francis appointed him to speed up financial reforms, transparency and budget controls at the Vatican, Jesuit Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves has resigned for health reasons.

While formal dialogue about the theological and historical causes of the splits in Christianity are essential, so, too, is a recognition that "sinful actions and attitudes" have contributed and continue to contribute to divisions in the body of Christ, Pope Francis said.

A daily examination of conscience is an important tool for recognizing where God is at work in one's life and where "the evil spirit" tries to lead one astray, Pope Francis said.

Supreme Court justices Nov. 29 examined a Biden administration policy that placed the arrest and deportation of some unauthorized immigrants over others.

While some people want to "reform" the Catholic Church and others want "to put the brakes on the synod process," those involved in preparing the continental phase of the synod process want "to mend" the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the pope, said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, relator general of the synod.

The Ukrainian Catholic Archdiocese of Donetsk is demanding the release of two priests it said were arrested illegally in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk.