Vatican

The pope celebrated a memorial Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for Pope Benedict XVI and the six cardinals and 147 bishops who died over the past year.

Pope Francis will travel to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates Dec. 1-3 to participate in the U.N. Climate Change Conference, the Vatican press office confirmed.

As the sun broke through the morning sky after a torrential downpour in Rome, Pope Francis was wheeled past dozens of gravestones that marked the final resting place of members of the military forces who died during and immediately after World War II.

Calling for a major push toward developing a “fundamentally contextual theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women live each day,” Pope Francis has approved new statutes for the Pontifical Theological Academy.

Pope Francis regularly asks people to pray for him, and in October he jokingly told a group of nuns why: “This job is not easy; in fact, it’s a bit bothersome.”