The Catholic Church must respond to cultural challenges facing marriage and family life with unity and compassion, Pope Francis said, and he called for a deeper integration of the Gospel into contemporary culture.

“We don’t have another theologian, it seems to me, that has been as engaged with modernity as Benedict,” said Cyril O’Regan, a co-winner of the 2024 Ratzinger Prize, often dubbed the “Nobel Prize of Theology.”

panish Cardinal Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, who dedicated his priestly life and ministry to building bridges between Catholics and Muslims, died in Rome Nov. 25 at the age of 72.

Using what the Vatican called an “equipollent” or equivalent beatification, Pope Francis recognized as “blessed” a 15th-century Spanish abbess, mystic and preacher.

The “arrogance” of the invaders attacking Ukraine and Palestine blocks the dialogue necessary to build peace in those countries, Pope Francis said.

When Catholics approach a church tribunal or canon lawyer, they “must always meet the face of our mother, the holy church, who loves all her children with tenderness,” Pope Francis said.

While world events can seem chaotic, violent and out of control, Christians can be certain that “everything is ultimately subject to the judgment of Christ, the just and merciful king,” Pope Francis said at Mass.

Pope Francis has named a “cura villero” — one of the priests working in the shantytowns of Buenos Aires — to head the Argentine archdiocese previously led by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Amid controversy over religious-themed tattoos sported by President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a U.S. office of a Vatican lay institution for the church in the Holy Land has expressed concern regarding the misuse of its historic insignia beyond strictly religious purposes.

Pope Francis will visit the French island of Corsica Dec. 15, the Diocese of Ajaccio announced, although the trip was not immediately confirmed by the Vatican.