One of the most dangerous vices is gluttony, turning people who are meant to be custodians of creation into mere consumers and even exploiters and predators, Pope Francis said.

Societies must consider how their people can share challenges and resources, the pope told representatives of a dialogue project bringing together socialists, Marxists and Christians.

The day after being released from Rome’s Santo Spirito Hospital, Bishop David M. O’Connell of Trenton, N.J., had a heart-to-heart moment with Pope Francis.

As soon as the liturgies of the Christmas season ended, the Vatican published the calendar of public liturgies Pope Francis will preside over in January and February.

The Catholic Church should revise its celibacy requirement for Latin-rite priests, a senior official in the Vatican’s doctrinal office said.

In the Sistine Chapel, where popes are elected, Pope Francis baptized 16 infants, who, he said, “give us the witness of how to receive the faith: with innocence and with an open heart.”

Pope Francis called on the international community to ban surrogate pregnancy, calling it “deplorable” and a “grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.”

A multiyear investigation overseen by the Catholic Church into Archbishop John C. Nienstedt, who resigned from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2015, has ended with the Vatican finding that he acted “imprudently” in several instances but not criminally under canon law, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda said in a statement Jan. 5.

Giving to others in need is not enough; people must look those they help in the eyes and be willing to touch their poverty with their hands and hearts, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis expressed his condolences and prayers after two bombings in Kerman, Iran, claimed the lives of 84 people and wounded scores more at a memorial for an assassinated Iranian military officer.