On Pope Francis’ 88th birthday, two major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean published two different excerpts from his new book on hope.

Father Juan Manuel Gutierrez, associate pastor at St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park, Calif., spoke at a Dec. 16 press conference at his parish to share his experiences of being healed from a serious sports injury after seeking the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Immigrants who arrive in a new country and face obstacles and difficulty should find in the Catholic Church a welcoming home and ready assistance, Pope Francis said.

When the world of banking and finance crushes people instead of helping them, it betrays its very purpose and promotes an “uncivilized economy,” Pope Francis said.

Firefighters and police officers formed a human chain to rescue the crown of thorns from the inferno at Notre Dame on April 15, 2019. On Dec. 13, 2024, this holiest relic of Paris’ cathedral was returned to its proper home on the Île de la Cité.

As Pope Francis became the first pope to celebrate Mass on the French island of Corsica Dec. 15, the usual excitement of an open-air Mass with the pope was combined with the flair and pageantry of a Renaissance fair.

Pope Francis became the first leader of the Catholic Church to set foot in Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, praising the French island’s heritage of popular piety as a bridge between faith and secular culture.

Making his customary visit to the Rome Basilica of St. Mary Major to pray before his trip to the French island of Corsica, Pope Francis also met and prayed with dozens of actors staging a living Nativity scene.

In a letter to his nuncio in Russia, Pope Francis called out those who would claim Russia’s war on Ukraine had any spiritual justification.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 13 agreed to hear a case from the Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, in which the agency argued a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court discounted its religious identity.