When children are baptized, their parents and the church are giving them the greatest gift ever: the gift of faith, Pope Francis said before baptizing 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel.

“I am praying for all of you,” Pope Francis said, using his televised Sunday Angelus address to speak directly to the people impacted by the wildfires in Southern California.

After congressional lawmakers formally certified Jan. 6 President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, Trump is scheduled to return to the White House Jan. 20, four years after he left the Oval Office in the wake of a failed reelection bid.

The words of slain civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. continue to challenge all “to live out the principle of solidarity and human dignity,” said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops.

President Joe Biden awarded Pope Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the nation’s highest civilian honor, the White House said Jan. 11.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, told thousands of faithful that Pope Francis sent him to preside over the inauguration and consecration of a new Catholic church at the banks of the Jordan River as a sign of the universal church’s closeness to all Christians in the Middle East.

The Franciscan friars in Syria are accustomed to overcoming obstacles and living in uncertain times, and now they are bracing for the new Islamic rule in the country with both “encouraging” and “worrying” signs on the horizon.

The Italian naval ship “Amerigo Vespucci,” currently completing its global tour, has been designated a Jubilee church for the Holy Year 2025, transforming its onboard chapel into a pilgrimage destination at sea.

Since Cardinal Robert W. McElroy’s Jan. 6 appointment to the Archdiocese of Washington, church watchers have interpreted the move as a papal endorsement of the prelate’s outspoken support for the poor and those on the margins.

Pope Francis is scheduled to complete the Christmastime liturgies by baptizing babies in the Sistine Chapel Jan. 12, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.