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.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state against a New York-based doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas, his office said Dec. 13.

Here are 10 things to know about the upcoming Jubilee Year.

Jesuit Father Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, the dean of the Jesuit School of Theology of California-based Santa Clara University, has been awarded “The Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation” by the archbishop of Canterbury for his “outstanding contribution to ecumenical work,” honoring “his leadership of a 2019 retreat for politicians on opposing sides in South Sudan’s civil war.”

While numerous events are planned in Rome and at the Vatican to mark the Jubilee 2025, this Holy Year is for the whole church. Here are some ways to celebrate without traveling farther than your local cathedral.