Churches and temples in Sri Lanka have been turned into emergency relief camps for thousands left stranded by Cyclone Ditwah, which brought heavy rains, flooding and landslides across the island nation.

Despite an uptick in executions in the U.S. in 2025, opponents of the death penalty lauded decreases in new death sentences and waning public support for the practice during comments at a Dec. 3 press event announcing a new coalition called the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

Pope Leo XIV’s childhood home just outside of Chicago has been declared a historic landmark.

As Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians accompany U.S.-brokered peace talks that as of Dec. 3 produced no breakthrough, Ukraine’s religious leaders warn that failure to halt Russia and hold it accountable will expand the war to Europe.

Spending time with Catholics, other Christian leaders and top Muslim clerics in Turkey Nov. 27-Nov. 30 and Lebanon Nov. 30-Dec. 2, the pope made formal speeches about how believing in God as the father of all means recognizing one another as brothers and sisters.

A New York state bishop, who is a Baltimore native, has echoed a recent call from the nation’s Catholic bishops to respect God-given human dignity, regardless of immigration status.

As Pope Leo XIV urged in Turkey Nov. 27 that “the future of humanity is at stake” with ongoing conflict in the Middle East and days after a United Nations Security Council endorsement of a U.S.-backed peace plan, Catholic leaders warn that conditions in Gaza remain grave, especially as winter approaches.

On the second leg of his apostolic journey that took him to Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV prayed at the tomb of St. Charbel on Dec. 1.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 2 heard oral arguments in an appeal from a group of faith-based pregnancy centers in New Jersey challenging an investigation by that state’s attorney general alleging they misled people about their services and seeking information about their donors.

At the end of his first foreign trip as pope, a trip focused on dialogue, Pope Leo XIV said the examples of friendship and respect he had seen could be a helpful example for people in North America and Europe, too.