The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called for “fervent prayer” to end the violence in the Holy Land, as the Israel-Hamas war reached its first year while threatening to expand into a wider regional conflict.

As Lebanon plunged into the worst humanitarian crisis in decades, Catholics and other Christians continue their humanitarian outreach to help struggling Lebanese, Syrian refugees and migrant workers displaced by severe Israeli bombardments across the country, ongoing since late September, some of which have also injured Christians.

A bishop who runs his diocese like a “monarch” is not only not acting synodally, but he probably is lonely and stressed, said theologians advising the Synod of Bishops.

A new book accusing Opus Dei of dealing in human trafficking, forced labor as well as financial malfeasance by members who held powerful positions in a prominent Spanish bank is “absolute nonsense,” according to the organization.

More than two dozen popes have celebrated Mass under the giant canopy that rises over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, but the impressive view from the top of 100-foot-tall bronze structure has been reserved for a select few: cleaners, contractors and restoration experts.

The U.S. Supreme Court Oct. 9 considered a bipartisan appeal to reverse the death penalty conviction of Richard Glossip, a case in which Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general and Republican lawmakers have also intervened on his behalf.

With war and violence plaguing so many parts of the world, Christians can look to the saints to discover from their example the true meaning of peace, Maronite Auxiliary Bishop Paul Rouhana of Beirut told participants at the Synod of Bishops.

A St. Petersburg priest who is also president of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors took time out Oct. 8 to check on his elderly neighbors before Hurricane Milton was expected to make landfall the next night in this Gulf Coast region.

As the Holy Land marked a grim first anniversary Oct. 7 of the Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities and subsequent Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip, the papal almoner raised $35,000 in one afternoon from delegates to the Synod on Synodality and immediately sent it to Holy Family Parish in Gaza City.

The Vatican group studying the question of women’s ministry, including the ordination of women to the diaconate, will expand its consultative phase to include women who do not serve as consultors to the dicastery in charge of the study group, synod officials announced.