After an intense day of roundtable discussions, the “low-batteried” but “very pleased” cardinals wrapped the first historic extraordinary consistory convened by Pope Leo XIV in a spirit of fraternity, with a sense of knowing each other better and saying they “discovered” the pope, while he did “more listening than talking.”

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Jan. 8 to extend enhanced health care subsidies for three years by a vote of 230-196 after 17 Republicans broke with their party’s leadership to force a vote.

President Donald Trump said Jan. 7 he will seek to ban corporations from buying single-family homes amid the housing shortage, an issue the U.S. bishops’ conference has said is affecting “a basic human right” nationwide.

The U.S. Senate on Jan. 8 advanced a war powers resolution following the Trump administration’s recent strike to remove deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, requiring congressional approval for Trump to take additional military action in Venezuela.

The Thomas More Society announced Jan. 6 it would pursue a rehearing of its case against California’s laws that allow public schools to conceal how a student expresses their gender identity at school from their parents.

A Nigerian bishop urged intensified military action to “eliminate” bandits and their hideouts in the Kainji Game Reserve amid reports of the killing of 50 people between Christmas and New Year’s and traumatizing of children recently abducted from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri.

Crowds gathered in the French coastal town of Saint-Tropez to bid a final farewell to actress Brigitte Bardot.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda is continuing his call for prayers after police said a woman was pronounced dead following a shooting involving a federal agent in Minneapolis Jan. 7.

Pope Leo XIV gathered cardinals present for the extraordinary consistory this week for an early morning Mass Jan. 8 in St. Peter’s Basilica, telling them they’re together not to promote “agendas,” but to take part in a “discernment” that “comes from the Lord.”

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is back for 2026 with a special route that will travel the East Coast from St. Augustine, Fla., to Portland, Maine, stopping in Baltimore and ending in Philadelphia, organizers announced Jan. 8.