Before the “Homeland War” of the 1990s, the residents of Vukovar, Croatia, thought it a peaceful city. But a devastating tragedy interceded — and three decades later, the city lives in an uneasy peace, shrouded in memories of horrific tragedy and loss.

To understand how the Catholic Church interacts with contemporary world, young people must learn the significance and historical context of the Second Vatican Council, the head of the Vatican office for new evangelization said.

Against gray skies and falling snow, thousands of people flocked Jan. 19 to the nation’s capital for the national March for Life, gathering them under the theme “for every woman, for every child,” showing their resolve amid the piercing cold to make abortion eventually “unthinkable” in the U.S.

Jesus Christ’s words in the Gospel reading for Jan. 18, “I am with you always until the end of the age,” are critical as “an instruction for how to live in this broken world” and “bring goodness to it,” the U.S. bishops’ pro-life chairman said in his homily at the opening Mass of the National Prayer Vigil for Life.

Respect for the dignity of every person and for his or her values is as much a part of the identity of a Catholic university as faith is, Pope Francis said.

The proposed enhanced Child Tax Credit released Jan. 16 by a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill received an enthusiastic, if guarded, response from members of a Georgetown University panel held the same day.

Two provinces of the Congregation of the Passion and a lay-run Catholic nonprofit have all taken the lead in switching to solar energy to power their work as part of their response to Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’,” which teaches on the relationship between God, humans and the Earth in caring for creation.

The drownings of three Mexican migrants in the Rio Grande has deepened a jurisdictional dispute between the U.S. federal and Texas state governments over responding to the wave of migrants and asylum-seekers irregularly crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, an ancient chivalric order of the Catholic Church rooted in the Holy Land, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land as a sign of peace and dialogue during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

A papal visit to Vietnam would send a very good message to the Asian region, said Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister.