For at least the fourth time since Russia began its large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke by telephone Dec. 28.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a former top Vatican official, met privately with Pope Francis Dec. 29, about a month after reports that Pope Francis wanted to stop giving him a monthly salary and would ask him to pay the market rate for his Vatican apartment.

Pope Francis’ 2023 was a year of important trips made or postponed, a predecessor’s funeral and his own 10th anniversary as pope, a call to the world to act on climate change and a call to the Catholic Church to strengthen its mission by learning “synodality.”

The Christian community and society need young people to live out their dreams of a world where people listen to one another, accept each other and build bridges with members of different cultures and religions, Pope Francis told young Europeans meeting to “pray in” the new year.

Amid ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military — despite the Christmas season — Christian clergymen in the Middle East are decrying attacks on their community’s dwindling numbers.

The Vatican’s affirmation that a priest can give an informal blessing to a gay couple who asks for one is not a first step toward the Catholic Church recognizing same-sex marriages, said Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Unauthorized border crossings increased in 2023, fueled in part by shifts in U.S. policy and global migration trends. The year saw increasingly heated anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions that also put Catholic Charities agencies — and the church’s religious freedom to minister to migrants — in the crosshairs.

On the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, Pope Francis prayed for people persecuted for their faith or denigrated for living a life marked by Gospel values.

At least 20 people experiencing homelessness in the United States die every day, according to HomelessDeathsCount.org. To help remember and honor those who have died, the National Coalition for the Homeless began sponsoring memorial services in 1990.

The devil is sly and sneaky like a serpent and subtly entices people to sin, Pope Francis said at his weekly general audience Dec. 27.