The day after Pope Francis told people retired Pope Benedict was “very sick” and in need of prayers, the Vatican said he had had a restful night and described him as being in serious, but stable condition.

In an end-of-the year decision, the Supreme Court Dec. 27 ruled that a federal public health rule that allows immigration officials at the border to quickly turn away migrants seeking asylum could stay in place while legal challenges to the policy played out.

Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila called it irresponsible and a “flat out lie” for The Denver Post daily newspaper and some other local media to scapegoat Catholic teaching on human sexuality as a reason for hatred against transgender people and the wider LGBTQ community that led to a mass shooting at a Colorado gay bar.

The birth of Jesus in a stable “shows us God’s ‘style,’ which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness,” Pope Francis told visitors and pilgrims at his weekly general audience.

The most important question a Christian can ask when making any decision in life is “where the greatest love is to be found,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter marking the 400th anniversary of St. Francis de Sales, a doctor of the church.

Saying that retired Pope Benedict XVI was “very sick,” Pope Francis asked people to offer special prayers for him.

While 2022 finally saw the publication of Pope Francis’ constitution reforming the Roman Curia, the biggest news and the biggest changes in his ministry came from Russia’s war on Ukraine and from the pope’s own problems walking.

In the midst of the multiday blizzard that paralyzed parts of western New York, Father Seil, chaplain for the Buffalo Fire Department, had to evacuate the rectory at his parish in the city’s Old First Ward neighborhood on Christmas Eve, then spent the night aboard the department’s fire boat and celebrated a short Mass Christmas morning for crewman Jack Kelleher.

Intermittent electricity and air raid sirens cannot and should not stop Ukrainians from celebrating the birth of Jesus, said Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The day after Christmas the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, which emphasizes how the story of Jesus’ birth is not a “fairy tale,” but a call to live as witnesses of the Gospel, Pope Francis said.