Pope Francis encouraged youngsters to put down their phones to spend time praying and looking at other people to see their needs.

Catholic Extension’s cover story is about Christmas through the eyes of these children who “come from different cultures and parts of the world, but what they share in common is faith — faith in the midst of terror, violence and war,” the story said.

Caleb Williams, the star quarterback at the University of Southern California who won the Heisman Trophy Dec. 10, earlier made his mark at two Washington-area Catholic schools he attended for middle school and high school.

Celebrating Christmas is important and beautiful, Pope Francis said, but he asked people to spend less on their celebrations this year and donate the savings to help the people of Ukraine.

Vigilance is an essential part of the spiritual life because the devil will try to sneak in when one is not paying attention or, especially, when a Christian thinks he or she is making a lot of progress on the road to holiness, Pope Francis said.

As representatives from nearly 200 countries gather for the U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, environmental activists living in the Amazon region hope the conference’s proposals will generate new projects in favor of the forest and the populations that live in the region.

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet announced he is filing a defamation lawsuit in Quebec against a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the U.S. bishops’ migration chairman reaffirmed the church’s solidarity with immigrants, “each one of them a brother or sister to us all.”

Recent popes have used the concept of a “Petrine principle” and a “Marian principle” to describe the important role women and men together play in the Catholic Church, but a biblical scholar writing in the Vatican newspaper said it is time to talk about the discriminatory and stereotypical notions behind it.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Disarmament is the only way to build a peaceful future, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state. “We need to imagine and build a new concept of peace and international solidarity, remembering that so many countries and peoples are asking to be heard and represented,” he said. “We need courage […]