“Les Miserables” (Amazon) has no connection to Victor Hugo’s classic novel of the same name other than its setting — the rundown Paris suburb of Montfermeil, where the poor still struggle and continue to distrust authority figures.

Jesuit Father George V. Coyne, a Baltimore native who led the Vatican Observatory as its director for 28 years, got his start in the field of astronomy as a young student in formation for the priesthood by secretly studying under his blanket, flashlight in hand.

Feb. 12 was the 15th anniversary of Sister Dorothy Stang’s assassination in the Amazon region of Brazil. The U.S.-born nun is remembered as a crusader for the poor and the landless and for her love of the land and the Amazon forest.

Pope Francis acknowledged the serious shortage of priests in remote areas of the Amazon, but he insisted not all avenues have been exhausted to address the issue.

Pope Francis said he dreams of an Amazon region where the rights of the poor and indigenous are respected, local cultures are preserved, nature is protected, and the Catholic Church is present and active with “Amazonian features.”

Less than 40 years after its humble beginnings in New Haven, Connecticut, the Knights of Columbus was invited by Pope Benedict XV to establish a permanent presence in Rome.

Talking about debates, differences and discernment, Pope Francis told a group of U.S. bishops that people focused on the possibility of ordaining some married men and women deacons for service in the Amazon will be disappointed in his apostolic exhortation.

Pope Francis praised the Knights of Columbus for their charitable efforts and thanked them especially for helping Christians in the Middle East.

New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan is set to meet with the president of the Republic of Cuba during a Feb. 7-12 trip to the island nation, which includes a visit with the cardinal of Havana and other Cuban prelates.

The film covers the familiar outlines of the old story, with two children negotiating a dark and very foggy forest as they escape a famine-scarred home life in search of food and security.