Standing in a tent on the shore, Pope Francis said the Mediterranean Sea, “the cradle of so many civilizations, now looks like a mirror of death.”

Like St. John Paul II before him, Pope Francis apologized to members of the Orthodox Church of Greece for the ways Catholics over the centuries had offended them, and he told Catholic leaders that they must embrace their minority status with humility.

“Here democracy was born,” he told the representatives. “Yet we cannot avoid noting with concern how today — and not only in Europe — we are witnessing a retreat from democracy.”

After Pope Francis denounced putting up “barbed wire” to keep out migrants and the practice of pushing boats back to countries where they face conditions similar to a “lager,” the Vatican announced he would help move a dozen migrants from Cyprus to Italy before Christmas.

Pope Francis told migrants that, like them, God dreams of a world where everyone recognizes each other as brothers and sisters.

Eternal hope is the overarching message of Christmas: A child born in a barn changed the world.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris, who had offered to step down to avoid “becoming a source of divisions,” after an article in the Le Point weekly claimed he mismanaged his archdiocese and had an affair with a woman while he was vicar general.

Many were not Catholic, but they arrived at St. Joseph Catholic Church the night of Nov. 30 nonetheless — first a trickle, then a steady stream.

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee Dec. 1 urged Catholics, people of other faiths and all people of goodwill to unite in prayer that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade in its eventual ruling on Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In the Supreme Court’s first major abortion case in decades – which looked at Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy – the majority of justices Dec. 1 seemed willing to let that ban stay in place.