Israel

Delegates to the general assembly of the Focolare movement elected Margaret Karram, an expert in interreligious dialogue, president for a six-year term.

As a journalist, Franciscan Fr. Jack Wintz covered stories that explored human nature and inspired Catholics nationwide.

Marking the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons coming into force Jan. 22, Pope Francis encouraged nations to work toward a world free from all nuclear arms.

Signs of the Times: Trump has been a national obsession since he began running for president in 2015. He consumes all the oxygen in the room. Every conversation eventually turns to him. There are few if any Trump-free zones in the country, even in church on Sunday.

In times of doubt and suffering, Christians must lift up their eyes to God, who leads them toward the hopeful promise of great things to come, Pope Francis said.

The church and monastery were vacated in 1967 at the outbreak of war between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors, including Jordan, just across the Jordan River. After Israel took control of the area from Jordan, it was laid out with land mines by both the Israeli army and Palestinian gunmen who battled there in the 1960s and 1970s.

Many religious leaders — some admired worldwide, others beloved only locally — died in 2020. Here are some of them.

Every December, this verse from the prophet Isaiah is featured in Messiah Sings and splashed across Christmas cards. One problem, or at least a complication: That's not what the Hebrew says.