IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Those who recognize the Lord in the baby Jesus in the manger also should recognize his presence in children suffering today because of war, poverty and immigration, Pope Francis said. "Jesus knows well the pain of not being welcomed and...

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christmas calls believers to see God's presence where he is often perceived as absent, especially in the "unwelcomed visitor, often unrecognizable, who walks through our cities and our neighborhoods, who travels on our buses and...

IMAGE: Gregory A. Shemitz By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Blessed Paul VI could be declared a saint in 2018, perhaps during the Synod of Bishops, an institution he re-established after the Second Vatican Council, according to the newspaper of his home diocese. La Voce del Popolo, the newspa...

IMAGE: CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Callista L. Gingrich presented her letters of credential to Pope Francis, formally assuming her duties as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Gingrich met privately with the pope Dec. 22 after introducing her husband, former...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Gregory L. Tracy, The Pilot By Mark Labbe BRAINTREE, Mass. (CNS) -- Journalists crowded into a room in the Archdiocese of Boston's Braintree headquarters Dec. 20 as Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley answered questions following the death of Cardinal Bernard F. Law, whose death was offici...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn By Mark Pattison WASHINGTON (CNS) -- For Roger and Marguerite Sullivan of Washington, Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year. Thanks to their travels throughout the world over the past 40 years -- he for the World Bank, she for the State Department ...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Claudio Peri pool via Reuters By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The people who work at the Vatican and in the Roman Curia are supposed to be "sensitive antennas" that faithfully transmit the desires of the pope and receive information from dioceses and Eastern Catholic church...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Joshua Roberts, Reuters By Dennis Sadowski WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Republican lawmakers joined President Donald Trump in cheering passage of the most significant overhaul of the federal tax system in three decades even as the chairman of the U.S. bishops' domestic policy committee ca...

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who had been one of the United States' most powerful and respected bishops until his legacy was blemished by the devastating sexual abuse of minors by priests in his Archdiocese of Boston, died early Dec. 20 in Rome at the a...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Francois Gloutnay, Presence By Francois Gloutnay MONTREAL (CNS) -- For sculptor Sylvette Chanel, Advent is the busiest time of the year. She is among the few people left who keeps alive the ancient New France craft of making and repairing wax Jesus figures for Nativity scenes. Th...

IMAGE: CNS/composite photo from Family Theater Productions and Arturo Mari, L'Osservatore Romano By VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton and St. John Paul II's mentor, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. The pope approved the decrees recogniz...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Ruby Thomas, The Record By Ruby Thomas and Jessica Able SPRINGFIELD, Ky. (CNS) -- In response to Pope Francis' call for Catholics to "Share the Journey" of their lives with one another under a two-year program introduced in September, the following stories relate the experiences ...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Jessica Able, The Record By Ruby Thomas and Jessica Able SPRINGFIELD, Ky. (CNS) -- Holding the Lectionary high, Mirna Lozano processed into St. Dominic Church in late October during the parish's first young adult Mass, which she organized with the help of her father, Rodrigo. The...

IMAGE: CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Celebrating his 81st birthday, Pope Francis blew out the candles on a 13-foot long pizza after being serenaded with song and dance by children and employees from a Vatican pediatric clinic. A group of children rec...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Peter Finney Jr., Clarion Herald By Peter Finney Jr. NEW ORLEANS (CNS) -- Inside the parish hall of St. Gabriel the Archangel Church in New Orleans, the personal stories flowed as freely as the tears. One by one, descendants of the 272 enslaved men, women and children sold as a g...