Justin McLellan

Ongoing flooding in South Sudan is causing people to move into regions traditionally populated by members of other ethnic groups. That leads to competition for land and resources that fuels ethnic tensions.

More than three-quarters of a century after the largest genocide in history, the United States and the Catholic Church are still making sense of their response to the Holocaust.

Ukraine's religious leaders asked Pope Francis to visit Kyiv, said Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

As war ravages Ukraine, the country cannot be divided among religious confessions but must be united behind "mother Ukraine," Pope Francis said.

Germany's bishops do not have the authority to establish a permanent decision-making body of bishops and laypeople that top Vatican officials said would supersede the authority of the country's bishops' conference, according to a letter from the officials published Jan. 23.

Lengthy, abstract homilies are "a disaster," so preaching should be limited to 10 minutes, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis told young people to always "look to the horizon" and open their hearts to other peoples and cultures.

Welcoming a delegation of Cambodian Buddhists to the Vatican Jan. 19, Pope Francis called for "dialogue at all levels" to seek solutions for repairing the broken relationship between humanity and nature.

Christians must develop a pastoral heart to care for those who have not heard the Gospel or who have left the fold, Pope Francis said.

The United States' chief advocate for religious freedom expressed his "disappointment" in the Vatican over its provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in the country.

Pope Francis' condemnations of the threat of nuclear war are "indispensable," said the head of the U.N. nuclear energy agency.

Sharing the faith is the "oxygen" that "invigorates and purifies" Christian life, Pope Francis said.

"Peace requires before all else the defense of life," which is threatened by the "alleged 'right to abortion,' " Pope Francis told ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Representatives from the world's Christian churches will travel to the Vatican to attend the funeral Mass of Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square Jan. 5.

Six months after Shireen Abu Akleh was killed covering an Israeli raid in the West Bank, her family briefly met with Pope Francis Oct. 26. "He gave us his blessing, and we demanded that there is justice," her niece said.

Cardinal Leonardo Steiner, archbishop of Manaus, cited the murder of a British journalist and Indigenous expert in Brazil as a consequence of commercial activity encroaching on Indigenous lands.

María Lía Zervino sits down with NCR to discuss her appointment to the Vatican's Dicastery for Bishops and how local bishops can follow Pope Francis' example in giving women more substantial positions of responsibility.

While Pope Francis has clearly condemned abortion, the Vatican has repeatedly pushed for a pro-life message that extends to life-related issues beyond ending abortion, which has been a focus for the American church.

A caravan of lay and religious leaders from Latin America traveled to Rome to garner the Vatican's support in ending the destructive mining practices that ravage communities across the region.