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 knocks on our doors,” …

IMAGE: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano 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 newspaper of …

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 House Speaker Newt Gingrich, …

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 officially announced by the …

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 …

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 churches around the world, Pope Francis said. Remembering that …

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 called on the president to work with Congress to fix “unacceptable …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Darrin Zammit Lupi, Reuters By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Foreign trips, a focus on the rights and needs of migrants and refugees and a Synod of Bishops dedicated to young people all are on the 2018 calendar for Pope Francis. His activities and the passions that …

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 …