A report on the persecution of Christians globally has found increases in violations in nearly two thirds of countries examined.

Two days after opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica to inaugurate the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis will travel to a Rome prison to open a Holy Door as a “tangible sign of the message of hope” for people in prisons around the world, the Vatican announced.

Three years after he asked the world’s Catholics to walk together in faith on a synodal journey, Pope Francis said that the church cannot risk becoming “static” but must continue as a “missionary church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world.”

The metropolitan archbishop of Haiti is speaking out following an Oct. 3 massacre by armed gang members in that nation’s central western region, an attack that killed at least 115 and displaced some 6,000.

About five months after Pope Francis spoke of the responsibility political leaders have to ensure that artificial intelligence is used ethically, the University of Notre Dame has announced it will develop faith-based frameworks for ethical uses of the technology.

More than two dozen popes have celebrated Mass under the giant canopy that rises over the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, but the impressive view from the top of 100-foot-tall bronze structure has been reserved for a select few: cleaners, contractors and restoration experts.

As the Holy Land marked a grim first anniversary Oct. 7 of the Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities and subsequent Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip, the papal almoner raised $35,000 in one afternoon from delegates to the Synod on Synodality and immediately sent it to Holy Family Parish in Gaza City.

Several of the new cardinal designates announced by Pope Francis have applauded the increased diversity of those getting a red hat, saying the appointments signal a shift in the center of Catholicism from the West to the global South.