Nation/World

In its annual report on pastoral workers killed, Fides, the news agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies, listed eight priests and five laymen. Six were killed in Africa, five in Central or South America, and two were killed in Europe.

“Our prayers go out to those killed and injured in this morning’s horrific attack on Bourbon Street,” said Archbishop Gregory Aymond, a New Orleans native, in a Jan. 1 statement.

Marking the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and the start of the new year, Pope Francis renewed his appeal for a “firm commitment” to respect all human life worldwide.

Wearing red vestments for the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, Pope Francis knocked on the door of the church in Rome’s Rebibbia prison complex and walked over its threshold.

On Dec. 18 in U.S. District Court, the city of Minneapolis agreed to a settlement with the St. Paul-based Pro-Life Action Ministries which included amending a city speech ordinance that kept clinic protesters off a sidewalk that crosses the driveway to the city’s lone Planned Parenthood clinic.

Prior to offering his blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world), the pope prayed for various countries grappling with conflict and crisis.

If music therapy is a proven memory and mood booster for the elderly, Christmas carols and holiday festivities may be the strongest of medicines, said organizers of such an event at an adult day care center in the Archdiocese of Miami.

He’s worked with patients whose ears were bitten off in dog attacks. He’s seen people whose eyes or ears were lost in accidents or whose flesh was ravaged by aggressive cancers. And he’s helped others born without body parts or who suffered unimaginable gunshot wounds.