peace

Missionaries are called to be like Christ in bearing witness to the realities of the communities they serve, the pope said.

In interviews focused on the 10th anniversary of his election, Pope Francis insisted it is not his task to make an accounting of what he has or has not accomplished since March 13, 2013, but he had three words for what he hopes for the future.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” the 1983 letter of the U.S. Catholic bishops on questions of war and peace.

In an interview published March 3 by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Francesca Di Giovanni reflected on her tenure as the first woman named to a managerial position in the Secretariat of State.

An orchestra made up of eight musicians from either side of that Middle Eastern divide were in the same building Feb. 23, performing a classical musical concert for a selected audience.

Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S., told participants at a Feb. 18 ecumenical prayer service in New York that “everywhere (he) went” during a recent trip to Ukraine, “people thanked Americans” for their generous aid and advocacy over the past year.

At the end of his state of the nation address Feb. 21, just three days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would suspend its participation in the New START treaty with the United States.

Looking out at tens of thousands of smiling faces, Pope Francis told South Sudanese Catholics that the only way the country will get out of the darkness of violence is with the light of their faith and their commitment to peace.