NATION/WORLD

The disappearance 40 years ago of Emanuela Orlandi has haunted her family, fueled conspiracy theories and provided grist for a recent Netflix series.

The way individual Catholics and their parishes care for the sick offers a precise measure of just how much they either are part of or are fighting the "throwaway culture" that ignores or discards anyone seen as flawed or weak, Pope Francis said in his message for the World Day of the Sick.

There can be no improvising or going it alone when it comes to preventing and handling cases of abuse in the Catholic Church, said U.S. Cardinal Seán P. O'Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

"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.

Telling parents and godparents to teach their little ones to pray from the time they are small, Pope Francis baptized 13 babies in the Sistine Chapel as their older brothers and sisters looked on -- or got away and ran around.

Soon after Pope Benedict XVI was laid to rest in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica, an Italian publisher released early copies of a book by the late pope's secretary.

With the same spirit and aims that behind his recent reform and reorganization of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis, as Bishop of Rome, has overhauled the Vicariate of Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI "spread and testified to" the Gospel his entire life, Pope Francis told tens of thousands of people gathered Jan. 5 for his predecessor's funeral Mass.

Pope Benedict XVI was a renowned theologian, a "recognized authority," who left "a rich legacy of studies and research on the fundamental truths of the faith," said the official summary of his life and papacy.

The person closest to Pope Benedict XVI for the past two and a half years said the most important thing about him was that "the faith he learned, taught and proclaimed was the faith he lived."