NATION/WORLD

The divisions that exist among Christians are a source of pain and scandal, and damage the credibility and work of spreading the Gospel, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama at the Vatican March 27, the White House announced and the Vatican confirmed.

Christians facing difficulties and discrimination, especially in the Middle East, can learn a valuable lesson from Japanese Christians who survived by clandestinely baptizing, praying and hiding during 250 years of harsh persecution, Pope Francis said.

A rabbi who has known Pope Francis for almost 20 years and counts him as a close personal friend said the pope's May trip to the Holy Land will be a challenging balancing act because of the high expectations of Israelis and Palestinians and of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

On successive days in mid-January, Pope Francis and his top collaborator at the Vatican made public statements that provided a lesson in Franciscan contextualization of highly loaded moral issues.

Arizona's law banning abortions at the 20-week stage remains unenforceable, after the Supreme Court Jan. 13 declined to hear the state's appeal of a lower court ruling that the 2012 law is unconstitutional.

Stressing that their role would be one of service rather than honor, Pope Francis named 19 new cardinals, including six men from his home region of Latin America.

When President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty" in his 1964 State of the Union address, few then expected just what it would take to wipe out domestic poverty. Fifty years later, acknowledging the task in front of them, Catholic and political leaders alike have stated their intent to lessen poverty in the United States.

With a huge swath of the United States — from the upper Midwest to the Atlantic Seaboard — alternating between one-two punches of cold snaps and snowstorms, everybody's talking about the weather. Catholic service providers are also doing something about the increased need for emergency services that such weather brings.

The pope made the remarks at a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica Jan. 6 on the feast of the Epiphany, which marks the manifestation of Jesus as savior to the world. In his homily, the pope said that life is a journey, and like the three Wise Men, or Magi, people are looking for the "fullness of truth and of love which we Christians recognize in Jesus, the light of the world."