In this tiny South Hebron Hills encampment of tents and cave dwellings, where camels cling to the sandy hillside and hardy goats scrounge for shoots of brush and desert grasses, it is summer camp time for the children. It is the 11th year in which the South Hebron Hills Popular Resistance Committee and the Alternative Information Center, a joint Palestinian-Israeli non-governmental organization promoting cooperation, have run a summer camp for the children of Tuba and four other villages. The European Union funds the program.

In this ancient city that has become synonymous with the ends of the earth, the recent terrorism of Islamist extremists belies long years of peaceful Muslim-Christian coexistence. Troubles in Timbuktu began in April 2012 when the city was taken over by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, or MNLA, a largely Tuareg group that wants a secular and independent state in northern Mali. Yet the group’s Islamist allies soon turned against the MNLA and drove it out of the city. That left the jihadists in control of Timbuktu.

With retired Pope Benedict XVI sitting next to him, Pope Francis formally recited separate prayers to consecrate Vatican City to St. Joseph and to St. Michael the Archangel. The early morning ceremony in the Vatican Gardens July 5 featured the unveiling of a new statue of St. Michael, sculpted by Giuseppe Antonio Lomuscio. The project, along with a fountain by Franco Murer dedicated to St. Joseph, was initiated under Pope Benedict.

The two popes whose canonizations received final clearance July 5 “each had a profound impact on the church and the world,” as New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan put it.

As people of faith and as Americans, the nation’s Catholics should kneel in prayer and also stand in defense of religious freedom, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said July 4 during the closing Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

Egypt’s Catholic leaders welcomed the military overthrow of the country’s Islamist president and voiced confidence that Christians and Muslims can work together to build a “real democracy.”

Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”), released July 5, is the latest installment in a centuries’ old papal tradition. An encyclical is considered the most authoritative form of papal writing, and though many examples are now remembered only by scholars, the messages of others have continued to resonate within the church and beyond.

Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”), is a celebration of Christian faith as the guiding light of a “successful and fruitful life,” inspiring social action as well as devotion to God, and illuminating “every aspect of human existence,” including philosophy and the natural sciences.

Here are excerpts from Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”), released July 5.

Presenting Pope Francis’ new encyclical and acknowledging how much of it was prepared by retired Pope Benedict XVI, top Vatican officials hailed it as a unique expression of the development of papal teaching and unity in faith.