The Catholic Church in Russia predicted a “steady improvement” in ties with the predominant Orthodox Church after a visit by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council fort Promoting Christian Unity.

Church initiatives to promote peace among Kenya’s Turkana and Pokot communities are vital to easing simmering conflicts over recently discovered oil deposits and continuing tensions over grazing lands and access to water, said the apostolic nuncio to the East Africa nation.

Catholic leaders in the Central African Republic spoke of a humanitarian crisis and criticized attempts to fuel interreligious clashes in their nation.

The global “wave of prayer” to eradicate hunger reached the U.S. Capitol with participants in an interfaith prayer service asking God to guide all people to better see and understand the needs of people living in poverty.

Helping restore the roof of the Church of the Nativity is like touching a piece of the beginning of Christian history, said an Italian restorer who is heading work on the first phase of the long-awaited repairs.

After the 1989 murders at the University of Central America of six Jesuit scholars, their housekeeper and her daughter — one of the most notorious episodes in the 13-year Salvadoran civil war — the Society of Jesus assigned members from abroad to fill the posts of their fallen companions.

Nelson Mandela, who led the struggle to replace South Africa’s apartheid regime with a multiracial democracy, died Dec. 5 at his home in Johannesburg. Mandela, 95, became the country’s first black president in 1994. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Pope Francis accepted a proposal to set up a special commission on the sexual abuse of children, which will advise him on ways to prevent abuse and provide pastoral care for victims and their families.

Church leaders in the Central African Republic are hoping the arrival of French and African troops will help settle a situation that has effectively left people barricaded in their homes in the capital, Bangui.

In the Philippines, the Christmas season starts in September, but the final nine days of Advent have special meaning. “Generally in the Filipino culture … when the ‘ber’ months come, September, October, November, there are already Christmas decorations,” said Father Carmelo Arada Jr. “There are already Christmas carols in the malls.”