It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Already. Even before Halloween jack-o-lanterns were carved, retailers were advertising the joys of Christmas gift-giving — and getting — on television. And no sooner will the Thanksgiving turkey be carved before radio stations start playing Christmas music, some of them nonstop, through Christmas Day.

With baptism, Christians are cleansed of sin, but the sacrament doesn’t wash away human weakness nor the obligation to ask forgiveness when they make mistakes, Pope Francis said.

The president of the Belgian bishops’ conference joined other faith leaders who criticized proposed legislation to extend euthanasia to children and dementia sufferers, warning the measure risks “destroying the functioning of society.”

Between errands and attending parent-teacher meetings with her children, Charito Darr was fielding phone calls from nervous Filipino-Americans — often speaking in regional Filipino dialects — seeking news of loved ones in their homeland following Super Typhoon Haiyan.

The first U.S. edition of the Roman Missal in Spanish moved closer to being available perhaps next year, as the U.S. bishops Nov. 12 approved several steps toward adapting the Mexican Misal Romano for use in this country.

The U.S. bishops approved adding a staff position in their Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities that would work with Project Rachel and similar post-abortion healing ministries in dioceses across the nation.

After days of watching televised scenes of dead bodies scattered around Tacloban, Order of Augustinian Recollect members organized a group of priests and a brother to bless bodies of people who died while fleeing the flood brought on by Typhoon Haiyan.

As Super Typhoon Haiyan barreled across the central Philippines, national and international church aid officials lost contact with their local counterparts.

Pope Francis has asked Catholic young people around the world to read, meditate and act on the beatitudes as they celebrate World Youth Day in their dioceses in 2014 and 2015 and as they prepare to join him in Poland in 2016.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development deserves the full support of the U.S. bishops because of its success in fighting poverty, said a group of Catholics on the eve of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall general assembly Nov. 11-14 in Baltimore.