Pope Francis’ Sept. 11 meeting with Dominican Father Gustavo Gutierrez was an informal one, held in the in the pope’s residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and not listed on his official schedule. Yet the news that Pope Francis had received the 85-year old Peruvian priest, who is widely considered the father of liberation theology, has excited interest far beyond the Vatican’s walls.

Nechama Tec’s work has centered on the Holocaust, analyzing not only the tragic events of the Nazi genocide of the Jews but also rescuers and survivors.

The misery experienced by Mariam and husband, Ephrem, and their three young children is just one example of hundreds of thousands of Christians in the Middle East, displaced by wars in which they are not participating.

A spokesman for France’s bishops urged the government to ensure a new “charter of secularism” does not impede religious freedom.

What God asks of people is too difficult and demanding to do without help from Jesus and Mary, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis gave pilgrims attending his weekly public audience Sept. 11 what he called a “homework assignment” to find out the date they were baptized and celebrate it every year.

An English archbishop praised the British government for seeking clarification of a decision not to prosecute two doctors who agreed to abortions on the grounds of gender.

While a military-backed dictatorship in Argentina was conducting a clandestine war on suspected dissidents, then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pope, masterminded a secret strategy to save those being targeted, according to a new book.

A bishop from eastern Congo said people in the area continue to suffer from an ongoing government-rebel conflict, and he hoped pressure from the international community would help relieve the situation.

In the small front room of an apartment in a middle-class district of Istanbul, five young men, some with university degrees or halfway there, talked about why they fled their homes in Syria.