The pope, who celebrated his 85th birthday on Dec. 17, is not planning to slow down — and there appears to be no resignation or conclave on the horizon.

Ready or not, the new year is here — and with it our annual opportunity to take stock and set goals, with a little help from Pope Francis.

Covid-19, the 2020 election and racial justice remained hot topics in 2021. But the past year also brought new debates within the Catholic Church, including over the Latin Mass.

The documentary, based on Francis’ 2018 book “Sharing the Wisdom of Time,” addresses fundamental lessons to be learned through the experiences of the elderly: love, dreams, struggle and work.

Pope Francis has dismissed from the priesthood Robert McWilliams, a Cleveland man who is serving a life sentence in prison for sexually exploiting children.

I spent the past year writing about the economy through the lens of Catholic social teaching. Here’s what I learned.

The South African human rights campaigner and Anglican clergyman was known throughout the world for his human rights accomplishments. But above all, he was a committed priest and person of deep prayer.

The new policy instructs priests who currently celebrate a form of the Mass, sometimes called the Latin Mass or Tridentine Mass, which was supplanted with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, to request permission from the archbishop if they wish to continue using the extraordinary form.

In his letter to families, like in “Amoris Laetitia,” Pope Francis paid tribute to the strength and tenacity of couples as they face real difficulties together on the journey of life.

Can we allow this truth, this person named Jesus—this God for whom love alone is credible—to truly possess our hearts in the year ahead?

“The Word became flesh in order to dialogue with us,” he insisted. “God does not desire to carry on a monologue, but a dialogue. For God himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is dialogue, an eternal and infinite communion of love and life.”

This is what we should ask Jesus for at Christmas: the grace of littleness.

Danger, death, disbelief appears everywhere. We shall not be overcome.

The gospel is more recipe than record. The only way you know that you have received the gift of Christmas is to live in love.

Here’s a rundown of some of the issues the pope tried to keep at the forefront of the news in 2021 and articles about them you may have missed.

The pope’s talk was aimed at promoting a synodal culture, rooted in humility, at the heart of the central government of the church.

The 75-year-old Canadian Jesuit will replace Cardinal Peter Turkson on an interim basis.

Our Dispatches contributors were kind enough to share some thoughts on what stories are likely to be important in 2022 as we cross off, in some relief, the concluding days of 2021.

In an inversion of the typical Yuletide tale, characters who have much less than the McCallisters generously provide them with assistance.

I wanted children to hear the story of the nativity through the eyes of a child, not the experience of an adult. And so the character of Leah began to take flight in my imagination; I wanted my young readers to see the first Christmas through her eyes.