“It was a great blessing to be able to speak with him,” Sister Nabila Saleh said. “He gave us courage and the support of prayer.”

On “Inside the Vatican, host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell sit down in Rome to cover the second week of the synod, which covered contentious issues in the church, such as the inclusion of L.G.B.T. people and women deacons.

Until the early 20th century, the Catholic Church in the United States was “the recipient of help from the church in other lands,” recalls Anthony Andreassi, C.O., in his homily for World Mission Sunday. “Now it is our turn to reach out to support others so that this important work of evangelization can continue."

Francis did not say whether this “compañero” was in fact among those killed, injured or taken hostage.

Sandesh Gonsalves, who leads the Jesuit Refugee Service team in Afghanistan, reports that Afghans are struggling in the wake of a “massive” earthquake that struck on Oct. 7. According to U.N. sources, the humanitarian aid system in Afghanistan is already desperately overstretched and underfunded, with over 29 million Afghans in need of assistance.

While outright war conditions pertain in Gaza and along its border in southern Israel, in the north, in Jerusalem and the West Bank, conditions are also fraught. Violence between Palestinians and Israeli settlers has broken out sporadically.

Yesterday, the participants in the Synod on Synodality made a pilgrimage through the St. Sebastian catacombs, the burial place of at least three early Christian martyrs.

Why can’t Hollywood reinvent ‘The Exorcist’? Money, lots of it, can be the only reason why any studio would invest in this franchise.

A Reflection for Friday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, by Christine Lenahan

Let me help you, Jews and gentiles alike, bridge the gap that’s keeping us from really being there for each other.