Catholic leaders in Luther’s home country of Germany at first balked at the idea of “celebrating” what Lutherans there had already named the “Reformationsjubiläum” (Reformation Jubilee). But detailed talks between the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican produced a 93-page report titled “From Conflict to Communion” in 2013 that announced they would mark the anniversary together and presented the Reformation as the start of a shared 500-year journey rather than a single and divisive historical event.

A 2002 law decriminalized euthanasia for terminally ill adults and it has the support of a large majority of public opinion and politicians. But opposition in this historically Catholic country has grown as lawmakers extended the practice to including terminally ill children and people with severe psychological problems.

"We will always be in favor of truth, of justice, in favor of the victims," Archbishop Escobar said during a Jan. 10 news conference in which he said the files on war crimes investigated in the 1980s by the church's legal aid office, Tutela Legal, are available for the public and investigators.

The bishops wrote, "Our organizations have first-hand knowledge that these actions have generated fear among immigrants and have made their communities more distrustful of law enforcement and vulnerable to misinformation, exploitation and fraud. We find such targeting of immigrant women and children—most of whom fled violence and persecution in their home countries—to be inhumane and a grave misuse of limited enforcement resources.”

Francis has made concern for migrants a centerpiece of his papacy, and on Jan. 11 in his annual address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See he again urged governments to “overcome the inevitable fears associated with this massive and formidable phenomenon.”

"Thank God that someone finally has the courage to close the loopholes in our pitiful gun control laws to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides and killings that have become a plague in our country," said Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas in a Jan. 5 entry titled "The Cowboy Mentality" on his blog.