The pope reminded priests, religious and seminarians that the fervor of evangelization “is nurtured by a double encounter: with the face of the Lord and with the faces of our brothers and sisters.”

I reached out by email to every diocese in the country and asked: Has your diocese started any new initiatives based on the 2018 pastoral letter on racism published by the U.S.C.C.B?

Steven P. Millies: A half-century of the U.S. bishops calling abortion the ‘preeminent issue’ in politics leaves Catholics unprepared for a post-Roe landscape.

Alexandra DeSanctis: We are called to defend the least among us, and there is no more weak and defenseless population than unborn human beings.

A news release from the Diocese of Peoria said it was informed Dec. 2 that Vatican had decided to postpone the Dec. 21 ceremony "at the request of a few members" of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Christ came to save 'the least, the last and the lost.' God takes the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized—we can, too, and must take their side as well."