Movies set in Ireland rarely omit the trope of the aerial shot of rolling green fields. After all, it is the Emerald Isle. Or is it?

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell take a look at the pope’s talk to ambassadors and why he thinks cancel culture is a threat to international cooperation.

“Multilateral diplomacy is thus called to be truly inclusive,” the pope said, “not canceling but cherishing the differences and sensibilities that have historically marked various peoples.”

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.

Since chef Fadi Kattan was a child getting underfoot in his grandmother’s kitchen, the preparation and communal eating of the burbara pudding has been a pre-Christmas symbol of the coming of the holiday on the Palestinian West Bank.

Patriarch Sabbah: “When you celebrate Christmas, remember that in Bethlehem, in Jerusalem, life is not a Christmas life. It is not the blessed life of the new redeemed humanity. The song of the Angels is far away.”