Father Maccalli was serving in a parish in Bomoanga, Niger, when militant extremists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, a branch of al-Qaida in Mali, kidnapped him in September 2018.

This week on the “Inside the Vatican” podcast, Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and producer Colleen Dulle unpack their takeaways from Pope Francis’ new encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti.”

Jude Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel Salem, an advisor to the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, praised Pope Francis as being dedicated to achieving "human fraternity."

Two symbolic sites, the Hagia Sophia and the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, could serve as models for international and interreligious cooperation, writes Peter Dziedzic.

Pope Francis' brief words at the Sunday Angelus are the Vatican's first public response to the Turkish president's move to turn Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.

The Unesco World Heritage site in Istanbul, founded as a Christian church in the 6th century, transformed into a mosque in the 15th century and then into a museum in 1934, will reopen as a mosque on July 24 with Friday prayers.