A new report published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet indicates that far from exaggerating the human suffering in Gaza, the ministry has likely underestimated the true number of the dead by as much as 41 percent.

Warning of “the increasingly concrete threat of a world war,” Pope Francis called for “the diplomacy of hope” in his address to the ambassadors of the 184 countries that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

Top reports from America's “Dispatches” department include looks at conflict, migration and geopolitics through a Catholic filter.

Pope Francis prayed that the Jubilee Year may become “a season of hope” and reconciliation in a world at war and suffering humanitarian crises as he opened the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve.

For the second straight year, Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations will be somber and muted, in deference to ongoing war in Gaza.

Peace among nations is a necessary precondition for any solution to the climate change crisis. Instead, we have a renewed arms race and a mad dash for exhaustible natural resources.