She has become ubiquitous on social media platforms: the middle class woman who is nearly spitting with unsuppressed rage and seemingly gleeful that she has the means to showcase it. The woman is one of an uncountable number who display septum rings and tattoos as they set their camera phones to “record” and then deliver spit-inflected diatribes, or scream in indignation...

Pope Leo XIV offered prayers for the victims and his “heartfelt condolences” to the families of those affected by a train collision in southern Spain on Sunday, January 18, 2026, which caused at least 39 deaths and dozens of injuries. In a telegram released on January 19, written in Spanish and signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin...

The book of Revelation describes the Devil as the deceiver of the whole world.[1] What is significant about this description is that the Devil’s disposition is to encourage confusion, distrust, fear, doubt, anxiety, and worse hatred toward God. He is the fallen Angel who would welcome nothing more than to encourage anyone to follow in his path. In his first epistle, St. John reinforces the danger...

Feast date: Jan 24

Jan. 24 marks the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers and Christian unity whose role as a priest and bishop helped bring thousands of Protestants back to the Catholic Church.

In the late 16th and early 17th century, St. Frances de Sales conducted spiritual direction both in person and in written correspondence. This inspired his famous work “Introduction to the Devout Life.”

During his ministry in Switzerland, he wrote and distributed religious tracts that made inroads among Protestants and helped between 40,000 and 70,000 return to the Catholic faith.

Because he is a patron saint of writers, his feast day traditionally marks the release of the Pope’s annual message for World Communications Day. Pope Benedict XVI’s 2013 message reflected on social networks and their potential to strengthen unity and harmony between people. He also warned that these enable a mindset that rewards popularity, rather than rewarding what has intrinsic value.

St. Francis de Sales was no stranger to unpopularity. As a priest he volunteered to lead a mission to return the Calvinist Switzerland back to the Catholic faith. He faced much hostility, including death threats and would-be assassins.

He was born in 1567 in the Savoy region in what is now part of France. He was a diplomat’s son, born into a household with great devotion to St. Francis of Assisi.

He studied rhetoric, the humanities and law in preparation for a political career. He had resolved to hold to religious celibacy and he held a deep devotion to the Virgin Mary, but he kept this strong spiritual life secret from the world.

This devotion clashed with the wishes of his father, who had arranged a marriage for him. The Catholic bishop of Geneva found Francis de Sales a position in the Swiss Church, leading to his ordination as a priest in 1593.

He was named Bishop of Geneva in 1602, after which he worked to restore Geneva’s churches and religious orders. He helped the future saint Jean Frances de Chantal, whom he had served as spiritual director, found a women’s religious order.

He died in 1622 in Lyons at a convent he had helped to found. Frances de Sales was canonized in 1665 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1877.

The head of the schools of the Franciscan province in the Holy Land warned that a new Israeli law threatens the existence of Christian schools in Jerusalem.

The new law, approved by the Knesset (parliament), “prevents graduates of universities that follow the curriculum of the State of Palestine from teaching in schools in Israel, unless they also possess a specific accreditation from the Israeli authorities,” the Vatican newspaper reported.

Father Ibrahim Faltas, OFM, of the Custody of the Holy Land, said that “all Palestinians from the West Bank who studied at Palestinian universities, such as the one in Bethlehem, which is Christian, or Hebron, will no longer be able to teach in schools in Israel: this is truly very serious.”

The 15 Christian schools in Jerusalem, with 12,000 students, “are the ones that will primarily bear the consequences of this decision,” Father Faltas added. “There are many teachers who come from the West Bank and especially from the Bethlehem area: as many as 235. It would mean closing all these schools because there are no teachers in Jerusalem, they cannot be found.”

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Andrea Tornielli, the editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, hailed the late John Allen as “the journalist who explained the Vatican with expertise and wit.”

“In every article, John combined rigor and careful attention to sources with interpretive frameworks, analysis, and context, and he insisted on using quotations “on the record,” always accompanied by full names.” said Tornielli. “Another defining feature of his work was that he never took anything for granted and therefore never wrote only for insiders: he knew how to speak to his audience—not composed solely of Catholics, nor only of believers.”