When Anika Smith moved to Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, her first order of business was to find a church. She didn’t have a car, so she used the metro. Even with transportation challenges, she managed to visit about three services each weekend. Her fourth Sunday, on a recommendation from a co-worker, she went to Church of the Advent, an Anglican congregation. Smith grew up Presbyterian in the Pacific Northwest, and Anglicanism was new to her.

Two new miracles attributed to St. Charbel Makhlouf have been reported since the beginning of 2026 — one in the United States and one in Lebanon — each involving the healing of a woman against all medical expectation. Revered by the faithful as the “doctor of the sky,” St. Charbel, a Lebanese Maronite monk and priest, is now associated with more than 30,000 reported miracles...

The condemnation of Christian Zionism by the Council of Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem is prompting varied reactions by Catholics in the U.S., Israel, and Rome. In a statement last week, the council — comprised of the leaders of the historic Christian churches in the Holy City, including the Latin patriarch; the Maronite, Melkite, Syriac, and Armenian Catholic patriarchs...

The ongoing protests in Iran are considered the largest in years, both in duration and geographic spread. Since erupting on Dec. 28, 2025, demonstrations have continued without interruption, expanding across the country’s north, south, east, and west. Large numbers of Iranians from diverse social and religious backgrounds have taken part, including Christian citizens.

Given how much of life is taken up with work, I think we give too little reflection to a key question: what really is, or should be, the point of our working? We often undertake our work simply as something that must be done. But the intention and so also the spirit with which we do it makes a significant and even essential difference...

The patron saint of journalists is St. Francis de Sales – whose feast is today, 24 January. The Holy Father’s annual message for the World Day of Social Communications is dated for the feast in his honor. St. Francis (1567-1622) was certainly a writer, but not every writer is a journalist. He was assigned the patronage because, barred from entering his own city of Geneva...

Pope Leo XIV warned of the risks that go hand in hand with information in the digital age and urged journalists never to succumb “to the temptation of the trivial” or to fake news that creates confusion about what’s true or false. The pope made his comments in a message sent on the occasion of the 30th anniversary...

Before we get on to the news, I would like to pause for a moment and ask you to please offer a prayer for the repose of the soul of John Allen Jr., who died yesterday at the age of 61. John, for any readers who do not know, and I doubt there can be many, was — for decades — an inescapable presence in the world of Catholic media, and especially in the arena of Vatican reporting.

The first attendees have arrived at the March for Life. Despite the cold temperatures, these students from John Paul the Great University are looking forward to marching in support of the unborn. This is the school’s first time attending the annual march.

Friends, colleagues, and regular Crux readers will know that my husband, John L. Allen Jr., has been battling cancer for some time, and has largely been absent from the site this year as he underwent treatment and fought for recovery.It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I convey, nearly four years after his diagnosis, that John lost his battle with cancer on Thursday, January 22, 2026, and is now resting in the arms of God, free from the pain and discomfort that he lived with for so long.