The Archdiocese of Paris is launching a major churchwide council in response to a surge in adult and youth conversions across France.

Amid the 2026 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Jan. 18-25, OSV News spoke with Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton, Pa., who serves as chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the Catholic co-chair of the Holy See’s International Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue committee, part of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.

Promoting a uniquely Catholic culture in our schools is both a necessary task and a challenging one. In rising to this challenge, it is helpful to examine what variables make cultural identity survive and thrive.

Amid launching a dramatic appeal to help Ukrainians “freezing in genocidal attacks by Russia,” and after coordinating years of humanitarian efforts for the country, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner said he is “unable to accept the medal announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” the prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity told OSV News Jan. 23.

Vice President JD Vance said he visited with business leaders, federal immigration enforcement officers and local law enforcement in Minneapolis Jan. 22 to better understand how an increase in immigration enforcement was unfolding and to “tone down the temperature a little bit, reduce the chaos, but still allow us as a federal government to enforce the American people’s immigration laws.”