Condemning the attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney, Pope Leo XIV said, “Enough with these forms of antisemitic violence! We must eradicate hatred from our hearts.”

Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski of Providence offered prayers for “all affected by this tragedy” in the wake of a Dec. 13 shooting at Brown University that left two students dead and nine others injured.

Across the street from the B.H. Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, people gathered with paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day, Dec. 12, for a special prayer service for those detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

George Matysek talks with Father Maurice Henry Sands, executive director of the U.S. Bishops’ Black and Indian Mission Office in Washington, D.C. A priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit and a member of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi tribes, Father Sands brings a deeply personal perspective to the Church’s long history with Native and African American communities.

Slavery that was legal centuries ago is considered an abomination today. All the more reason not to categorize all situations regarding immigrants as either black or white. There are complicated areas in between, areas as gray as that early morn in Bethlehem when hope was born, giving way to a brighter dawn for all who tenaciously cling to hope for peace.