panish Cardinal Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, who dedicated his priestly life and ministry to building bridges between Catholics and Muslims, died in Rome Nov. 25 at the age of 72.

Doubling down on the centrality of synodality in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said that it is now up to local churches to accept and implement proposals from the final document approved the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Using what the Vatican called an “equipollent” or equivalent beatification, Pope Francis recognized as “blessed” a 15th-century Spanish abbess, mystic and preacher.

Churches and faith groups across the United Kingdom have condemned a bill to allow physician-assisted suicide and stepped up efforts to block its Nov. 29 approval by parliamentarians.

Nearly a quarter-century after its predecessor premiered, “Gladiator II” (Paramount) takes moviegoers back into the ancient arena. The result is a spectacular but sterile historical epic whose unsparing depiction of life-or-death combat greatly circumscribes its appropriate audience.