A deadly mass shooting took place the morning of Aug. 27 at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis shortly after the start of the school day during an all-school Mass at the adjacent Annunciation Catholic Church.

A funeral Mass was held Aug. 11 in St. Petersburg, Fla., for Franciscan Brother Michael Madden. The Baltimore native and accomplished artisan died Aug. 4 after a brief illness. He was 91.

Pope Leo XIV appealed to Israel and Hamas to stop the violence that has caused “so much terror, destruction and death.”

Christian hope is not about avoiding pain and suffering but about knowing that God gives people the strength to persevere and to love even when things go wrong, Pope Leo XIV said.

In 2014, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and a longtime broadcaster, became one of the first evangelical Christian leaders invited to speak at the national March for Life, joining a group of speakers that in past years had been dominated by Catholic clergy and Catholic members of Congress.