We tend to think of “mercy” as compassion or sympathy, but the word has a much deeper meaning. It is more than feeling sorry for someone. Having mercy means that we enter into the other person’s suffering.

Pope Francis is scheduled to complete the Christmastime liturgies by baptizing babies in the Sistine Chapel Jan. 12, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

Sam Laganà and his wife were among the dozens of Corpus Christi parishioners at a special Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to pray for those affected by the fires raging through parts of Los Angeles County.

Venezuela’s bishops called for the country’s electoral decision to be respected on the eve of the Jan. 10 inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro, whose victory in the July 28 election is disputed by the opposition and not recognized by the United States.

Like marauders galloping out of the foothills, the flames swept down on the community that liked to call itself a village, as if its boutique shops and restaurants somehow protected it from a harsher world.