VATICAN (CNS): “Peace is never a partial good, but one that embraces the entire human race,” Pope Francis said during his annual address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican on January 7. He noted that the establishment of the League of Nations nearly 100 years ago had ushered in an era of multilateral diplomacy based on goodwill, readiness among nations to deal fairly and honestly with each other and openness to compromise.
 

VATICAN (CNS): “A world that looks to the future without a mother’s gaze is shortsighted,” Pope Francis said in his homily for the Mass of feast of Mother of God, at St. Peter’s Basilica, on January 1.
 
“It may well increase its profits, but it will no longer see others as children. It will make money, but not for everyone. We will all dwell in the same house, but not as brothers and sisters,” he said.
 

VATICAN (CNS): “May all of us receive peace and consolation from the birth of the Saviour and, in the knowledge that we are loved by the one heavenly Father, realise anew that we are brothers and sisters and come to live as such!”  Pope Francis said in his Christmas Urbi et Orbi (To the City and to the World) message and blessing on December 25. 
 

VATICAN (Agencies): “We want to see how we also can put on the table the question of bishops’ responsibility, so there would be greater clarity about who must do something and who checks if the things the Holy Father and the Church—the dicasteries—have ordered be done are, in effect, done,” Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a member of the committee organising the upcoming February 21 to 24 meeting of heads of bishops’ conferences and representatives of religious orders to address the abuse and protection of minors, said on December 27.

VATICAN (CNS):  Many people have big expectations that Pope Francis will take major steps in 2019 to address the clerical sexual abuse crisis.
 
He has called the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences and the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches to Rome from February 21 to 24 to discuss abuse and child protection.
 

VATICAN (CNS): “One thing is certain: good politics is at the service of peace,” Pope Francis wrote in his annual message for the World Day of Peace, which is on January 1.
 

VATICAN (CNS): The death penalty is an inhumane form of punishment that ignores the primacy of mercy in the name of justice, Pope Francis told a delegation from the International Commission against the Death Penalty on December 17. The pope set aside his prepared remarks and spoke off the cuff, the Vatican said.