More than 2.3 million pilgrims attended audiences or celebrations with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican during 2012. • “Bold steps” are necessary to counter the “rising tide of aggressive posturing” between the United States and Iran, wrote Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, on Dec. 18 in a letter to National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon. • Lee Young-chan, a Jesuit priest jailed because of his support for campaigners against the construction of a military base on Jeju Island off the coast of Korea, was released on bail on Dec. 26. • Pope Benedict visited his former butler, Paolo Gabriele, in his cell in the Vatican police barracks, personally telling the butler he was forgiven and was being pardoned after his conviction for leaking Vatican documents. • Members of the Religion Newswriters Association picked the U.S. Catholic bishops’ opposition to a federal mandate for contraception coverage in health plans as the No. 1 religion story of 2012 and chose Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York as the year’s top newsmaker in their annual poll. • In his New Year’s message, Caracas Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino asked Venezuelans to pray for President Hugo Chavez in his continuing battle with cancer.
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Despite his confinement to his hospital room, where he is being treated for double pneumonia, Pope Francis delivered two important messages on Sunday.
Pope Francis' continued "gradual, slight improvement" is a sign that he is responding to the therapy he is receiving at Rome's Gemelli hospital, his doctors said.
Pope Francis had “a restful night and woke up shortly after 8 a.m.,” the Vatican said on Friday morning, March 7. It was his 22nd night in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
Just as Popes John Paul II’s and Benedict’s final days revealed their understandings of the papacy, Francis’ illness has revealed him once again as the world’s parish priest, suffering close to his people.