The White House is expected to announce soon that President Joe Biden will visit the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis next month for what would likely be the final international trip of his presidency.

Previously serving as Pope Benedict XVI’s private secretary and later as prefect of the Papal Household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein was sent home to Germany by Pope Francis in June 2023—“a decision that had to be digested,” he said.

Pope Francis has declared as saints 16 Carmelite martyrs executed by guillotine during the French Revolution and confirmed the martyrdom and heroic virtues of five others in a series of decrees published Dec. 18.

Sotheby’s is facilitating the sale of what it says is an approximately 1,500-year-old tablet, which it describes as “the only complete tablet of the Ten Commandments still extant from this early era.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 13 agreed to hear a case from the Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, in which the agency argued a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court discounted its religious identity.

Police in Madison said Dec. 16 they are investigating a shooting at that city's Abundant Life Christian School that left multiple people dead and injured.