The House finally passed a five-year farm bill on Jan. 29, more than a year after the previous agriculture program expired and two days before a stopgap extension was itself set to expire. While Catholic groups and other rural advocates had been urging passage of a farm bill, their enthusiasm for th

House Republicans released a one-page set of “standards for immigration reform” during their annual retreat in Cambridge, Md., on Jan. 29. Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, M.Sp.S., auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration,

The global pope-apalooza continued in January as Pope Francis was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and in “superpope” graffiti that sprouted up on buildings around Vatican City. • It was announced on Jan. 27 that Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Melkite Ar

Number of unaccompanied minors apprehended at U.S. border doubled last year.

A series of bomb attacks rocked Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 23, the day before the third anniversary of the street revolution in 2011 that toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime. Six people were killed, hundreds were injured, and the city’s police headquarters, strafed and scored in the aftermath of a mas

Sporadic violence between Christian and Muslim gangs continued throughout the Central African Republic as leaders of the Muslim Seleka militia appeared to flee Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic on Jan. 26. • The Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi, S.J., confirmed on Jan. 2