More than 60 Catholic institutions, congregations and individuals have signed a letter imploring Mr. Biden to endorse a new round of assistance to the world’s most indebted nations from the International Monetary Fund.

“This is a very significant beginning,” Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the chief Vatican organizer of the Jubilee Year, said in a statement.

Top reports from America's “Dispatches” department include looks at conflict, migration and geopolitics through a Catholic filter.

Bell ringing has a rich history, integrated into daily and liturgical life year-round, a tradition being rediscovered and appreciated by anthropologists, academics, musicians and an increasing number of ordinary people.

In the small town of Stilfontein, some 90 miles from the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, hundreds, possibly thousands, of illegal miners have been underground in an abandoned mine shaft for more than a month.

Pope Francis has called on all nations to eliminate the death penalty, to divert a fixed percentage of arms spending to a global fund to fight hunger and climate change, and to cancel the international debt of developing nations.