'Imagination is a spiritual reality that can draw us toward the good, the true and the beautiful.'

The upsurge of xenophobic and hate-filled public conduct in the United Kingdom requires an urgent response from people of faith.

"The past night has struck us and shaken us deeply," Bishop Gebhard Furst told attendees at Rottenburg's Cathedral of St. Martin.

In a world marked by violence, "the choice of nonviolence as a style of life is increasingly demanded in the exercise of responsibility at every level," the pope said.

Government licenses and German arms exports had risen 96 percent in 2015 to a value of $13.6 billion, a priest said.

The continent ends the year much as it began: in disarray, devoid of any vision for the future and united in hardly any sense at all.