"No one ever thought about depriving Caritas of these funds," Raggi told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Jan. 14. "The diocesan agency plays an important role for many needy and for the city of Rome, which wants to continue to be the capital of welcome for the weakest."

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration reports that for the fifth consecutive year more than 4,500 people are believed to have died or gone missing on migration routes around the world in 2018.

“The reappearance of some populist and nationalist impulses today is progressively weakening the multilateral system,” Pope Francis said, “resulting in a general lack of trust, a crisis of credibility in international political life and a gradual marginalization of the most vulnerable members of the family of nations.”

Ten percent of the world’s people are still living in extreme poverty, and this year nearly 132 million people will need humanitarian assistance and protection, mostly because of the effects of armed conflict.

The Christian community in Iraq has been decimated by decades of conflict, persecution and disorder, culminating in the unbelievable savagery of ISIS. After two millennia in Iraq, the Christian population has reduced to a vanishing point, raising concerns around the world about the viability of this ancient community.

Around half of the estimated 6,800 Yazidis taken captive are still missing. Women and girls from the minority who escaped described an organized system of slavery overseen by high-ranking foreign fighters.