Father Langan's research and writing widely explored the just-war theory and its application to questions surrounding issues such as nuclear armaments, terrorism, the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and the Syrian civil war.

Pope Francis prayed that “the common effort” against the coronavirus pandemic would make people realize “our need for fraternal bonds as members of one only family.” 

Many hope the church will repeat that activist role as political divisions depress the economy and the living conditions for average Zimbabweans, and as a severe drought threatens a hunger crisis for millions this year.

The Global Conflict Tracker, part of the Council on Foreign Relations, listed 26 “conflicts around the world of concern to the United States” as of February, and there are new threats on the horizon.

It took more than 12 years to sort through, organize and catalogue the enormous quantity of information from Pope Pius XII's long pontificate. The open collection also includes thousands of notes regarding Pope Pius' charitable activity in Italy and abroad.

The pope said that discourses from some leaders of new forms of populism bring to mind "speeches that sowed fear and then hate in the decade of the 1930s."