"Even when the powers of hell are unleashed, Christians must rise to the summons, their heads held high, and be ready to brave blows in this battle over which God will have the last word. And that word will be love and peace," the pope said in an evening homily Nov. 29 at Bangui's cathedral.

Under the Vatican criminal code, it is a crime to take, distribute and publish confidential documents. The Vatican said that if any of the five are not present on Nov. 24, they would be tried in absentia.

"We are approaching Christmas," the pope said, and soon everywhere "there will be lights, decorated trees, even Nativity scenes," but if they are not signs of faith in Jesus and a commitment to following him, then it is "all fake."

The Vatican calendar for the Year of Mercy set aside Sept. 4, 2016 as a possible date for the canonization of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata.

When a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic man asked Pope Francis what she and her husband could do to receive Communion together, the pope said he could not issue a general rule on shared Communion, but the couple should pray, study and then act according to their consciences.

"Let your words be simple so that everyone can understand. Don't give long homilies," the pope said. "Allow me to ask you to remember your dad and how very happy he was to have found another parish in a town nearby where the Mass was celebrated without a homily!"

Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who published documents stolen from Pope Benedict XVI's private office by his butler, has a new book out based on more leaked documents. "Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis's Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican," was scheduled for release in English Nov. 5.

"In principle, it was accepted by the synod," the pope said, according to Eugenio Scalfari, a co-founder and former editor of La Repubblica, an Italian daily. "This is the basic result: the evaluations of the facts are entrusted to confessors, but at the end of the processes—whether quick or slow—all the divorced who ask for it will be admitted."

The appeal, addressed to negotiators preparing for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11, was a response to Pope Francis' letter on the environment and an expression of "the anxiety of all the people, all the churches all over the world" regarding how, "unless we are careful and prudent, we are heading for disaster."

Members of the Synod of Bishops on the family agree that Catholic families are the beating heart and busy hands of the church, but the tensions in the synod hall demonstrate that what they don't agree on is a vision of the church and its primary attitude to the world.As the Catholic Church marke