Europe

Several hundred people gathered at Magdeburg Cathedral in the evening of Dec. 21 for an ecumenical prayer service to remember the victims of the Dec. 20 Christmas market attack in the central German city, which killed five, including a 9-year-old child, and injured over 40 people, leaving some in critical condition.

During a Dec. 20 Russian missile strike on Kyiv, Catholic St. Nicholas church, a significant architectural monument of the Ukrainian capital, suffered damage.

Firefighters and police officers formed a human chain to rescue the crown of thorns from the inferno at Notre Dame on April 15, 2019. On Dec. 13, 2024, this holiest relic of Paris' cathedral was returned to its proper home on the Île de la Cité.

A Sister of Charity in northern Italy was placed under house arrest after a nearly four-month investigation by prosecutors revealed she allegedly used her prison ministry to connect local mafia bosses with inmates.

The world was left stunned when the first images of the rebuilt Notre Dame were published and spread with viral speed as President Emmanuel Macron walked through the bright, unrecognizably beautiful Parisian cathedral on Nov. 29, a week ahead of the Dec. 7-8 official reopening.

Clergy in Belarus are deleting their social media profiles to avoid arrest, according to Church sources, as local parishes face pressure under a new religious law.

Amsterdam today, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary tomorrow?

Poland's government is preparing a decree of a state of natural disaster as the southwestern part of the country was severely flooded by torrential rains caused by Storm Boris.

As the superior general of the Sacred Heart order appealed to Polish authorities to ensure an arrested Polish priest's "dignity" is "respected," defenders have accused the country's government of using Father Michal Olszewski as a political prisoner and urged the Catholic Church to speak up on his behalf.

Poland's Catholic bishops have urged schools to continue offering religious teaching after government attempts to restrict it were blocked by the Constitutional Tribunal following church appeals.