Pope Francis has made a last-ditch appeal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria appealing for an end to the terrible violence and destruction in which so many innocent people are dying.
Prince Charles joined the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis in offering prayers and sympathy to the Coptic Pope Tawadros II after 24 Copts were killed in a suicide attack in Egypt.
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi will attend a state funeral on Monday for the 25 Christians killed in a bomb attack as they worshipped on Sunday.
The annual Vatican Christmas nativity tableau this year includes a poignant reminder of an Italian tragedy: a spire from one of the churches damaged and destroyed in this year's earthquakes.
The BBC has admitted a report that accused the Catholic Church of "silence" in response to the fate of the Jewish people under the Nazis was unfair, while at the same time the author of the book Hitler's Pope has robustly defended his thesis.
For the past three years, Pope Francis has personally hand-picked his Christmas card to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This year, the card he chose is special since it featured two baby Jesuses.