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ROME – After political outcry and personal threats, an Italian priest has replaced a Christmas Nativity scene that critics said depicted Mary, the mother of Jesus, with a Muslim body covering.

BEIRUT – Lamenting the exodus of Christians from their ancestral homelands, Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East pleaded for peace and security in their annual Christmas messages.

VATICAN CITY – After taking up a collection earlier this year to aid families affected by the ongoing crisis in Eastern Ukraine, Pope Francis has decided to distribute an initial sum of 6 million euros (neaerly $8.5 million Cdn) to different charity projects as a Christmas gift.

More than a hundred middle school and high school youth, along with their parish youth coordinators, gathered at a diocesan-wide Advent party in Ottawa on Dec. 16.

ItöÏÓãÊÓƵapp that time of year again. For Christians, the time from Christmas day until the Baptism of the Lord is the true Christmas season. It is, however, also the time for New YearöÏÓãÊÓƵapp resolutions.

I just read about a priest in Italy who took down a crèche because he feared it would offend non-Christians. There was no indication he was forced to do it, but it seems he decided to be proactive just in case.

VATICAN CITY – While hope can often be viewed as the desire for things out of our reach, Pope Francis has said that the birth of Jesus offers us a new kind hope – one which, thanks to the Incarnation, is attainable and leads to a different goal.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – With the threat of snow in the air, groups of young men filled the pews at Our Lady of Sorrows Church on the city's east side. The men were seasonal farmworkers from Latin America attending a special Christmas celebration in their honour.

The Catholic Register's final special section of the year is our Christmas issue! Click here to read all of our holiday special features.

Every year St. MichaelöÏÓãÊÓƵapp Cathedral fields an RCIA class of 20 to 30 for adult baptisms and confirmations. A lot of that success starts on Christmas Day, according to cathedral rector Fr. Michael Busch.

St. MichaelöÏÓãÊÓƵapp Cathedral re-opened this fall in plenty of time for Christmas, but the rededication was just one milestone in the $128-million restoration of TorontoöÏÓãÊÓƵapp Catholic cathedral. The work continues.

If all you want for Christmas is to be more spiritual — pray more deeply, contemplate on a higher plain — thereöÏÓãÊÓƵapp a 16th-century app for that.

You may have wondered, and rightly so, why the ox and the ass appear so often beside the Christ child in various images of the Nativity.

Two simple words are all the payment Carla Martella needs for helping the Good Shepherd Ministries provide a holiday meal to the homeless and those in need.

The Gospel stories about the birth of Jesus are not a simple retelling of the events that took place then, at the stable in Bethlehem.