Right there at the cross, in Jesus, our humanity doesn’t fall beyond its edges. Even there, even then, he continues to love. And even in that dense darkness—or loneliness—that he experiences as a human being, he doesn’t let himself forget that he is loved too.

Though Pope Francis skipped over his prepared homily at today’s Palm Sunday Mass, he used the opening of Holy Week to condemn terrorism and war in Moscow, Ukraine and Gaza.

Pope Francis has not accepted an invitation to travel to Moscow in June to meet with Vladimir Putin, the director of the Holy See press office said.

“If you talk today with the widows who have lost their husbands, and mothers who have lost their sons, you will understand why Russia did not succeed.”

We risk missing the lessons of Alexei Navalny’s death for his principles if we ignore his very Christian understanding of suffering.

The death yesterday in a Russian penal colony of Alexei Navalny might naturally bring to mind the story of Walter Ciszek, S.J., the famed American Jesuit who spent 23 years in Soviet captivity.