President Joe Biden changed his travel plans to Rome to award Pope Francis the Medal of Freedom due to the California wildfires, but the two still spoke on Saturday.

Their sad, shared legacy is that both men have diminished their high offices.

President Joe Biden on Saturday awarded Pope Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the highest U.S. civilian honor. Biden handed out Medals of Freedom to 19 people earlier this month,

Biden awarded Pope Francis with a Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction during a phone call on Saturday, according to the White House.

AJ columnist Rogelio Medina on the way to Narita, Japan onboard Japan Airlines. THANKS to the nice and courteous service from Japan Airlines, I was well taken care of

Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States by Chief Justice John G. Roberts as Melania Trump holds the Bible during the inauguration ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington Jan. 20, 2025. (OSV News photo/Morry Gash, pool via ReutersReuters)

President Donald Trump is expected to sign up to 100 executive orders today, after his inauguration on Monday. Follow Newsweek's live blog.

Donald Trump was sworn in for a second, nonconsecutive term in the White House, becoming the 47th president four years after he left office.

Israel has freed 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The release comes early on Monday, more than seven hours after three Israeli hostages released from Hamas captivity in Gaza returned to Israel.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday hailed the release of Cuban prisoners as a “gesture of great hope” that he prayed would be undertaken elsewhere, as he welcomed an agreement the Vatican helped facilitate as part of a three-way dialogue with Washington and Havana that dates back to the Cuban missile crisis.

Unlike that of his only Catholic predecessor in the job, John F. Kennedy, Biden’s Catholicism, White said, “was embedded both in his persona growing up, in the tragedies that have marked his life. It is a huge part of his persona, in a way that’s unlike Kennedy, who was quite private.”

The thing NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters most admired about President Joe Biden's Catholicism these past four years was not his embrace of Catholic social ethics. It was his observance of our cultic ethic.