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John Allen

Pope Francis delivers a "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and world) message from the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Christmas Day of 2014.

Pope Francis was a huge story in 2014, but a veteran Vatican reporter says the media got a lot wrong

Belief

John Allen of the Boston Globe usually sits down at the end of the year to write something about the biggest uncovered Catholic stories from the past 12 months. But the longtime Vatican correspondent says he didn’t need to this year, thanks to a news media sensation focused on Pope Francis.

An Iraqi Christian man from Mosul, who fled from violence in northern Iraq, reads a book at the Latin Patriarchate Church in Amman, Jordan, on August 21, 2014.

On Christmas, some of the oldest Christian communities on Earth are on the run

Belief
People in the Syrian city of Tabqa toured the streets in celebration after Islamic State militants took over a government air base nearby on August 24, 2014.

Washington is talking tough on ISIS, but its plans for intervention don’t seem to measure up

Conflict
A bronze statue inside the Vatican of the late Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005 and became a saint on April 27, 2014.

Want to become a saint without dying for the cause? It’s not easy

Lifestyle & Belief

Underlying cause of Afghan green-on-blue attacks may be more complex

American nuns reprimanded by Vatican for ‘radical feminist views’

Lifestyle & Belief

The Vatican reprimanded the largest group of Catholic nuns in the United States two weeks ago for promoting “radical feminist themes.” The reprimand was issued after a two-year investigation. The church has appointed an archbishop to oversee reform of the group, but many Catholics have come out in support of the American nun group.

Former Ambassador Ryan Crocker’s Personal Take on Serving the United States in Conflict Zones

Conflict & Justice

Former US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the man who says he’s been called “a crisis junkie” shares some of his personal thoughts with anchor Marco Werman on why American diplomats need to serve in conflict zones.

The World

Afghanistan: White House Signals Rapid Withdrawal, Reassures Karzai

Global Politics

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is visiting Washington this week for talks with President Barack Obama over the future of his country once the US and NATO pull out most of their troops by the end of 2014.

Despite Resigning, Petraeus Will Testify on Benghazi

The soap opera continues. The FBI investigation into an alleged affair between General David Petraeus and biographer  Paula Broadwell, which also implicated  General John Allen  and a Tampa-based fundraiser named  Jill Kelley, has become very public knowledge.  Petraeus  resigned  on Friday, hoping to get in front of the scandal before it thrust him any further into the spotlight.   But Congress had other […]

Petraeus Scandal Reveals Limits of Email Privacy

Global Politics

The Petraeus scandal offers insights into the security of online communication and the media’s access to military officials, says Zeynep Tufekci a visiting scholar at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy.