A 25-meter-tall red fir tree is now standing in St. Peter’s Square. This year, the tree comes from the Val d’Ultimo area in the province of Bolzano and was given by the municipalities of Lagundo and Val d’Ultimo, located in the northern part of Italy.

The province of Bolzano is known for its extraordinary beauty filled with lakes, forests, mountains, and meadows. After thorough examination, the forest guard service selected the tree.

As is tradition, in addition to the main tree, 40 smaller trees will also be brought to the Vatican and be placed in different offices and buildings of the Holy See. More mature trees are chosen as part of a natural renewal process.

Bishop Ivo Muser of Bolzano-Bressanone explained “the felling of the tree is not an act of disrespect but the result of careful forest management, where tree removal is part of an active care strategy that ensures the health of the forest and control its growth.”

In the area of South Tyrol—where the two cities are located—reforestation is seen as more than a simple project. It is, as the bishop noted, “an established practice and a cornerstone of sustainable forest management, where for every tree felled, new ones are planted, ensuring healthy and resilient forests for future generations.”

Part of this green perspective is that following the close of the Christmas season, essential oils are set to be extracted from the tree’s branches by the Austrian company Wilder Naturprodukte. The remaining wood will be donated to a charitable organization to be repurposed, in keeping with the guiding principles of environmental stewardship.

The Vatican Christmas tree tradition began in 1982 with Pope John Paul II when he received a Christmas tree as a gift from a Polish farmer, who had brought it all the way to Rome. Since then, the offering of the Christmas Tree to the Pope has become an honour, and each year the Vatican accepts a tree donated by a different European country or region.

From December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the Annuarium Pontificium—the Holy See’s official Pontifical Yearbook—is available in a fully digital version, accessible via web browser and mobile app. The new platform offers data on the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, Dioceses, Religious Institutes, and Apostolic Nunciatures. The project was jointly developed by the Secretariat of State and the Dicastery for Communication, and was presented recently to Pope Leo XIV.

Accompanied by Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, Substitute of the Secretariat of State, and Msgr. Lucio Adrián Ruiz, Secretary of the Dicastery for Communication, together with other representatives of the two Dicasteries, Pope Leo effectuated the first login and navigated the platform himself.

“Thank you for this work, which will be of great use for many who work in the service of the Church,” said the Pope to those present at the launch event. He encouraged them “to continue with this spirit of service, so that what is born with care and attention may, in time, become an even greater help.”

Heir to the medieval Liber Pontificalis (the collection of papal biographies), the Pontifical Yearbooktook shape in the mid-twentieth century as an essential reference for anyone needing official information on the Catholic Church throughout the world.

Now that same corpus can be searched online, marking a significant step in updating and modernizing the information tools at the service of the universal Church.

According to a statement from the Secretariat of State, access from any device—via browser or app—overcomes the logistical limits of the printed volume and makes the informational patrimony of the Holy See consultable.

New employment regulations in the Swiss canton of Zurich mean Church employees cannot be dismissed for failing to follow Catholic teaching.

“What has long been guaranteed in civil law now also applies to employment in the church,” the Diocese of Chur said, announcing that the revocation or withholding of the episcopal missio canonica – which confirms compliance with doctrine and moral teaching – will no longer lead to an employee’s automatic dismissal.

In Switzerland, it is not dioceses and parishes that are the legal employers of church workers, but rather church corporations governed by public law. These corporations are democratically organised and cover the area of a canton, which does not correspond with dioceses.

Referring “to the social reality in Switzerland that there is nowadays greater openness to life forms that were previously taboo”, the canton said the new regulations instead require employees to be willing “to respect the Christian character of the institution and to contribute to making it effective in one’s own area of responsibility”.

“Relationships, sexual orientation, and lifestyle, particularly the intimate sphere … are excluded from legal assessment and do not constitute a criterion for employment,” it said. A person’s private life cannot constitute “unsatisfactory behaviour” that is reasonable grounds for dismissal, though Church discipline for priests, deacons and Religious is exempt.

Zurich’s statement said the regulations were agreed in negotiation with Bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain of Chur, whose diocese covers the entire canton.

In November, the Swiss bishops’ conference issued a “status report on the practice in Swiss dioceses with regard to the connection between episcopal authorisation” for pastoral work. While emphasising the “uniqueness of each life situation” and rejecting a “rigid set of rules”, the report did not say that a person’s private life could not be grounds for dismissal.

Five theologians from Lucerne called the report an “abuse of power” and challenged the bishops to change their approach. The reform group “Allianz Gleichwürdig Katholisch” demands the separation of missio from private lives, accusing the bishops of failing “to develop the necessary changes to make the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland a discrimination-free working environment for pastoral workers”.

On December 10 Venezuelan immigration police confiscated and invalidated the passport of Cardinal Baltazar Porras, the archbishop emeritus of Caracas, as he was preparing to travel to Bogotá, Colombia, from Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía. According to the Grand Priory of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in Venezuela, on December 10^th morning the cardinal “was subjected to humiliating treatment” by airport authorities under the government of Nicolas Maduro.

From Bogotá, Porras was scheduled to take a flight to Madrid and then travel to Toledo, where he was going to participate in the solemn ceremony that would invest him as Spiritual Protector of the Order of St. Lazarus in Venezuela. Accompanying the cardinal were Grand Prior José Antonio Rodríguez and his wife, who were allowed to board the plane.

“Immigration police officers unjustly detained His Eminence Cardinal Porras [along with] the Grand Prior with his wife. The cardinal’s Venezuelan passport was confiscated and invalidated, preventing him from boarding his scheduled flight to Bogotá, with a connection to Madrid,” the order explained in a statement.

“Even though His Eminence presented his Vatican City State passport, issued by virtue of his dignity as a cardinal and with the diplomatic prerogatives that correspond to him as a prince of the Catholic Church, he was denied boarding. The cardinal was subjected to humiliating treatment, including a search of his personal belongings and clothing, with the use of drug-sniffing dogs, while his luggage was removed from the plane,” the statement added.

In a statement addressed to the bishops of Venezuela, Cardinal Porras recounted what happened at Simón Bolívar Airport, noting that “the most common experience in this last quarter of a century is to suffer almost constantly, with few exceptions.” Upon reviewing his passport, immigration police told him that he appeared as deceased in the identification system. The cardinal also reported that he was followed even into the restroom by the soldiers who prevented him from traveling.

“We are in the Christmas season. Strength lies in the weakness of the manger, in the fragility of the truth that is built in peace, without violence and without abuse. Hope comes through continuous work for the good of all, especially the excluded,” the archbishop emeritus of Caracas stated.