In 1816, near the starving and ruined city of Salzburg, Austria, a 24-year-old priest named Joseph Mohr suffered, along with his parishioners, in the wreckage of the Napoleonic Wars.
Cydney Wallace, a Black Jewish community activist, never felt compelled to travel to Israel, though "Next year in Jerusalem" was a constant refrain at her Chicago synagogue.
The Catholic church, in its doctrine, still rejects same-sex marriage and condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as "intrinsically disordered." Yet Pope Francis, during his nearly 11-year papacy, has done far more than any previous pope to make the church a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people.