Catholic News Service

A bill making its way through the California Legislature would make the state the first since 1999 to require priests to choose between violating the law or violating the seal of the confessional.

Dallas police executed search warrants at three Diocese of Dallas sites May 15, saying that process was an extension of their ongoing investigation of sexual abuse allegations into six current or former priests.

The Field Hospital: Scammers have taken aim at parishioners in the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi. Most parishes impacted sent emails and posted warnings about the scams to social media, but it is hard to tell how many people may have responded before the warnings went out.

By passing a bill to ban abortion in nearly all circumstances, the Alabama Legislature has recognized that abortion is "the extinguishing of a unique human life," said the president and CEO of Americans United for Life.

Pope Francis has named Auxiliary Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Miami as the new bishop of Las Cruces, New Mexico. He is to be installed in Las Cruces July 23.

The Vatican's top diplomat told Chinese state-run media that Vatican-Beijing talks are focused on achieving concrete results for China's Catholics while avoiding differences.

Christians recognize life's great paradox that so much evil and temptation exist in the world, but that God is always present, too, ready to help and give people the strength to persevere, Pope Francis said.

Although the Supreme Court justices chose not to take up two petitions for review submitted by death-row inmates from Alabama and Tennessee May 13, they didn't do so with a simple one-sentence rejection.

Solitary confinement is in widespread use in prisons across the United States and, in New York state alone, more than 3,000 inmates are isolated in 6-by-10 cells for over 23 hours a day.

Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of four men and four women, including Blessed Dulce Lopes Pontes, the "Mother Teresa" of Brazil.

Pope Francis expressed his closeness to and prayers for the victims of a shooting at a Catholic Church in Burkina Faso, which claimed the lives of six people.

Back in Rome less than 24 hours after visiting refugees in camps in Greece, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski turned on some lights and found himself being threatened by Italy's deputy prime minister.

The priesthood is not a "cultural association or a union," but a ministry of mercy anchored on Christ's mission to bring hope to the downtrodden and comfort to those who suffer, Francis told new priests.

Four U.S. bishops, chairmen of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops committees or subcommittees, have signed on to a letter voicing religious freedom concerns with the Equality Act, introduced in the House this year.

A diocese that cares more about being an organized workplace rather than announcing the good news can fall prey to clericalism and distance itself from Christ, Pope Francis said.

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is one of the best of humanitarian efforts helping vulnerable people in the world and it should be praised as a success story, not diminished, said a former Iraqi refugee to the U.S., who joined many others in Washington in early May lobbying lawmakers to increase the number of refugees admitted to the country each year.  

The Australian Catholic Church is looking for more collegial models of governance in Catholic schools, hospitals and charities as it conducts an unprecedented review of existing clerical and hierarchical models that have failed.

Some Quebec bishops have expressed discomfort that the main Quebec organizer for the May 9 National March for Life in Ottawa signed a letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy.

One year ago, the lives of 32 families in this southeast Iowa town of 8,700 people were upended by an immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of 32 men at the concrete plant where they worked.

The Field Hospital: Closed in 2008, Buffalo's St. Gerard Church gives the new Mary Our Queen Church in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, part of its history in art and artifacts.