Catholic News Service

The poorest of Jordan's 10 camps for Palestinian refugees would seem to be the unlikeliest place from which to launch an international business, but SEP Jordan is no usual enterprise.

Chilean bishops said that while they support legislation requiring priests and religious authorities to report crimes, they also fear that an update to the country's current law would force clergy to break the sacramental seal of confession.

Reading the Bible and praying with it is "the best vaccine" against Catholic communities closing in on themselves or focusing only on self-preservation, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis has named Bishop Donald Hying of Gary, Indiana, as the new bishop of Madison, Wisconsin.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has published an additional 23 names of priests who had been accused of child sexual abuse after they were deceased.

After a court ruled in his favor, Peruvian Archbishop José Eguren Anselmi of Piura unexpectedly withdrew his defamation suit against a journalist who accused him of knowing about abuses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that the city of Philadelphia can bar Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from placing children in foster care with any family because the agency upholds traditional marriage.

In a unanimous ruling April 19, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the long-standing requirement of the House of Representatives that it open each day it is in session with a prayer.

More than 90% of Catholics said they believe that Catholic organizations should invest church funds in ways that are consistent with church teaching and values, according to results of a new survey.

The scales of justice cannot solve everything, especially when it comes to stopping a cycle of evil vengeance, Pope Francis said.

Wheeling Jesuit University will end its Jesuit affiliation at the end of the current academic year.

During April 23 oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the majority of justices seemed in favor of an added question about U.S. citizenship on the 2020 census questionnaire.

Preservation of the family, marriage and the unborn were the main themes of the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Washington April 23.

The proposed apostolic constitution for reforming and governing the Roman Curia is expected to emphasize the church's missionary mandate with the creation of a "super-dicastery" merging two offices dedicated to evangelization.

After two students at Columbine High School went on a shooting rampage April 20, 1999, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring two dozen more, then-principal Frank DeAngelis, a lifelong Catholic, began to question his faith, wondering "how could God possibly let this happen?"

The Sri Lankan government blamed little-known Islamic group National Thowheeth Jama'ath for the Easter suicide bombings that targeted three churches and three luxury hotels across the country.

On Easter Monday, Pope Francis led thousands of people in St. Peter's Square in praying for the hundreds of people who died or were injured in bomb blasts the previous day in Sri Lanka.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops termed as "a great evil" the Easter terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka targeting the country's minority Christian community as worshippers packed three churches.

As individuals and as a church, it can be tempting to dwell on mistakes, failures and sins that block the fullness of life, but Easter is the proclamation that the Lord is victorious and his love will triumph, Pope Francis said.

Jesuit Fr. James Schall, who retired in 2012 after a long tenure as a professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington, died April 17. He was 91.