Catholic News Service

Nigeria's Catholic bishops called on voters to prepare to cast their ballots in upcoming elections by reflecting, fasting and praying on how best the country's future can be served.

"Today we made the painful announcement that seven of our beloved Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York are not going to reopen next fall," Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said.

A judge in Texas ruled Feb. 6 that the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, must allow federal officials to survey some of its property for possible construction of a border wall on it.

An official of the Central African Republic bishops' conference has raised doubts about a new government-rebel peace deal and urged the international community to give greater backing to the country's legitimate armed forces.

To be indifferent to or ignore human trafficking and modern-day slavery would be to become an accomplice to those crimes, Pope Francis said.

That many religions exist in the world is a fact, but what that plurality communicates to believers about God is a question that theologians are still discussing.

The Field Hospital: Over a dozen clergy sexual abuse survivors are in regular contact with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis' Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment. They provide advice for the archdiocese's outreach to other survivors.

Having considered the holiness of St. Paul VI and the influence of his ministry for the church worldwide, Pope Francis has approved putting the saint on the church's universal calendar of feast days.

The sainthood cause of Jesuit Fr. Pedro Arrupe was formally opened in Rome at the Basilica of St. John Lateran Feb. 5, the 28th anniversary of Arrupe's death.

Francis Chronicles: The pope said that the joint document signed by him and Egyptian Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar and chair of the Muslim Council of Elders, was a step forward in promoting dialogue and brotherhood.

Letters from lawyers for Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann were sent to individuals and groups the attorneys think may have defamed or libeled Sandmann particularly in the initial reaction on social media.

On Feb. 2, Santos Gaspar Romero Galdamez, 89, the younger brother of Salvadoran Archbishop St. Oscar Romero, died in San Salvador, El Salvador.

The need to seek justice and reconciliation has become one of the more intriguing concepts not only with personal dealings but on the world stage as well.

Catholic Relief Services cut its services to needy people in the Gaza Strip by closing a U.S. government-funded program because of the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ACTA).

Racism can be ended in the United States, but the past has to be confronted first for that to happen, said a participant in a panel discussion on racism Feb. 3 as part of the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering.

The nation's immigrant population continues to leave a mark in their chosen corners of the United States, just as generations of immigrants before them have.

After accusations of sex abuse, the Vatican has laicized American Richard Daschbach, a former Divine Word missionary who ran orphanages in East Timor for 27 years.

The Catholic Church's process of reconciliation in China is not a "competition or who is right, but of brothers and sisters in the faith," said Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.