Catholic News Service

The state of Nebraska Aug. 14 executed its first death-row prisoner in 21 years, convicted murderer Cary Dean Moore, who was pronounced dead at 10:47 a.m. (CDT) at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln.

The Field Hospital: Eighteen volunteers from St. Francis Builds, a program based in St. Camillus Catholic Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, recently demonstrated its continued commitment in Latin America.

Retired Bishop Charles Grahmann of Dallas died Aug. 14 at St. Luke Baptist Hospital in San Antonio during surgery. He was 87.

Pope Francis has named a Venezuelan veteran of the Vatican diplomatic corps to be the third-ranking official in the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Mary's assumption into heaven was a special sign of God's favor, but it also indicates God's desire to save all people, body and soul, Pope Francis said.

The Rwandan Catholic bishops' conference urged the government of President Paul Kagame to preserve religious rights after government officials closed thousands of churches and mosques.

An Australian judge approved home detention for Archbishop Philip Wilson, the retired archbishop of Adelaide who was found guilty of failing to report child sexual abuse allegations in the 1970s.

In a June 2015 letter to Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley obtained by Catholic News Service, a New York priest tells the prelate about allegations he had heard concerning then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and asks that if the matter doesn't fall under his purview, to forward it to the Vatican.

The "appalling sexual abuse" of children as young as 7 was covered up in two leading Benedictine-run schools in England to protect the reputations of predatory monks, a government-backed investigation concluded.

Members of the Catholic Church sin and give scandal, it's true, Pope Francis said, but it is up to each Catholic to live the faith as authentically as possible and witness to the world the love of Jesus.

"Tonight's execution of Billy Ray Irick was unnecessary. It served no useful purpose," Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville and Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville said in a statement after Irick was executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute in Nashville.

A group of young Catholics has urged the U.S. bishops to "take clear action" by conducting an independent investigation of who knew what and when about actions by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who has been accused of sexual abuse.

The Diocese of Greensburg unveiled Aug. 9 a document about safeguards and procedures in place to protect children, as the state of Pennsylvania gets ready to release a grand jury report about past claims of sexual abuse of children involving hundreds of priests and other church workers at six of the state's eight dioceses. 

A Jesuit priest who has been on the frontline of advocating for survivors of clerical sexual abuse said the crisis unfolding, again, in the United States is a summons to a new way of envisioning the church and taking responsibility for it.

An initiative to identify and properly treat children living with HIV has gained new momentum as international organizations and pharmaceutical companies respond to a Vatican push to look past profit to doing the right thing.

Following a 15-hour debate, the Argentine Senate voted 38-31 against a bill that would have decriminalized abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

A last-minute round of legal maneuvering to keep some names from appearing in a grand jury report detailing a months-long investigation of clergy sex abuse claims in six Pennsylvania dioceses may have kept the document from being made public Aug. 8 -- the earliest date given for its possible release.

A top Vatican official urged young people at a local World Youth Day gathering to protect the planet and actively live the teachings of Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment.

Like the ancient Israelites, Christians today also can fall into the temptation of creating their own idols when difficulties and uncertainties arise, Pope Francis said.

A judge has postponed a mid-August trial for a priest accused of embezzling more than $5 million from a parish in Okemos, in central Michigan, part of the Diocese of Lansing.