Catholic News Service

Nicaraguan bishops and clergy were attacked by armed groups aligned with the government July 9 as violence in the Central American country escalated and affected the Catholic Church.

The gap between philanthropic donations and what governments in developing countries can spend on projects to improve the lives of their people is the place where impact investing can make all the difference, said speakers at a Vatican conference.

Encouraging an act of mercy and arguing it would not compromise justice, Nebraska's three Catholic bishops said July 6 they oppose the scheduled execution of death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore.

Hundreds of protesters led by Chicago priest Fr. Michael Pfleger and anti-gun activists filled a major Chicago highway for about an hour July 7 demanding that officials stop gun violence in the city.

As war continues to threaten the Middle East and to undermine the existence of Christian communities there, the international community must do more to bring lasting peace, Pope Francis said.

Nigeria's Catholic bishops criticized the president's lack of action against ethnic Fulani herdsmen who attack farmers and linked his inaction to his religion.

Hearts closed to welcoming migrants and refugees are similar to those of the Pharisees, who would preach sacrifice and following God's law without exercising mercy to those in need, Pope Francis said.

While everyone has a role and responsibility to help safeguard the planet, all governments must uphold commitments agreed upon in the Paris Accord on reducing climate change, Pope Francis said.

French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, an experienced diplomat and head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, died at the age of 75 in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was receiving medical treatment.

Twenty-five years after St. John Paul II visited Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Pope Francis will make the same three-nation visit Sept. 22-25, stopping at a number of the same places as his saint-predecessor.

The Mexican bishops conference congratulated presidential election winner Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who won a landslide victory on an agenda of change and promises to combat corruption and poverty.

Pope Francis has named three new auxiliary bishops for the Chicago archdiocese, Frs. Ronald Hicks, Robert Casey and Mark Bartosic, and he has accepted the resignations of two auxiliary bishops.

Pope Francis has named Archbishop Peter Comensoli as the ninth leader of the Archdiocese of Melbourne. Comensoli, the bishop of Broken Bay, Australia, since 2014, succeeds Archbishop Denis Hart, 77.

In less than 48 hours, a group of Catholic bishops saw the faces of triumph and relief from migrants who had been recently released by immigration authorities, but ended their two-day journey to the border with a more "somber" experience, visiting detained migrant children living temporarily within the walls of a converted Walmart.

A Chaldean Catholic archbishop in Iraq is "delighted" that the United States Agency for International Development is helping Iraq's religious minorities rebuild their lives after attacks by militants.

The visit to a respite center run by Catholic Charities in downtown McAllen, Texas, quickly took the a delegation of U.S. bishops into the heart of the human drama of migration and its human toll.

Led by the president of the bishops' conference, a delegation of prelates from around the country physically stepped into the ground zero of the immigration debate when they arrived near the southern border.

God wants his disciples to bring his mercy and love to everyone, everywhere on earth, which means it may cost them their "good name," comfort and their life, Pope Francis said on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Catholic bishops in Ivory Coast have blamed corruption and urban development for flash floods that destroyed shops and homes and left 20 people dead in the West African country's largest city.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced June 27, the last day of the Supreme Court's current term, that he is retiring July 31.