Catholic News Service

Pope Francis has given formal approval to a series of updates and modifications that have been made over the years to the norms regarding clerical sexual abuse.

The Swiss bishops' conference and the nation's conference of religious orders have commissioned an independent study of sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church.

Celebrating Mass Dec. 5 in Athens' Megaron concert hall, Pope Francis spoke of the blessing and spiritual advantage of being a small community without power and without pretenses.

In front of the White House, a large group of women religious and their supporters shouted just a few feet way from the president's residence Dec. 3, calling him to end a Trump-era policy that keeps migrants out.

The Build Back Better Act's plan to expand affordable child care and ensure that quality prekindergarten is available to all families "is a worthy goal," but "will suppress, if not exclude" many faith-based providers from participating.

Archbishop Aldo Giordano, appointed earlier this year as apostolic nuncio to the European Union, died Dec. 2 in Leuven, Belgium, where he had been hospitalized for COVID-19.

In one hour gathered in a room with Pope Francis, 13 Assembly of First Nations delegates plan to lay down heavy burdens and raise up the hope of nations.

In a meeting with Archbishop Chrysostomos II, head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, Pope Francis assured him that "your sorrows and your joys are also ours."

A day after a tragic shooting claimed the lives of four Oxford High School students and forever changed the lives of countless others, community members were picking up the pieces.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris, after an article in the Le Point weekly claimed he mismanaged his archdiocese and had an affair with a woman while he was vicar general. The pope also named retired Archbishop Georges Pontier to temporarily lead the archdiocese as the apostolic administrator.

In the oral arguments for the U.S. Supreme Court's first major abortion case in decades -- which looked at Mississippi's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy -- the majority of justices on Dec. 1 seemed willing to let that ban stay in place.

St. Joseph teaches people to learn to take life as it comes and to accept what God has in mind, Pope Francis said.

Myanmar's military continues to target churches in predominantly Christian regions in the Buddhist-majority country, ignoring appeals by the Catholic Church and world leaders.

The unanimous decision by the appellate court's panel allows the initial lawsuit filed by the teacher, who was fired from a Catholic school, to move forward.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians must increasingly work together where they can, Pope Francis told Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

Exactly one year after he was made a cardinal by Pope Francis, Cardinal Gregory was again presiding at Mass.

Concerned at the slow pace of adopting his reforms of the marriage annulment process, Pope Francis has established a Vatican commission to encourage and verify progress in the dioceses of Italy.

Pope Francis expressed his ongoing concern for the political and economic turmoil Lebanon is experiencing and his conviction that Lebanon has a special role to play in the Middle East.