Catholic News Service

The combination of concern over government response to COVID-19 and the economic collapse brought about by the pandemic with the national reckoning over racism following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis has found Catholics sharing in a public mood that has decidedly soured on politics, according to a panel of speakers.

Pope Francis said he was saddened after a Turkish court ruled to revert the iconic Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque.

Nearly every bishop responding to a survey said the coronavirus pandemic has seriously affected the celebration of the sacraments and rites and sacramental preparation programs in their dioceses.

U.S. Catholic college and university leaders have joined the nation's higher education community in condemning a new policy announced by the Trump administration that would prevent international students from remaining in or coming to the United States if their colleges use a completely online format in the fall semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal death-row inmate Dustin Lee Honken was convicted of "heinous" crimes but killing him "will do nothing to restore justice or heal those still burdened by these crimes," Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin said in a July 9 letter to President Donald Trump.

Twenty schools in the Archdiocese of New York will not reopen in the fall because of the financial fallout caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

A former Salvadoran army officer has testified that the "high command" gave orders to eliminate Jesuits priests during the country's civil war. He also said the Central American country's president would have known of the crimes to be committed and did not intervene.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI followed the funeral of his brother, Georg Ratzinger, via livestreaming, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.

Decrying the unimaginable "hell" migrants experience in detention centers, Pope Francis urged all Christians to examine how they do or don't help — as Jesus commanded — the people God has placed in their path.

Without immediate action from the international community, Christians in northern Iraq could be endangered with extinction, warns a new report from the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need.

In a 7-2 ruling July 8, the Supreme Court said the California Catholic schools sued for job discrimination for firing teachers had acted within their rights in the recent firings.

Over 1,000 religious leaders have signed a joint statement urging President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr to stop the executions scheduled to take place in July and August at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

President Donald Trump is expected to refile paperwork during the second week of July to end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, following the Supreme Court ruling that his administration went about trying to end the program the wrong way.

Human health, peace, security and progress would be better served with a complete end to the production of weapons worldwide, said members of a Vatican task force.

More than 100 bishops from around the world have signed on to a statement seeking mandatory due diligence laws and regulations in the international supply chain.

A grand jury indicted a Catholic priest on federal charges involving child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children.

Pope Francis praised the United Nations' adoption of a global cease-fire resolution amid the coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world.

The Vatican's financial watchdog agency has expanded its reach of cooperation, and it plans on continuing to increase its staff to better fulfill its mandate.

Documents uncovered from the recently opened archives of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII revealed allegations of sexual abuse and abuse of power against the founder of the Schonstatt movement, Fr. Joseph Kentenich.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, met with the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors to the Vatican to express concern that "possible unilateral actions" on their part would further jeopardize peace in the region.