Associated Press

Parents of children enrolled in Maine religious schools fought for years — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — for the state to treat tuition reimbursements the same as other private schools, but only one of the religious high schools that stood to benefit has signed up to participate this fall.

The Lower Jordan River's decline, exacerbated by climate change, is intertwined with the entanglements of the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict and rivalry over precious water in a valley where so much is contested.

Pope Francis voiced worry on August 21 about the situation in Nicaragua, where police detained several Roman Catholic clergy, including a bishop, critical of President Daniel Ortega’s administration.

Pope Francis has taken another step to rehabilitate Cardinal Angelo Becciu, inviting the once-powerful Vatican prelate to participate in an upcoming meeting of cardinals two years after Francis forced his resignation based on purported financial improprieties.

Pope Francis has met with a fourth group of transgender people who found shelter at a Rome church, the Vatican newspaper reported on Aug. 11.

A Vatican cardinal marked the 80th anniversary on Aug. 9 of the gas chamber killing of the Jewish-born Catholic convert Edith Stein by celebrating a Mass near the former Auschwitz death camp and telling the story of his own family's Jewish origins and their fate under the Nazis.

The Archbishop of Lisbon met Aug. 5 with Pope Francis in a private audience at the Vatican to discuss "events in recent weeks that have marked the life of the Church in Portugal," the Portuguese church said.

Pope Francis has promoted a Vatican nurse whom he credited with saving his life to be his “personal health care assistant.”

Kansas voters on Aug. 2 sent a resounding message about their desire to protect abortion rights, rejecting a ballot measure in a conservative state with deep ties to the anti-abortion movement that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright.

A former parishioner at a Massachusetts church has filed a lawsuit alleging he was sexually abused as a child more than 30 years ago by a Roman Catholic priest who is now an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador said July 31 that most people support a months-long state of emergency that has rounded of tens of thousands of suspects in a crackdown on violent street gangs.

It was a stunning image: Pope Francis briefly wearing a full Indigenous headdress, its rows of soft white feathers fastened in place by a colorful, beaded headband after he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's "disastrous" residential school system for Indigenous children.

Pope Francis on July 17 asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called his "penitential" pilgrimage to Canada to apologize to Indigenous groups for abuses inflicted by the Catholic church.

The father of a deceased former choirboy filed a lawsuit against Cardinal George Pell and the Catholic Church in an Australian court on Thursday claiming the parent suffered psychological injury over an accusation that the once-senior Vatican official sexually abused the son.

In Dobbs, five justices voted to overturn Roe — Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. A sixth, Chief Justice John Roberts, balked at overturning Roe but voted to uphold the Mississippi abortion restrictions in question. All six were raised Catholic.

The Vatican said July 1 it had finalized the sale of a London property that is the focus of a criminal trial in the Vatican courts, offloading the former Harrods warehouse for 186 million pounds ($223 million).

The Supreme Court on June 27 sided with a football coach from Washington state who sought to kneel and pray on the field after games.

Pope Francis has ordered the online publication of 170 volumes of its Jewish files from the recently opened Pope Pius XII archives, the Vatican announced June 23, amid renewed debate about the legacy of its World War II-era pope.

The Vatican on June 23 released the itinerary for Pope Francis' July 24-30 visit to Canada, providing a sign he intends to go ahead with the trip despite knee problems that forced him to cancel a similarly difficult visit to Africa.

The Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly June 14 to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms in the nation's largest Protestant denomination.