Catholic News Service

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that requires public schools to teach classes about child sexual abuse prevention to students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Catholic leaders across the United States reacted with sorrow and "heavy hearts" to a mass shooting in west Texas Aug. 31 that authorities said claimed seven lives and wounded 25 others.

People who race to get top positions often feel superior to others, an attitude that destroys the possibility for fellowship and communion, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis appointed an aide who served as his English interpreter and the former prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication to new posts.

"Now is the time to abandon our dependence on fossil fuels and move, quickly and decisively, toward forms of clean energy," Pope Francis said as he marked the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

Pope Francis has appointed Seattle Coadjutor Archbishop Paul Etienne as the archbishop of Seattle and accepted the resignation of Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

In a step designed to quell ongoing controversies, the Vatican announced the appointment of a vicar for the head of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and Pope Francis conferred on him the personal title of archbishop.

Medical advancements do not help if they treat people as objects or when they are applied only to those people who are not considered a burden and "deserve" to be helped, Pope Francis said.

In 1990, Bessy Jovel traveled across three countries, sometimes on foot, sometimes in cargo trucks, sleeping in stuffy warehouses and banana fields, hungry and sweaty, en route to the border with her mother and almost 3-year-old sibling Johnny.

The 1919 "Bishops' Program for Social Reconstruction" was showcased in this year's Labor Day statement to demonstrate how so many of the issues the bishops touched upon a century ago in the wake of World War I's end still resonate in improving the conditions of workers today.

Catholic bishops in South Sudan praised the recent peace agreement for neighboring Sudan, which has experienced political turmoil since April, when the military ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

The Field Hospital: As the sound of drums, tambourines and Swahili hymns reverberated through St. Andrew's Church, Elizabeth Muturi and fellow parishioners swayed their arms and hips, dancing down the aisle with the Book of Gospels raised behind them.

The Australian government is preparing to introduce the country's first religious freedom laws, but some senior Catholic clerics are concerned they may not go far enough.

The ordination of Bishop Anthony Yao Shun of Jining in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region was the first episcopal ordination in the country following the provisional agreement signed in 2018 between China and the Vatican.

While listening to and obeying God's word brings healing and comfort to those in need, it also can attract disdain and even hatred from others, Pope Francis said.

The bishops of the Archdiocese of Seattle reiterated the Catholic Church's opposition to assisted suicide in response to a news report about a man who used a fatal drug combination to end his own life under Washington state's Death with Dignity Act.

A federal judge temporarily blocked Missouri's ban on abortion on or beyond the eighth week of pregnancy that was to take effect Aug. 28.

Indonesian police have arrested six terrorist suspects, two of whom have been linked to last year's bombings at three churches in Surabaya, the country's second-largest city.

Responding to criticism of notes he published about the roots of the clerical sexual abuse crisis, retired Pope Benedict XVI said the fact that the critiques barely mentioned God proved his point.