Catholic News Service

Although the Supreme Court justices chose not to take up two petitions for review submitted by death-row inmates from Alabama and Tennessee May 13, they didn't do so with a simple one-sentence rejection.

Solitary confinement is in widespread use in prisons across the United States and, in New York state alone, more than 3,000 inmates are isolated in 6-by-10 cells for over 23 hours a day.

Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of four men and four women, including Blessed Dulce Lopes Pontes, the "Mother Teresa" of Brazil.

Pope Francis expressed his closeness to and prayers for the victims of a shooting at a Catholic Church in Burkina Faso, which claimed the lives of six people.

Back in Rome less than 24 hours after visiting refugees in camps in Greece, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski turned on some lights and found himself being threatened by Italy's deputy prime minister.

The priesthood is not a "cultural association or a union," but a ministry of mercy anchored on Christ's mission to bring hope to the downtrodden and comfort to those who suffer, Francis told new priests.

Four U.S. bishops, chairmen of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops committees or subcommittees, have signed on to a letter voicing religious freedom concerns with the Equality Act, introduced in the House this year.

A diocese that cares more about being an organized workplace rather than announcing the good news can fall prey to clericalism and distance itself from Christ, Pope Francis said.

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is one of the best of humanitarian efforts helping vulnerable people in the world and it should be praised as a success story, not diminished, said a former Iraqi refugee to the U.S., who joined many others in Washington in early May lobbying lawmakers to increase the number of refugees admitted to the country each year.  

The Australian Catholic Church is looking for more collegial models of governance in Catholic schools, hospitals and charities as it conducts an unprecedented review of existing clerical and hierarchical models that have failed.

Some Quebec bishops have expressed discomfort that the main Quebec organizer for the May 9 National March for Life in Ottawa signed a letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy.

One year ago, the lives of 32 families in this southeast Iowa town of 8,700 people were upended by an immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of 32 men at the concrete plant where they worked.

The Field Hospital: Closed in 2008, Buffalo's St. Gerard Church gives the new Mary Our Queen Church in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, part of its history in art and artifacts.

Catholic leaders are calling for prayer and action in response to the May 7 school shooting inside a charter school near Denver. One teenager died and eight other students were wounded.

Pakistani authorities freed Asia Bibi, a Catholic woman acquitted of blasphemy, and she has flown to Canada to join her family at a secret address.

Missouri Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City came face to face with a victim of sexual abuse long before he was a bishop, when a friend in college confided in him about a rape.

Visiting the small Catholic communities in Bulgaria and North Macedonia offered an opportunity to encourage the faithful to remember God's miracle of being able to feed a multitude with just a few loaves and fishes, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis told reporters May 7 he had been kept informed about Jean Vanier's failing health and had phoned him a week before his death.

The Mexican bishops' conference has appealed for assistance for thousands of migrants stuck in Chiapas state as Mexican officials step up enforcement and stop issuing travel documents.

Jean Vanier, 90, founder of L'Arche communities and co-founder of Faith and Light, died May 7. Vanier had been suffering from cancer and was assisted at a L'Arche facility in Paris.