Catholic News Service

The proposed apostolic constitution for reforming and governing the Roman Curia is expected to emphasize the church's missionary mandate with the creation of a "super-dicastery" merging two offices dedicated to evangelization.

After two students at Columbine High School went on a shooting rampage April 20, 1999, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring two dozen more, then-principal Frank DeAngelis, a lifelong Catholic, began to question his faith, wondering "how could God possibly let this happen?"

The Sri Lankan government blamed little-known Islamic group National Thowheeth Jama'ath for the Easter suicide bombings that targeted three churches and three luxury hotels across the country.

On Easter Monday, Pope Francis led thousands of people in St. Peter's Square in praying for the hundreds of people who died or were injured in bomb blasts the previous day in Sri Lanka.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops termed as "a great evil" the Easter terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka targeting the country's minority Christian community as worshippers packed three churches.

As individuals and as a church, it can be tempting to dwell on mistakes, failures and sins that block the fullness of life, but Easter is the proclamation that the Lord is victorious and his love will triumph, Pope Francis said.

Jesuit Fr. James Schall, who retired in 2012 after a long tenure as a professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington, died April 17. He was 91.

Jesus' gesture of washing his disciples' feet, an act once reserved to servants and slaves, is one that all Christians, especially bishops, must imitate, Pope Francis told hundreds of inmates and prison employees on Holy Thursday.

A man arrested by New York police after he tried to walk through St. Patrick's Cathedral with flammables late April 17 has been charged with attempted arson, reckless endangerment and trespassing.

Rwanda's Catholic bishops apologized for urging the release of some prisoners convicted for roles in the 1994 genocide, saying they realized by the reaction that they had caused much hurt.

Pope Francis' surprise kiss on the feet of South Sudanese political leaders is the message of Easter, the country's Christian leaders said in a joint Easter message.

Just as Jesus always sought to be with the people to serve, teach and heal them, so, too, must priests always be in the midst of God's people, "pouring ourselves out" for them, Pope Francis said.

Darwin Josue Mejía Montoya could have been shot during protests in Nicaragua last year. He also could still be languishing in a detention center in Arizona, after escaping the violence.

After Palm Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mission, over 1,000 parishioners participated in their annual Palm Sunday procession to a nearly century-old Catholic chapel on the U.S.-Mexico border.

A hero emerging from the Notre Dame Cathedral fire April 15 is Fr. Jean-Marc Fournier, chaplain of the Paris Fire Brigade, who is credited with saving a reliquary containing the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament from the burning cathedral.

The 10th bishop of the Diocese of Burlington has opened a cause for canonization for the first bishop of the statewide diocese.

The glory of God is not manifested with fanfare and applause but displayed through the love of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, Pope Francis said.

In an April 12 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, the CEO of the Knights of Columbus said that "Christian towns in Iraq increasingly look neither Christian nor Iraqi — but Iranian."

The president of France and the archbishop of Paris have vowed to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire, continuing what a professor of architecture described as the natural lifecycle of a historic building.

Church leaders joined government officials in saying they expect that Notre Dame Cathedral's grandeur will be restored as firefighters extinguished the last flames of a fast-moving blaze that seriously damaged much of the iconic structure.