Catholic News Service

As the U.S. bishops were beginning their fall assembly in Baltimore, also marking their 100th anniversary as a conference, a couple of nonviolent protesters gathered nearby.

Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, told his fellow bishops Nov. 13 that more than 100 U.S. dioceses have participated in the "Share the Journey" campaign.

Acknowledging wide divisions in the country over many issues, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for civility to return to the public debate.

There are three things bishops must always keep in mind as they exercise their episcopal ministry, according to Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's nuncio to the United States.

Global problems associated with climate change demand global cooperation, Pope Francis told a group of heads of state from the Pacific Islands.

The mission of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is as timely now as 100 years ago when the conference was founded, says Vatican secretary of state.

Marriage and family life are blessings, but Catholic couples must be helped to face difficult choices prayerfully and in the light of their consciences, Pope Francis said.

Two bishops have called on the House of Representatives to provide $10 million to fund the United Nations' work on climate change.

A survey of more than 4,000 Catholic campus ministers and students at U.S. colleges, commissioned by the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Catholic Education, showed that both the ministers and the students generally like what's happening in their campus ministry setting.

Calling racism the country's "national disease" and "our greatest injustice," Catholic speakers at an annual gathering of young adults asked the group to call out injustice.

Pope Francis sent a handwritten letter to a Colombian soldier who lost his sight during the country's civil war. 

Pope Francis will celebrate the Catholic Church's first World Day of the Poor Nov. 19 by celebrating a morning Mass with people in need and those who assist them. After Mass, he will offer lunch to 500 people in the Vatican audience hall.

A capacity crowd listened to a former captive of the Islamic State, U.N. ambassadors and leaders of aid organizations at a conference organized by the Vatican.

Kenyan Catholic bishops have announced plans to convene a national dialogue forum in the face of a political crisis, which they say has left the country's ordinary people on the brink of despair.

The Vatican announced Nov. 9 that Pope Francis has recognized that Pope John Paul I, who served only 33 days as pope, lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way.

A Catholic official in Bangladesh said government officials ought to apologize to India after a Bangladeshi man was convicted of raping a 71-year-old nun in India two years ago.

The Mass is not a show, but a beautiful, transformative encounter with the true loving presence of Christ, Pope Francis said.

For decades during the Great Depression and afterward, Capuchin Franciscan Fr. Solanus Casey was the "go-to" guy for those who were sick, poor, afflicted or discouraged in their faith.

The nation's leaders "must engage in a real debate about needed measures to save lives and make our communities safer," said the chairman of the U.S. bishops' domestic policy committee.

The Philippine bishops' conference started a prayer vigil to protest thousands of killings in the government drive to eradicate drug abuse and drug dealing.