Catholic News Service

A senior Vatican official has hinted there is an unofficial agreement between the Holy See and Beijing on the appointment of bishops, even as negotiations to formalize arrangements continue to hit roadblocks, reported ucanews.com.

The Vatican has appointed an apostolic visitor to investigate claims by Indonesian priests that their bishop had a mistress and misappropriated church funds.

Francis Chronicles: God did not choose perfect people to form his church, but rather sinners who have experienced his love and forgiveness, Pope Francis said.

After hearing about the plight of a cancer-stricken child whose mother was facing imminent deportation, Texas Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso decided to pay the pair a visit at the hospital.

Washington: Saying the possession, upgrading and potential use of nuclear weapons was sinful, peacemakers gathered outside the White House on the feast of the Transfiguration.

Pope Francis has given a Belgian religious order until the end of August to stop offering euthanasia to psychiatric patients.

Lawrence A. Pezzullo, a career diplomat who became the first layman to head Catholic Relief Services, died at his home in Baltimore July 26. He was 91.

After years in exile from the church they had called home for the past 95 years, the American Catholic community in Rome moved to a new church they can finally call their own.

The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program gives recipients a temporary reprieve from deportation and employment authorization in the United States — as long as the applicant meets certain criteria.

Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, whom Pope Francis described as one of the Archdiocese of Milan's "most illustrious sons and one of its most loving and beloved pastors," died Aug. 5 at the age of 83. The former archbishop of Milan and prolific writer on themes related to family life and to bioethical issues was described by Italian media as being "small in stature, but big in heart."

With tensions still high in the Old City following weeks of violence, Fr. Firas Aridah completed his work at the Latin Patriarchate early so he could leave Jerusalem for his West Bank parish before any possible violence began."There were many (Israeli) police and soldiers, closing many roads," Aridah told Catholic News Service in a phone interview once he was back in Jifna's St. Joseph Parish July 28.

The Vatican urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro "to suspend ongoing initiatives such as the new Constituent Assembly, which, rather than fostering reconciliation and peace, encourages a climate of tension and confrontation and mortgages the future," said a statement released Aug. 4 by the Vatican Secretariat of State.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called on President Donald Trump to ease the "onerous" contraceptive mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services under the Affordable Care Act because it violates religious freedom.

The remains of Fr. Solanus Casey were exhumed Aug. 1 as part of the canonical process that precedes the saintly Capuchin Franciscan friar's beatification Mass in November. The purpose of the exhumation, according to the Capuchin Province of St. Joseph and the Archdiocese of Detroit, was to both officially identify the body and to collect relics that will be used to venerate Casey after he is beatified Nov. 18.

For more than 900 years, the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta has seen its fair share of victories, defeats and institutional changes. However, those challenges did not prepare them for the intense media scrutiny that followed a very public crisis in the order at the beginning of the year.

A heat wave in Israel and the Palestinian territories in July and near-record electricity usage — where it was available — are indications that, despite the continuous political tensions here, Christians, Muslims and Jews are facing a common enemy that needs to be confronted in a united manner.