Catholic News Service

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced July 9 it would not detain, arrest or take into custody pregnant or nursing migrants for violating immigration laws except in exceptional circumstances.

New minister general of worldwide order has served on the 'peripheries,' among migrants, jobless, homeless.

"The tragic loss of more than half a million lives is aggravated by accusations of malfeasance and corruption," prelates say of pandemic.

The Christian Liberation Movement in Cuba has called on people to continue to pressure communist authorities to hold a general election. The country has seen demonstrations in its major cities joined by thousands of people to protest the unprecedented scarcity of essentials and the rising death toll caused by COVID-19.

Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, retired archbishop of Kinshasa, died July 11 near Paris where he had been rushed for medical care. Monsengwo was one of the original members of Pope Francis' Council of Cardinals.

Vatican has not confirmed Pope Francis' attendance at COP26, but he and other faith leaders are preparing for global conference.

Faith groups that work with immigrants are applauding a decision by the U.S. government to extend immigration protections for nationals from Yemen whose citizens find themselves dealing with war and famine, as well as the coronavirus pandemic.

During a July 7 teleconference call organized by Welcome with Dignity, a coalition of groups that support migrants, speakers worried that only families will soon be exempt from the policy known as Title 42.

Pope Francis, Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury and the Rev. Jim Wallace, moderator of the Church of Scotland, marked the 10th anniversary of South Sudan's independence and promised to visit the country when it has a stable peace.

The Vatican's indictments of Cardinal Angelo Becciu and nine others may prove to be a litmus test for Pope Francis' efforts to reform the Vatican's finances, which have been marred by scandals over decades.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines elected Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Caloocan as its new president July 8. He will begin his two-year term as head of the conference Dec. 1.

The South Korean archbishop who was recently appointed prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy said that while a papal visit to North Korea seems very unlikely, it could be just the outside intervention needed to overcome the stalemate dividing the Korean Peninsula.

Bishop Douglas Lucia, whose downtown Syracuse office sits on the ancestral lands of the Onondaga Nation, hopes to meet with Pope Francis "to re-examine" 15th-century Vatican documents that justified colonization, land takeovers and oppression of Indigenous peoples.

Condemning the "heinous assassination" of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, Pope Francis urged the people of Haiti to shun violence and make a commitment to dialogue and solidarity as the path to a better future.

Pope Francis has chosen Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, a Jesuit, to serve as relator general of the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Mexico's bishops have expressed dismay with a Supreme Court decision to declare "unconstitutional" laws prohibiting the use of recreational marijuana.

As a worldwide religious order, Franciscan friars need to find new and better ways to welcome the diversity of their members and allow it to challenge the ways they live the Gospel in the world, said Fr. Michael Perry, the order's minister general.

The organization of the universal Catholic Church has a precise hierarchy, but there is no such thing as a "vice pope," who steps in when the reigning pontiff is traveling abroad, ill or under anesthesia.

The day after issuing its final opinions for the current term, the Supreme Court announced it was taking up one religious rights case and rejecting another for its next term. Both cases sound somewhat familiar based on previous court rulings.

Nearly 400 religious leaders have signed on as public supporters of a statement calling for passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, currently pending in Congress. Known as the PRO Act, the bill proposes the most significant overhaul of labor law in decades.