Catholic News Service

Poverty is the result of people's selfishness; it is not "fate" or the fault of the poor, Pope Francis said.

The papal mission to Afghanistan faces an uncertain future as foreign military forces, led by the United States, carry out a gradual withdrawal from the strife-torn nation, the priest who leads the mission said.

The controversial Kaliwa Dam project has been plagued by accusations of corruption and of failure to gain the consent of local Indigenous communities.

The days are long for Martha Hennessy as she waits in a Manchester, New Hampshire, halfway house to hear from federal prison authorities about how soon freedom will come.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said that following Pope Francis' refusal to accept his resignation over the church's handling of the clerical sexual abuse crisis, he would "not simply return to business as usual."

The Vatican bank showed a net profit of 36.4 million euros ($44.1 million) in 2020. Compared to a net profit of 38 million euros ($46 million) the previous year, "this is a very significant result" considering the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, wrote Cardinal Santos Abril Castelló.

Seminarians can learn more from the way their bishops, rectors, spiritual directors and formators live than from what they say, Pope Francis said.

To protect the members of Catholic lay movements from possible abuse by leaders, the Vatican has imposed term limits on leadership and ordered the groups to ensure all members have a voice in choosing their leaders.

The world cannot recover from the health and economic crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and tackle climate change without debt relief for the world's poorest countries, said the secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis.

A delegation of Indigenous people from Canada will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican before the end of the year, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said.

Catholic media have the important task of presenting news truthfully and in light of the Gospel values taught by the church, Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington told Catholic media professionals June 9.

Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, in the kickoff session to the 2021 Catholic Media Conference, said that with "the Gospel of hope," Catholic communicators should be able to "communicate with hope and to communicate hope in the face of trying times."

To bring God's love to families, he explained, the church needs the help of families themselves and "their concrete experience of life and communion."

A Vatican official asked a group of bishops gathered at Mundelein Seminary June 2 to think of migrants, whether they arrive for the short or long term, as "parishioners" and organize pastoral plans to tend to them.  

A national Catholic group of over 50 religious and nonprofit organizations is urging President Joe Biden to address global COVID-19 vaccine access during the upcoming G7 summit.

Precious Blood Fr. Robert Schreiter, a world-renowned scholar and member of the faculty of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago since 1974, died June 1 at his home in Chicago at age 73. He had been in failing health.

As he did before naming a new prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, Pope Francis has asked a bishop to conduct an official visit of the Congregation for Clergy.

Several priests, some of whom were former students at a minor seminary located in the Vatican, testified at the ongoing trial of Fr. Gabriele Martinelli, who is accused of sexually abusing a younger student at the St. Pius X Pre-Seminary.

A June 7 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that hundreds of thousands of immigrants with a temporary immigration status cannot apply for a more permanent way to remain in the country if they first entered without authority to do so.

Military fire hit Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in the village of Doungankha the morning of June 6. Church leaders said there were no casualties as people had fled to relatives' homes and into the jungle, ucanews.com reported.