Giovanna Dell'orto

Pope Leo XIV locked eyes with the 7-year-old boy, holding both his hands as the two smiled at one another. Captured by Associated Press chief photographer Emilio Morenatti, the moment resonated first with onlookers and then with many others around the world.

Church leaders and some experts see the success of youth movements and the surge in adult baptisms as signs that some young people are showing new interest in the church, while also challenging it to embrace a more inclusive message.

Over the past five years at the U.S.-Mexico border, Jesuit Fr. Brian Strassburger has gone from ministering to throngs of asylum-seekers in overcrowded shelters to celebrating Mass with detained and deported migrants.

The long-held practice of faith leaders ministering to detained migrants has become far more contentious — and consequential — as detention numbers soar across the United States during the federal government's immigration crackdown.

Two American cardinals and the Vatican's ambassador to the U.S. denounced the mass deportations in Minnesota under the federal government's immigration crackdown, but they urged everyone to repair strained relations and work together toward humane solutions.

The Lenten period for penance started this week with Ash Wednesday, and some Catholic priests are happily bracing for long lines outside the confessional. The faithful across the United States are embracing anew the sacrament that has shifted from embarrassing recitation of sin to cathartic quest for grace.

The Catholic archbishop of Miami, who ministers to the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S., said there is an anxiousness about what is next, but he believes the church has a key role to play in helping the Catholic-majority country move forward.

For faith leaders supporting and ministering to anxious immigrants across the United States, 2025 was fraught with challenges and setbacks. For many in these religious circles, the coming year could be worse.

With peak holiday travel starting just after the government shutdown's flight restrictions, hope for a moment of peace at an airport can feel like a wing and a prayer. But quiet and worship are just what airport chapels have provided for decades to travelers and to the airport workers that many were originally designed for.

The Gospel says Jesus spent the last night before being crucified at the Mount of Olives and the Gethsemane garden. Come October, monks and nuns are busy harvesting olives there as a form of prayer and reverence.

Faith leaders across the U.S. are hoping a bipartisan bill in Congress might finally provide relief to an immigration issue that has been vexing them for more than two years.

From the Pilgrims' Madonna at the Basilica of St. Augustine to the Martyrdom of St. Ursula that closes the "Caravaggio 2025" exhibit, art historians and clergy are highlighting the connections between religious belief and Caravaggio's "chiaroscuro."

More than 200 religious figures from Nicaragua are in exile, making it difficult to hold Mass or hear confessions in the country, especially in small villages.

For more than 50 years, Spyridon Denaxas has prayed, worked and welcomed the faithful in an island monastery carved into a seaside cliff that's little changed since its founding more than a millennium ago.

Since the early days of the faith, many Catholics have prayed for intercession to saints’ relics — but their sale is strictly forbidden.

Packed pews, rollicking singing and emotional devotions have marked Lent worship services at Notre Dame d'Haiti, the Catholic church at the heart of the largest Haitian diaspora in the United States.

Some clutched rosaries, others took selfies or touched the protective glass in front of the seemingly sleeping young man, who died of leukemia at 15 in 2006 and is generating a devotion that astonishes even Assisi's bishop.

Doctors said it would take a day or two to evaluate how and if an alarming Friday afternoon episode impacted Francis’ overall clinical condition. His prognosis remained guarded, meaning he wasn’t out of danger.

Just days before the start of a U.S. administration that’s promised a swift immigration crackdown, hundreds of Guatemalan faithful in Minnesota turned with hope and pride to the statue of the crucified Jesus, an elaborately carved replica of the most venerated image in their tropical homeland. 

Border Patrol agents are tasked with enforcing hotly contested immigration policies as many Americans at both ends of the political spectrum look askance at the border — and the agents. That's taking a mounting toll, so the agency is training more among its ranks to become chaplains and provide spiritual care for their fellow agents on and off the job.