The Associated Press

Pope Francis insisted July 1 that Lebanon must remain a "land of tolerance and pluralism" as he welcomed the country's Christian patriarchs to the Vatican.

A Canadian Indigenous group said a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site near a former Catholic Church-run residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their families.

The organization overseeing Catholic schools in the United States gets a new chief executive this week as it seeks to rebound from its biggest one-year enrollment drop since the 1970s.

In its latest report on the sexual abuse of minors, Poland’s Catholic Church says 292 clergymen allegedly abused 368 boys and girls from 2018 though 2020.

Pope Francis on June 28 voiced affection for the American people as he met at length with the U.S. secretary of state, the Vatican said, without indicating whether the two discussed the sharp divide among U.S. bishops over giving Holy Communion to politicians supporting abortion rights like President Joe Biden.

The Vatican's embassy in Poland says a Holy See envoy spent 10 days in the country checking reports of negligence by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who once served as personal secretary to the late Pope John Paul II.

The Vatican's Secretary of State attempted to tamp down controversy June 24 over a Vatican diplomatic communication to Italy, saying the Holy See was not trying to block passage of a law that would extend additional protections from discrimination to the LGBT community.

Poland’s state commission for fighting sex abuse of minors said June 24 it has asked the Vatican for data on abuse by the clergy in Poland because Poland’s church is not providing the requested information.

Roman Catholic priests sexually abused minors across Iowa for decades while church leaders covered it up, but reforms implemented in recent years have largely stopped the problem, a three-year review by Iowa’s attorney general concluded.

Premier Mario Draghi defended the independence of Italy’s parliament on June 23 in the face of formal objections by the Vatican to a proposed law that would extend additional discrimination protections to the LGBT community.

The Vatican has formally opposed a proposed Italian law expanding anti-discrimination protections to the LGBT community, a leading Italian newspaper reported Tuesday. Activists immediately denounced the move as "unprecedented" Vatican meddling in Italy's legislative process.

Justice Samuel Alito called it a "wisp" of a decision — a Supreme Court ruling June 17 that favored Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia but was far from the constitutional gale wind that would have reshaped how courts interpret religious liberty under the First Amendment.

Robert Schuman, a French statesman who paved the way for the bloc that eventually evolved into European Union, has moved ahead on the Catholic Church's path toward possible sainthood.

Pope Francis on June 20 decried the suffering of refugees in Myanmar and pleaded that houses of worship be respected as neutral places to take shelter.

The Supreme Court on June 17 unanimously sided with a Catholic foster care agency that says its religious views prevent it from working with same-sex couples as foster parents. The justices said the city of Philadelphia wrongly limited its relationship with the group as a result of the agency's policy.

A Rome court has strongly backed Vatican prosecutors in their pursuit of an Italian businessman accused of bilking the Holy See of millions of euros in a London real estate deal, saying he used bad-faith negotiations, last-minute contractual changes and a web of accomplices.

Nicaraguan police have arrested another opposition politician, bringing to six the number detained over the weekend.

Pope Francis demanded June 13 that humanitarian aid reach hungry people in the war-torn Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are blocking food deliveries and other assistance.

Italian police searched the offices of a Sardinian charity and diocese on June 9 on behalf of Vatican prosecutors who are investigating a once-powerful cardinal on alleged embezzlement charges.

European evaluators warned June 9 that the Vatican's efforts to investigate and prosecute financial crimes were suffering from understaffing and inexperience, as well as the mistaken belief that its own cardinals and bishops were immune to criminal conduct.