The Associated Press

Pope Francis hopes Cuban authorities will release and grant amnesty to people arrested and sentenced after the historic protests that took place in 2021, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, who traveled to the island as the pontiff’s special envoy, said February 8.

A Nicaraguan court has sentenced four Roman Catholic priests to 10 years in prison on conspiracy charges stemming from long-standing government allegations that the church backed illegal pro-democracy protests.

President Joe Biden delivered a message of unity at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2, the first time the annual event has been held since its leadership and structure were overhauled to distance it from a controversial private religious group.

For the lone pastor in this fragile, starkly beautiful environment, the challenge is to fulfill the church's historical mission of ministering to those in crisis while addressing the pressing and divisive contemporary challenge of climate change.

Australian police plan to ask a judge to ban gay rights protesters from demonstrating outside the funeral of Cardinal George Pell in Sydney on Feb. 2 due to public safety concerns.

Pope Francis has clarified his recent comments about homosexuality and sin, saying he was merely referring to official Catholic moral teaching that teaches that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.

The Colorado baker who won a partial U.S. Supreme Court victory after refusing to make a gay couple’s wedding cake because of his Christian faith lost an appeal Jan. 26 in his latest legal fight, involving his rejection of a request for a birthday cake celebrating a gender transition.

Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and other mourners commemorated the 78th anniversary Jan. 27 of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp, some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten.

A machete-wielding man killed a sexton and injured a priest at two Catholic churches in the city of Algeciras on Jan. 25 before being arrested, Spain’s interior ministry said. Authorities are investigating the attacks as a possible act of terrorism.

Pope Francis on Jan. 22 made an impassioned plea, delivered partly in Spanish, for an end to widening violence in Peru over demands for the resignation of the country's president.

The Church of England formally apologized Jan. 20 for its treatment of LGBTQ people, even as it said that same-sex couples still won't be allowed to marry in its churches.

The archbishop of Vienna, a longtime friend and former student of Pope Benedict XVI, has confirmed that it was he who wrote a letter to his former teacher urging him to accept election as pontiff in 2005 if the votes went his way.

The Vatican has ordered a prominent French priest who advised the Holy See for years on matters of sex and homosexuality to cease his psychotherapy practice following allegations he sexually abused men in his therapeutic care.

The Church of England said Jan. 18 it will allow blessings for same-sex, civil marriages for the first time but same-sex couples still will not be allowed to marry in its churches.

In dramatic testimony in the Vatican mega-trial on financial corruption. Jan. 13, a former Vatican diplomat admitted to influencing the deposition of  a key prosecution witness.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child sex abuse before his convictions were overturned, died Tuesday in Rome. 

The migration crisis roiling the borderlands is literally in the backyard of the new chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee, a ministry started a century ago. Bishop Mark Seitz will be the first border bishop to serve in this role in at least two decades; he says it will allow him to bring “a new energy to this work from someone who sees it pretty much every day.”

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who came to power on a campaign motto of “God, Family, Fatherland” made her first official visit to see Pope Francis on Jan. 10, fulfilling what she said was a hoped-for opportunity to better understand the Argentine pontiff.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation said Jan. 6 that it has distributed 30 charging affidavits to prosecutors as part of its investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests but, so far, no charges have been filed.

Pope Francis on Jan. 9 broke his silence on the nationwide protests convulsing Iran, denouncing the recourse to the death penalty there and seemingly legitimizing the rallies as demonstrations “demanding greater respect for the dignity of women.”