The Associated Press

Pope Leo XIV opened 2026 on Thursday with a plea for peace, singling out in particular countries "bloodied by conflict" and families wounded by violence.

Pope Leo XIV during his first Christmas Day message urged the faithful to shed indifference in the face of those who have lost everything, such as in Gaza, those who are impoverished, such as in Yemen, and the many migrants who cross the Mediterranean Sea and the American continent for a better future.

Pope Leo XIV thanked Italy on Tuesday for its efforts to combat human trafficking but urged the country to remain open to welcoming and integrating migrants as he took part in a pomp-filled meeting with the Italian president.

The pope's army on Oct. 2 unveiled an additional uniform for nonceremonial, formal occasions, such as a diplomatic reception or official dinner outside the Vatican walls.

Sr. Jean Dolores Schmidt, the longtime chaplain for Loyola Chicago's men's basketball team, has retired at 106 because of health concerns.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is making his first visit in four years to the United States, where he was scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump and receive honors for his environmental advocacy.

Warsaw Archbishop Adrian Galbas on Saturday requested the Holy See to dismiss the priest from the priesthood, the highest penalty in canon law for a cleric.

Pope Leo XIV will declare John Henry Newman a “doctor” of the church, bestowing one of the Catholic Church’s highest honors on the deeply influential 19th Anglican convert who remains a unifying figure in both the Anglican and Catholic churches.

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.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, presented Paul Konerko a jersey with the new pontiff's signature In honor of World Championship title 20 years ago. Leo, then Cardinal Robert Prevost, attended the 2005 World Series opener against Houston. He watched from Section 140, Row 19, Seat 2 in Chicago.

Just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church, a new poll shows that American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.

Villanova's storied men's college basketball program has won national championships three times. Celebrating a pope in their ranks is unprecedented.

Two men allege Fr. Joseph Pritchard sexually abused them in the 1970s when he was pastor at St. Martin of Tours parish in San Jose, then part of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The royal couple made a four-day state visit to Italy and marked their 20th wedding anniversary.

Pope Francis' child protection board called Tuesday for victims of clergy sexual abuse to have greater access to information about their cases and the right to compensation, in the first-ever global assessment of the Catholic Church’s efforts to address the crisis.

The U.S. government will invest $240 million in salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest to boost declining fish populations and support the treaty-protected fishing rights of Native American tribes.

In an official edict May 9, Pope Francis described his vision for the 2025 Jubilee as a year of hope. He asked for gestures of solidarity for the poor, prisoners, migrants and Mother Nature.

Pope Francis on April 13 sided with a group of Peruvian villagers who have complained that companies linked to a powerful South American church group have tried to evict them from their land using lawsuits and obscure land titling schemes.

Lithium is key in the global fight against climate change. But to extract it, mines suck water out of the region's water, tethered to the lives of thousands of Indigenous communities in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.