An ecumenical prayer service called for healing on April 9 at Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church in Murrysville, Pa., after a 16-year-old student rampaged in the hallways of Franklin Regional High School near Pittsburgh, wounding 22. • Along with other leaders and organizations that defend the r

State visits are usually occasions of pomp and circumstance signifying little. That was not true, however, of the recent formal introduction of President Michael Higgins of Ireland to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. During the president’s historic four-day visit, from April 8 to 12,

While comprehensive immigration reform remains stalled in Congress, members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined residents, migrants and advocates from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz., on April 1. There they celebrated Mass together, remembering thousands of migra

In a hard-hitting statement released on April 2, Venezuela’s Roman Catholic Church accused President Nicolas Maduro’s government of “totalitarian” tendencies and “brutal repression” of demonstrators during two months of political unrest that has resulted in the de

Pew researchers report that six of the world’s 12 nations with a “very high degree” of religious diversity can be found in the Asia-Pacific region—Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, China and Hong Kong; five are in sub-Saharan Africa—Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Ivory Coa

The number of allegations of sexual abuse by clergy declined in 2013, while diocesan spending on child protection programs increased under the U.S. Catholic Church’s “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” according to a church-sponsored annual audit. Dioceses an