Cardinal George Pell of Australia promised to work with a group of survivors of sexual abuse to help prevent suicide among victims and support healing and protection programs, even as he faced scalding criticism in Australia after days of giving testimony from Rome to an investigating commission in

Essays in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, urged the Catholic Church to allow women to preach from the pulpit at Mass, a role that has been reserved almost exclusively to the all-male clergy for centuries. Enzo Bianchi, leader of an ecumenical religious community in northern Italy,

China’s slowing economy continues to worry international observers.

The Italian Senate passed on Feb. 25 a controversial bill that grants legal recognition to nonmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples, after sponsors removed a clause that would have allowed a nonbiological parent in a homosexual union to adopt the biological children of his or her partner. &bul

A pastoral planning process—Ministry 2025—has begun in the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa. According to the Rev. Brent Lingle, diocesan director of pastoral planning, the diocese recently unveiled a draft pastoral plan that strives to create parishes “where the faith is lived out, gro

Even in the midst of bombings, Vatican ambassadors stay put, risking their lives while working to end what Pope Francis has termed a “piecemeal” World War III, said the Vatican minister of foreign affairs. “Let’s not be kidding ourselves about what the stakes are here: If we