Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka, expressed “shock and distress” in accusing the military of storming a Catholic church and firing on residents who had sought refuge there.

As part of the Vatican’s ongoing efforts to ensure that all its financial activity complies with international standards, particularly those aimed at preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism, Pope Francis has expanded the role and the reach of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority.

Church spokesmen in Belarus said Catholics are “uneasy and disquieted” by the lack of information on the status of a parish priest arrested in early June for alleged spying.

As Ghanaians await the Supreme Court’s ruling on a challenge to the outcome of the country’s 2012 presidential, the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference called on the country’s two political parties to accept the ruling in peace.

Israeli archaeologists have restored part of a 2,000-bed Crusader-era hospital run by the St. John of the Hospital order in the Old City of Jerusalem.

For the first time in 15 years, Pope Francis was not able to walk along the line of people waiting to get into the Shrine of St. Cajetan to listen to them and bless them.

When he’s riding in the popemobile — at the Vatican or, for example, in Rio de Janeiro — Pope Francis uses his hands not just to bless people and hold the babies he’s kissing. He uses them to catch things.

IMAGINE if Kevin Rudd had a legion of cronies who patrolled the streets of Australia in large army tanks, destroying anything and anyone who stood in their path. Imagine if, when he ousted Julia Gillard as the nation’s Prime Minister, there were riots, chaos, looting and bloodshed all over the country. It’s not a pretty picture. But it’s the reality that the people of Zimbabwe coul...

Pope Francis’ order restricting the use of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in communities of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate addresses problems within the religious order and does not contradict retired Pope Benedict XVI’s permission for wider use of the old Mass throughout the church, the Vatican spokesman said.

In a world that often seems dark and full of suffering and violence, Christians can offer hope by sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Pope Francis wrote in a message for World Mission Sunday 2013.