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The Trump administration announced the U.S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security are adopting an interim "third country rule" requiring immigrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to first apply for refugee status in another country.

On an overcast day with threatening rain clouds overhead, the mood in the basement of Holy Name of Jesus Church in Northeast Washington was downright sunny. Here, a group of Catholic teens are hard at work helping to prepare the “Holy Foods Market” food pantry for one of its monthly openings, and then later in the day they would make and distribute bagged lunches to some of DC’s homeless population.

The Archbishop Lyke Conference was held July 2-6 in National Harbor, Md. The gathering's theme was "Every Knee Shall Bend: Reconciliation, Black and Catholic." Workshops tied that theme into a variety of topics, including Black spirituality and Negro spirituals. Some programs were offered for young adults, music ministers and liturgical dancers.

Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Cardinal Louis Sako is concerned by rising tensions between the United States and Iran, fearful that his country, Iraq, could be caught in the middle of any potential conflict. It has also made a proposed visit by Pope Francis to Iraq next year uncertain, he said.

Praying that Catholics would understand and act on "the inseparable bond" between love of God and love of neighbor, Pope Francis again appealed for a solution to the crisis in Venezuela.

Members of the Dominican general chapter elected 51-year-old Father Gerard Francisco Timoner to be the master general of the worldwide religious order. Father Timoner, a native of the Philippines, is the 88th superior of the Order of Preachers, founded by St. Dominic Guzman, and the first Asian to lead the order.

On the morning of July 1, he was supervising a landscape crew next to the abbey church. He and the workers had noticed a stocky muscular man walk past and into the house of prayer, like dozens of worshippers do every day. But when the visitor came out minutes later, he silently walked behind Deacon Montoya, who turned just as the man threw a hard punch. The fist smashed into the deacon's left eyebrow and sent him off balance.

Opening the Vatican tombs of a princess and a duchess July 11 in a search for the remains of a young Italian woman missing for more than 30 years, the Vatican found no human remains at all.

A teacher at a Catholic school in South Carolina whose contract was not renewed because of her posts on Facebook in support of abortion rights is now suing the school, claiming that her First Amendment rights have been violated.

Planned raids to detain and deport thousands of undocumented immigrants will go ahead after a postponement of several weeks, the Trump administration has announced.

Members of Congress heard testimony on Wednesday about harsh conditions in migrant detention facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border, including from a bereaved migrant mother whose infant child became sick in detention and eventually died.

In a July 11 announcement from the Rose Garden, President Donald Trump said he was ending his efforts to add a citizenship question to the census and would instead direct federal agencies by executive order to provide data about the country's citizens and noncitizens to the U.S. Commerce Department.

Prayer, redemptive suffering, forgiveness and a deeper understanding of the laity's calling can radically revive the church, said Meghan Cokeley, director of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's Office for the New Evangelization. Cokeley has been touring Philadelphia-area parishes to deliver a talk titled "What Can We Do? The Role of Laity in a Time of Crisis."

Pro-life advocates from around the U.S. spent two days celebrating the right to life, an unalienable right first stated in the Declaration of Independence. During the closing speeches, it was the words of Kurt Kondrich, father of Chloe Kondrich, his 16-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, that moved conference attendees to tears.

Thirteen months after his ordination, Auxiliary Bishop Robert Christian, OP, passed away in his sleep at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park. Bishop Christian, the seminary’s rector-president, was 70 years old.

Independence Day took on a special poignancy at a conference for African American Catholics held a few miles from the nation's capital, as participants at a July 4 workshop reflected on the Catholic Church's connection to what has been called the country's original sin -- slavery.

"Every life is valuable, always," Pope Francis tweeted after offering prayers for Vincent Lambert, a 42-year-old French man who died July 11, nine days after doctors stopped providing him with nutrition and hydration.

Human beings are called to praise God for his gift of creation, not be predators out to plunder the earth and all it contains, Pope Francis said.

A teacher at a Catholic school in Indianapolis whose contract was terminated due to his same-sex marriage is suing the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, one day after reaching a settlement with the school.

The parish where Sister Maria Emilia Molenda Kuche works stretches along the banks of the Amazon River and far up the Yavari River, an area sparsely populated by Tikuna, Yagua and Kukama Indians. It takes about eight hours to reach the village closest to the parish team's headquarters in this riverside town. The most distant is five days' travel upriver. When the parish team visits, members never know what they will find, said Sister Kuche, 73, a member of the Missionaries of Christ Crucified, a Brazilian religious congregation. Sometimes more people than expected show up; sometimes there is no one.