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The arrest of Bishop Zhang is seen as part of a renewed crackdown on the underground church in the communist country.

Nicaraguan Catholic leaders have decried a series of repressive acts that targeted parties and individuals linked with the opposition ahead of November elections.

The Syriac Catholic patriarch said the situation in Syria "continues to be humanly unbearable and devastating" and risks emptying the war-torn country of its Christian community for good.

The Vatican announced Friday that the Synod of Bishops on synodality has been postponed to 2023, with a two-year consultative preparatory phase involving Catholic dioceses worldwide.

Escalating bloodshed in Nigeria is fueled in part by religious extremism – and the United States must recognize this in order to achieve peace, says the former U.S. religious freedom ambassador.

Pope Francis has named Jesuit Father Stephen Chow Sau-yan, a native of Hong Kong and provincial of the Jesuits' Chinese province, to be the new bishop of Hong Kong.

As Israel escalated its assault on Gaza May 14, the nation also faced growing civil unrest in its mixed Jewish-Arab cities, considered a symbol of coexistence.

Preaching on the May 13 feast of Our Lady of Fatima, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church, said that a global financial recovery required an accompanying spiritual revival.

An elderly man stood alone in St. Peter's Square May 13, using his wooden rosary beads to pray by a simple plaque marking the place where St. John Paul II was shot exactly 40 years earlier.

Catholic officials in India are working to help citizens get help during the second wave of COVID-19 and the accompanying lockdown.

The chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace called on Israelis and Palestinians to end the violence in Jerusalem and Gaza that has claimed dozens of lives and left hundreds of people injured.

Four former students at the minor seminary located in the Vatican testified May 12 at the ongoing trial of Father Gabriele Martinelli, who is accused of sexually abusing a younger student at the St. Pius X Pre-Seminary.

Father Romanelli said the priests and religious have been staying in close contact with their parishioners through phone calls, the internet and WhatsApp. Unfortunately, he said, they "are very used to war."

The patriarchs and heads of Christian churches of Jerusalem expressed deep concern over the growing violence in Jerusalem, which increased with 331 Palestinians reportedly wounded at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during clashes with Israeli police May 10.

Catholic aid groups are mobilizing relief efforts in India, as the country is gripped by a worsening outbreak of the coronavirus.

Within hours of taking over the reins of the legislative assembly, lawmakers aligned with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele voted May 1 to get rid of five of the country's top judges as well as the country's attorney general.

Charity and fraternity in one's family and community is the first step in helping establish the kingdom of God in a world that is increasingly divided, Pope Francis said.

The pope has asked Catholics worldwide to pray the rosary every day throughout the month of May, pleading for an end to the pandemic and praying for those most affected by the disease and its consequences.

A Venezuelan doctor who treated patients during the Spanish flu pandemic and was one of the first to introduce microscopes to his nation's hospitals was beatified April 30 in an austere ceremony held in Caracas, the city where he spent much of his life tending to the sick.

When the Easter livestream of Pope Francis' general audience and the Angelus was broadcast for the first time in American Sign Language on the Vatican's YouTube channel, the deaf Catholic ministry group in Texas took particular notice.