World & Vatican

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."