Catholic Church

As Christmas coincided with the start of the 2025 Holy Year celebration that he dedicated to hope, Francis called for broad reconciliation, “even (with) our enemies.”

The first Holy Year was called in 1300, and in recent times they are generally celebrated every 25 to 50 years.

Pope Francis on the first papal visit ever to the French island of Corsica on Sunday called for a dynamic form of laicism, promoting the kind of popular piety that distinguishes the Mediterranean island from secular France as a bridge between religious and civic society. The one-day visit to Corsica’s capital Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon, on Sunday is one of...

Researchers and religious leaders have released findings from an intriguing two-month experiment through art in a Catholic chapel in Switzerland. An avatar of “Jesus” on a computer screen — tucked into a confessional — took questions by visitors on faith, morality and modern-day woes, and offered responses based on Scripture.

Pope Francis will make late teen Carlo Acutis the Catholic Church’s first millennial and digital saint next year.

Pope Francis has doubled down on his traditional views on abortion and women during his in-flight press conference coming home from Belgium. He has praised Belgium’s late King Baudouin as a “saint” for having abdicated for a day in 1990 rather than sign legislation legalizing abortion. Francis said: “You need a politician who wears pants to do this.” Francis drew...

When Pope Francis arrives Wednesday in Asia’s financial powerhouse Singapore for the last leg of a four-nation tour, he is expected to bring his message of unity and hope to one of the world’s richest nations.

Pope Francis has arrived in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea. He landed in Vanimo, on the northwest coast of the country, with a ton of humanitarian aid to deliver to the missionaries and faithful who live there.

Stephen Colbert, Jim Gaffigan, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg and Tig Notaro are also on the Pope’s guest list for the Vatican fun-fest.

Pope Francis has apologized after he was quoted using a vulgar term about gay men to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests.

Archbishop William E. Lori sat quietly Monday as six men and women stood in court and spoke of surviving violent and sometimes years-long sexual abuse at the hands of priests and staff employed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore. One woman said her abuse began in first grade. Another said a priest routinely threatened her with a gun and once held…

Some men and women abused at the hands of priests told their stories of survival in court Monday as part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy proceedings. The church filed for bankruptcy last fall just days before a Maryland law took effect that allows survivors to sue regardless of when their abuse happened. Investigative Reporter Tracee Wilkins and the News4...

The Vatican has declared that gender-affirming surgeries and surrogacy are grave violations of human dignity.

Pope Francis has rallied from respiratory problems to lead some 60,000 people in Easter celebrations and make a strong appeal for a cease-fire in Gaza and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. Francis presided over Easter Sunday Mass in a flower-decked St. Peter’s Square. He then delivered a heartfelt prayer for peace in his annual roundup of global crises,...

Many services on Palm Sunday included prayers for peace amid conflicts around the world. News4’s Derrick Ward reports.

In a court filing, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown pushed back against the Archdiocese of Washington’s motion dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed under the Child Victims Act. Investigative Reporter Tracee Wilkins and the News4 I-Team have been following the legal battle.

In a speech to his diplomatic core on Monday, Pope Francis compared surrogacy to human trafficking and called for a universal ban on the practice. “I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child.”

Pope Francis delivered his annual Christmas Day speech from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to the throngs of people in the piazza below.

The Vatican said Monday that Pope Francis had approved Catholic priests to bestow blessings to people in same-sex relationships.

A Maryland man behind a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Washington said the assault he endured as a child by a priest caused decades of substance abuse, shame and depression. “From age 15 until I was 40 … I used alcohol to cope with the pain, but all that did was turn me into an alcoholic,” said the…