Washington

Washington, Colorado and Oregon are now among the U.S. states that have legalized the process of converting human bodies into soil, a procedure the Catholic Church said fails to show “respect for the body of the deceased.”

Seattle Archbishop Paul D. Etienne has formed a Racial Justice and Cultural Diversity Commission to guide the archdiocese on issues and initiatives "concerning intercultural competency and the sin of racism."

Distinctly Catholic: 2020 taught us we never know what unforeseen events will enlighten or becloud all else. We can discern major themes that will shape 2021, but just before the year's end, a new one emerges.

Extreme global temperatures, wildfires and hurricanes continued to plague the planet during 2020, prompting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to urge an end to global "war on nature."

Next month, when the president-elect changes addresses, he'll face a decision that many first families have faced: where to attend church? The nation's second Catholic president will have a range of options.

Pope Francis has named Bishop Michael W. Fisher, an auxiliary bishop of Washington since June 2018, to head the Diocese of Buffalo, New York.

Msgr. Jeffrey D. Burrill, a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, is the new general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Less than two weeks before the presidential election, a new poll indicated President Donald Trump has lost the so-called "Catholic vote" and that his nomination of a Catholic to the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, did nothing to change that equation.