The Associated Press

The anticipated release of new federal guidance on in-person religious services comes at a precarious point in the national balancing act that pits the call of worship against the risk of coronavirus.

A Catholic church in Houston has closed its doors after five of its leaders tested positive for COVID-19, including two priests who had helped celebrate public masses which had resumed earlier this month.

Coronavirus cases are spiking from India to South Africa and Mexico in a clear indication the pandemic is far from over, while Russia and Brazil now sit behind only the United States in the number of reported infections.

St. John Paul II was honored on the centennial of his birth May 18 with special Masses at the Vatican and in his native Poland, an anniversary that comes as the Polish church finds itself confronted by new allegations of clerical sex abuse.

Fr. Joseph Dutan estimated that dozens of St. Brigid's parishioners have been infected and said that at least three have died from COVID-19 complications since the death of Fr. Jorge Ortiz, his mentor and the first Catholic priest in the United States to die from the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds.

U.S. health officials on May 14 released some of their long-delayed guidance that schools, businesses and other organizations can use as states reopen from coronavirus shutdowns.

An Australian pedophile priest was sentenced to more jail time May 14 after admitting to crimes against another four boys in the 1970s.

In the Central American country of Nicaragua, already faced with high poverty rates and civil unrest, the government is failing to properly address the coronavirus pandemic, according to one Catholic bishop.

As the nation's houses of worship weigh how and when to resume in-person gatherings while coronavirus stay-at-home orders ease in some areas, a new poll points to a partisan divide over whether restricting those services violates religious freedom.

Serbia on May 13 strongly protested the detention of eight Serbian Orthodox Church priests in Montenegro after thousands of people attended a religious procession despite a ban on gatherings because of the coronavirus.

One is a Roman Catholic church in Queens; the other, a Lutheran church in Manhattan. But the COVID-19 pandemic has united the two Hispanic congregations in grief.

A case about the appropriate separation between church and state is taking center stage at the Supreme Court, which is hearing arguments by telephone for a second week because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Kristen Biel in a disability discrimination lawsuit she filed against her former employer, St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California. Biel died last year at age 54 after a five-year battle with breast cancer.

President Donald Trump was continuing his push to get states reopened as he praised another Republican governor for rolling back state coronavirus restrictions while welcoming that governor, Greg Abbott of Texas, to the White House.

A petition signed by some conservative Catholics claiming the coronavirus is an overhyped "pretext" to deprive the faithful of Mass and impose a new world order has run into a bit of a hitch. The highest-ranking signatory, Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Vatican's liturgy office, claims he never signed the petition.

Australian Cardinal George Pell knew that a notorious pedophile priest had been sexually abusing children years before his arrest and had been aware of the Catholic Church's clergy abuse problem since the early 1970s, a government inquiry concluded.

Migrant farm workers must be treated with dignity, Pope Francis said May 6, issuing his appeal as Italy weighs whether to legalize the workers amid a shortage of seasonal farmhands due to the coronavirus crisis.

A bankruptcy filing by New Orleans' Roman Catholic archdiocese freezes sexual abuse lawsuits and could help bury the details of alleged coverups of predator priests and thousands of internal emails documenting a behind-the-scenes alliance with the New Orleans Saints.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has taken legal action seeking to stop all outstanding clergy sexual abuse lawsuits while it navigates bankruptcy proceedings in federal court.