Catholic News Service

In two separate Masses marking Black History Month, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory stressed that the annual monthlong observance is not just an opportunity to celebrate the gifts and accomplishments of African Americans.

Christians must persevere in generously doing good in the world, bolstered by prayer and by fighting evil in their own lives, including an addiction to digital media, Pope Francis said.

As Russia fired missiles on several Ukrainian cities and Russian troops reportedly landed in Odessa, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church affirmed the right of Ukrainians to defend their homeland and assured his people that God would watch over them.

Everybody on Madagascar's east coast has a story about the night Cyclone Batsirai struck. The storm left 120 people dead and destroyed the homes and businesses of many families.

A fire that caused $1 million in damage to a Catholic school in suburban Cleveland Feb. 19 was deliberately set, fire investigators said.

With coronavirus cases declining in every state, many Catholic school officials are lifting mask requirements at diocesan schools following the lead of governors' announcements about lifting mask mandates for the general public, and in some cases, schools.

The justices on the country's highest court have agreed to hear a case that could decide the fate of a Trump-era immigration policy that Biden administration officials have been trying to end.

As the threat of war loomed over the world, Pope Francis called on people to pray and fast for peace in Ukraine on Ash Wednesday.

With the "further escalation of tension in Ukraine," the president of the Polish bishops' conference asked Polish Catholics to continue praying for peace, but also to be prepared to welcome Ukrainian refugees.

 Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert E. Guglielmone of Charleston, South Carolina, and named as his successor Scalabrinian Father Jacques E. Fabre, 

The Vatican is looking for designs for the official logo for the Holy Year 2025 that will highlight its theme, "Pilgrims of Hope."

Pope Francis' message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2022 will reflect on the importance of including migrants and refugees in building a better world, the Vatican announced.

Pope Francis has confirmed that members of the Fraternity of St. Peter may continue to celebrate the Mass, sacraments and Liturgy of the Hours using the pre-Vatican II texts and forms, the fraternity said.

 Promoting better collaboration between women and men in the Catholic Church is not primarily about equality but about allowing the church to fulfill the mission given to it by God, said women speakers at a Vatican conference on priesthood.

The requirement that most priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church be celibate has theological and spiritual foundations and not only practical motivations, said speakers at an international conference on priesthood.

The Sisters of Mercy celebrated the release of six anti-mining protesters in Honduras, who spent nearly two-and-a-half years in pre-trial detention — in a case the country's Supreme Court said should have never proceeded.

Faith-based organizations called on the Biden administration Feb. 17 to combat "anti-Black racism in the U.S. immigration system."

The number of Catholics and of Catholic men and women who devote their lives to serving them continues to grow in Africa and Asia, Vatican statistics show, but pastoral ministry is still much more readily available to Catholics in Europe.

With help from the church in the U.S. and elsewhere, Venezuela's Catholics have maintained ministries among the country's most downtrodden. Yet the church struggles to maintain its work in some institutions.

Meeting leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches -- many from countries at war, facing the threat of war or dealing with the destruction left by war -- Pope Francis said human beings seem to be "attached to wars, and this is tragic."