Catholic News Service

Those who are meek are patient, gentle and merciful, drawing people together and salvaging relationships, Pope Francis said.

Vatican police seized documents and computers at the home and office of a former official at the Vatican Secretariat of State in their continuing investigation into financial mismanagement. 

Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond Feb. 17 announced the establishment of the diocese's Independent Reconciliation Program, which allows victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse to receive monetary payment from the diocese.

Italian Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, denied allegations that money earmarked for helping the poor was used to invest in a London property deal.

The decade-long process of updating the laws of Vatican City State is part of the Vatican's support for international commitments to protect people and safeguard vulnerable groups, who are "frequently the victims of new, odious forms of illegality," Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis, adopting a suggestion made at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, has decided that every priest preparing for service in the Vatican diplomatic corps must spend a year in ministry as a missionary.

Jesus wants his followers to move from a formal observance of God's commands to an interior acceptance of them and, in that way, to no longer be slaves to sin and selfishness, Pope Francis said.

Widespread confusion about a recent change to the so-called "public charge" law that limits immigrants' use of government benefit programs will have a chilling effect on people, including those who are not covered by the ruling, according to staff at Cabrini Immigrant Services of NYC.

Cardinal George Pell will have his last chance to have his conviction for sexually abusing two 13-year old choirboys overturned when his lawyers plead his case to the High Court of Australia March 11-12.

Everyone, including the pope, has someone they should thank God for and someone they should apologize to, Pope Francis said.

Fewer than one-third of Catholics believe the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Pew Research Center found in a recent poll.

A cold, gray, wintry day in South Bend seemed like an appropriate setting for the burial of 2,411 aborted babies, whose remains were interred in Southlawn Cemetery in the city Feb. 12.

Pope Francis told a group of U.S. bishops that, like them, he is accused of not being courageous or not listening to the Holy Spirit when he says or does something someone disagrees with — like not mentioning married priests in his document on the Amazon.

A former professor at the Diocese of Buffalo's seminary was charged with cyberstalking in connection with a series of harassing phone calls to a television reporter over a six-month period.

Throughout his life, Jesuit Father George V. Coyne, who died Feb. 11 in Syracuse, New York, at age 87 from bladder cancer, credited a forward-thinking professor of classical Greek for nurturing his passion by arranging for him to borrow astronomy books from a local library. That foresight led Coyne to become one of the world's most respected and well-known Jesuit scientists.

The threat of spreading the coronavirus has forced Catholic officials in Hong Kong to suspend all church programs Feb. 15-28, including Sunday Masses and the Ash Wednesday liturgy that marks the beginning of Lent.

Recognizing and repenting for one's own sins and errors is difficult, but essential, Pope Francis said.

Bishop William J. McNaughton, a Maryknoll missionary for 66 years and the first bishop of Incheon, South Korea, from 1962 until his retirement 2002, died Feb. 3 at Cedar View Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Methuen. He was 93.

Glenmary Father John Rausch recognized early in his time as a missionary in Appalachia that people were facing severe environmental and economic challenges and devoted his ministry to seeking solutions and calling attention to their predicament.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, 66, announced that at the full plenary session of the German bishops' conference in early March, he will not be a candidate for another term as president.