Catholics in Northern Ireland are the territory's largest faith group for the first time, and a growing number of citizens identify as Irish, not British.
When two priests were arrested in Belarus on Dec. 8 amid protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, there were fears of a full-scale campaign against the minority Catholic Church.
That's the stark dilemma Belgium's prime minister has set to urge smaller festive family gatherings, as Europeans battle with containing the surging COVID-19 pandemic over the holiday season.
Two European Catholic commissions warned that Arctic warming is intensifying competition over the region's resources and urged tougher policies to protect its biodiversity and Indigenous communities.
Europeans must not see their rich history simply as a fond memory of a time long gone, but they must look to it as a guide to overcoming divisions and challenges aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis said.
Continuing its efforts to combat money laundering and financial mismanagement, the Vatican amended its transparency laws and expanded the role of its financial watchdog agency in monitoring financial transactions.
Cardinal George Pell, the former Vatican finance czar who left in 2017 to face child sexual abuse charges in his native Australia, returned to Rome on Sept. 30 after his acquittal to find a Vatican mired in a corruption scandal.
The director of Greece's Catholic charitable organization said the situation on Lesbos island remains tense after a fire at a refugee camp left at least 12,000 homeless.
European countries can turn the migration crisis into a "window" of opportunity, dialogue and encounter between migrants and their citizens, Pope Francis said.
