Explainer

Fr. Emil Kapaun, a military chaplain who served during two wars, was decreed "Venerable" by the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints at the direction of Pope Francis, moving him one step closer to possible sainthood. 

Speaking during an emergency hearing Tuesday in Seattle, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead agreed with a suggestion by lawyers representing faith-based refugee resettlement organizations that the government produce a "status report" regarding an injunction issued last week that should have restarted the refugee admissions program.

Border Patrol agents are tasked with enforcing hotly contested immigration policies as many Americans at both ends of the political spectrum look askance at the border — and the agents. That's taking a mounting toll, so the agency is training more among its ranks to become chaplains and provide spiritual care for their fellow agents on and off the job.

By mid-2024, Claudia Sheinbaum will most likely become Mexico's first female president. She would also be its first leader with a Jewish background in a country that's home to nearly 100 million Catholics.

Here's a look at the fraught relationship between the church and the Nicaraguan government amid a political standoff that's now in its fifth year, with no end in sight.

Biden's visit to the Vatican will be only the second time in history that a sitting U.S. president who is Catholic has met with the pope. But the centuries-old Vatican diplomatic corps has such VIP meetings "down to a science."

To hear some describe it, critical race theory is Marxism, a threat to the American way of life, reverse racism and a scheme to indoctrinate children. The reality is less sensationalistic.

On the first-ever World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly July 25, Pope Francis will be elevating a theme he has sought to promote throughout his papacy: how "old age is a gift" and how the elderly link generations.