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U.S. bishops gathered in New Orleans are urged to promote and support families.

The Brazilian bishops' conference has given the government and 2014 FIFA World Cup organizers a "red card" for putting the competition above the Brazilian people's basic needs.In soccer, a "red card" is given to players who commit serious fouls and are expelled from the g

Church leaders in northern Iraq struggled to find shelter for Christians who were among hundreds of thousands who fled Mosul, the country's second-largest city, after Islamist forces took over much of the town, a Chaldean Catholic archbishop said.Christians began fleeing early on June 9, Archbis

Pope Francis denounced those responsible for human trafficking, slave labor and arms manufacturing, saying people producing weapons of war are "merchants of death.""One day everything comes to an end and they will be held accountable to God," the pope said at his weekly general a

Cardinal supports offer of amnesty to Boko Haram insurgents who stop fighting.

Pope Francis canceled a second day of private audiences and his morning Mass on Tuesday (June 10) because of a minor illness, but Vatican officials downplayed speculation about ill health.The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope had postponed several appointment

“It is my hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a new journey where we seek the things that unite, so as to overcome the things that divide,” Pope Francis said in a forceful speech concluding the historic Prayer for Peace in the Holy Land, held in the Vatican Gardens on June

Pope Francis' June 8 meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents will be a religious, not a political, occasion and should not raise hopes for immediate resumption of peace talks between the two nations, said the principal coordinator of the gathering. "No one presumes that peace wi

Security forces in Afghanistan have arrested a total of three men in connection with the kidnapping of a Jesuit priest from India. The arrests, announced by an Afghan government official, include a man taken into custody on June 4 while two others were detained on June 5 in connection with the disap

Efforts to professionalize Vatican financial services and oversight of same continued today as Pope Francis dismissed the all-Italian five-member board that oversees the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency, an abrupt move that will give the financial operation more of an English-speaking focus