The Roman Catholic Diocese of Essen has become the first in Germany to allow women to perform baptisms, citing a lack of priests.

Prosecutors announced charges against former president Alfredo Cristiani and a dozen other people, including former military officers, in the massacre. The list of charges will apparently include murder, terrorism and conspiracy.

“For some priests, it would be better if they were married—not just for sexual reasons, but because it would be better for their life and they wouldn’t be lonely,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in a newspaper interview.

The pope sent a telegram to New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan offering “heartfelt condolences and the assurance of his spiritual closeness” to those affected by the blaze, which killed at least 19 people, including nine children.

The plan could result in the possible shutdown of churches and schools as the archdiocese responds to a decline in the number of priests and a shift in parishioners.

A Cleveland-area Roman Catholic priest has been sentenced to life in prison on convictions of child pornography and exploitation.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has said he hopes to soon join a beloved professor friend in “the afterlife,” in a sign that the 94-year-old pontiff is not only accepting his eventual death but welcoming it.

The bishops’ apology is the latest expression of remorse from the Canadian arms of the Catholic Church but still falls short of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for the pope himself to apologize in Canada.

A gay substitute teacher was wrongfully fired by a Roman Catholic school in North Carolina after he announced in 2014 on social media that he was going to marry his longtime partner, a federal judge has ruled.

The cardinal was to return to a regular hospital room Saturday at an undisclosed location, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse said in a statement.