Catholic News Service

An eventual vaccine for COVID-19 would belong to the world and should not be hoarded greedily by countries hosting the lab or labs that develop it, Pope Francis said.

Prayer isn't about closing oneself in a room with God "to put makeup on your soul — that's not prayer, that's fake praying; to pray is to face God and allow yourself to be sent by him to help a brother or sister," Pope Francis said.

The president of Catholic Charities USA said the agency would turn to Capitol Hill to get a pandemic relief bill passed after it called President Donald Trump's decision to suspend talks on the legislation "heartless."

Although the Supreme Court began its new term Oct. 5, it is hardly business as usual since the court only has eight members on the bench and it is continuing to hear oral arguments by teleconference due to heath concerns.

Rule alterations by the Securities and Exchange Commission on shareholder resolutions will result in higher hurdles for shareholder activists, according to leaders for two faith-based investor groups.

On what might seem to some to be disparate issues, "Pope Francis really provides us an alternative way of looking at our life, and something new can emerge at this moment," said a member of a panel discussing the new Vatican encyclical Fratelli Tutti Oct. 5, one day after it was issued.

The U.S. Catholic bishops will vote for the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for Religious Liberty and a chairman-elect for each of seven other standing committees before the USCCB convenes its annual fall general assembly, which is being held virtually Nov. 16–17.

Those in positions of authority, especially in the Catholic Church, would do well to remember that their responsibility is to serve those in their care and not exploit them for their own selfish interests, Pope Francis said.

This election year, in the midst of a global pandemic and with the Affordable Care Act about to be challenged for the third time before a Supreme Court that is in flux, it's no surprise health care is a bigger issue than it has been in previous presidential elections.

In a tweet just before 1 a.m. Oct. 2, the president announced he and the first lady had tested positive for COVID-19.

Catholic migrant ministries in Guatemala are attending to a caravan that formed in Honduras and is heading northward toward the border with Mexico.

The steep slope, appearing almost as a vertical line, is a stunning mark by the Trump administration on what was once a refugee program recognized around the world as a model to welcome the tyrannized and persecuted masses.

Pundits often dismiss "the Latino vote," saying Latinos don't vote uniformly and have members with a wide range of views. But both presidential candidates are courting Latino constituencies in battleground states.

Among the most pronounced differences between presidential candidates Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger, are their stances on the environment.

Catholic Church officials in Russia criticized planned religious law changes that will require all clergy who studied abroad to retrain in a Russian college.

In a new apostolic letter, Scripturae Sacrae Affectus, Pope Francis said that even today, Christians can learn new things from the countless translations of the Bible that exist.

While staffers with Catholic Relief Services delivered needed supplies to far-flung parts of the globe, students at the Georgia Institute of Technology studied how the agency's missions of mercy could be done with fewer car emissions that contribute to a warming planet.

In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, the world must aspire to be better and not return to its previous "sickened" normality of injustice, inequality and environmental degradation, Pope Francis said.

On Sept. 24, Providence Sr. Barbara Battista stood across the street from where her spiritual directee died just two days before.

As of Sept. 30, the city of San Francisco is allowing attendance for indoor worship to be 25% of the capacity of a house of worship, or up to 100 people, which follows the limit set by the state of California as part of its COVID-19 safety protocols.