Catholic News Service

After a fire destroyed Most Blessed Sacrament Church in Franklin Lakes in the early hours of Dec. 11, the suspected arsonist was arrested. He was receiving burn treatment at a local hospital prior to his court hearing.

A Catholic priest accused of fraud in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has been remanded in judicial custody for 15 days.

The saints are "the true light of the church," so before they are proposed to all Catholics for imitation and veneration, a scrupulous investigation is required, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Paul Swain of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and appointed as his successor Fr. Donald DeGrood, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

John Bellocchio, 37, who claims former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused him when he was a teenager, announced at a Dec. 9 news conference the he is suing the Vatican and demanding "sweeping child protection changes."

The Indonesian bishops will take steps to address claims in a Catholic media report that dozens of people have been abused in Catholic institutions across the country, said a bishops' conference official.

Washington authorities apprehended a suspect in an incident involving an attack Dec. 10 against two security guards at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Marian shrine in the United States, at the height of its busiest season.

There always will be martyrs among Christians in the world, Pope Francis said.

German Catholics insisted their national "synodal way" reform consultation will have an impact on the church worldwide, as final preparations were completed for the consultation's first plenary in January.

A Spanish-born Jesuit who dedicated his life to the study of Paraguay's Guarani people died one day shy of his 87th birthday.

The bishops of Ohio and Michigan spent two hours conversing with Pope Francis about their dioceses, about the sexual abuse crisis, the crisis' impact on priests and, especially, about ways to ensure Catholics really are "missionary disciples."

Anyone who wants to experience the consolation and tenderness of God simply needs to go to confession, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass.

The U.S. Supreme Court has left in place a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from carrying out the first federal executions in 16 years.

One great unanswerable question regarding the Catholic Church and the Holocaust is whether Jewish lives would have been saved had Pope Pius XI or his successor, Pope Pius XII, issued a statement urging the protection of Jews in Axis-held Europe.

The U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 9 declined to take up a challenge to a Kentucky ultrasound law that requires a physician or qualified technician to perform an ultrasound on a woman seeking an abortion and show the screen images to her.

Christian Brother James Miller was beatified Dec. 7 in Guatemala with a celebration on the soccer fields of the same school he once served.

In a move that may signal Pope Francis' plan for the reform of the Roman Curia is close to completion, the pope has named Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Mary, conceived without sin, is a "masterpiece" who reflects "the beauty of God who is all love, grace and self-giving," Pope Francis said on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

A Catholic priest is facing charges of possessing child pornography following his arrest at a suburban Cleveland parish.

German-speaking Catholics paid tribute to Fr. Johann Baptist Metz, the veteran theologian who died Dec. 2 in Munster, Germany, at age 91.