Catholic News Service

A Syrian Christian political leader has joined the growing ranks of international condemnation over violent attacks in Syria's northwestern area of Afrin and the Damascus enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

Maryland-based Bon Secours Health System and Mercy Health, with headquarters in Ohio, plan to merge by the end of the year, forming one of the country's largest health systems.

It's time to break free from fear, fake online personas and looking at the world through a digital screen display, Pope Francis told young people.

The Catholic Church in China registered 48,556 baptisms in 2017, according to a report by Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Kinshasha, Congo: Congo's Catholic bishops denounced attempts to discredit their church's leaders and demanded the government lift a ban on peaceful demonstrations.

A judge on a top Vatican tribunal was given a 14-month suspended sentence by an Italian court for possessing child pornography and sexual molestation. He then resigned his position on the Roman Rota, the tribunal.

Pope Francis announced at the end of a question-and-answer sessions with pastors in the Diocese of Rome that Blessed Paul VI would be canonized this year.

The yearning for one's soul to be quenched must not be confused with longing for worldly desires, a Portuguese priest told Pope Francis and senior members of the Roman Curia during their Lenten retreat.

When people are unable to love or accept a child with problems or illness, many times it's because they are too weak themselves to be able to bear someone else's vulnerabilities, Pope Francis told a group of children and young people who are wards of the state.

No physician should be forced to choose between violating his or her conscience and facing professional sanctions, said the president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.

While it is true that the world is full of sin and sinful behavior, priests must learn to scrutinize the "signs of the times" for new trends and attitudes that are good and healthy and holy, Pope Francis told pastors from the Diocese of Rome.

The heads and patriarchs of Christian churches in Jerusalem strongly denounced the city of Jerusalem's plan to force churches to pay property taxes.

Jacob Zuma's resignation as president of South Africa is long overdue, the country's bishops said, noting that his presidency fostered corruption and dereliction of duty at all levels of government.

The Vatican denied that retired Pope Benedict XVI has a degenerative neurological disease or paralyzing condition after his brother, 94-year-old Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, told a magazine that Benedict had a debilitating disease. 

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski urged community members to come together "to support one another in this time of grief" after a shooting rampage Feb. 14 at a Broward County high school left at least 17 people dead.

To ignore the needs of another person is to ignore the needs of a brother or sister, Cardinal Tagle said.

Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the influential Rome-based magazine La Civilta Cattolica and a close associate of Pope Francis, outlined the pope's "diplomacy of mercy" that he has used with both political leaders and their citizens throughout his papacy during a Feb. 13 talk at Georgetown University.

The upcoming 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. prompted Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to write a pastoral letter on the civil rights leader's principles of nonviolence.

Lent is a time for Christians to get their hearts in sync with the heart of Jesus, Pope Francis said.

Everyone who goes to Mass has the right to hear the word of God in all its fullness, which means it must be read well and explained well with "fervor," Pope Francis said.