Catholic News Service

A growing number of Christian churches, dioceses, religious orders and organizations — including five Catholic dioceses in Ireland and two in Canada — are announcing they will divest from fossil fuels.

The Supreme Court June 30 rejected a challenge to New York's vaccine mandate for health care workers with no religious exemption.

Expressing their disappointment at not being able to visit South Sudan, Pope Francis, Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby and the Rev. Iain Greenshields, the Church of Scotland leader, urged the country's squabbling leaders to uphold their commitments to peace.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Reuters news agency, Pope Francis condemned abortion, dismissed the idea that he's preparing to resign and said he still hopes to be able to visit Russia and Ukraine in the fall.

Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a former Vatican official, a longtime champion of the poor, a prime mover behind the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon and a "good friend" of Pope Francis, died July 4, just over a month before his 88th birthday.

Catholic leaders praised the Supreme Court's June 30 decision that gave the Biden administration the go-ahead to rescind a Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" immigration policy requiring asylum-seekers at the southwest U.S. border to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was sworn in as the 17th president of the Philippines June 30, succeeding Rodrigo Duterte.

Meeting with a delegation from the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople June 30, the pope said that as war continues to rage in Ukraine, it is a time not for "talking and discussing, but for weeping, for helping others and for experiencing conversion ourselves."

For the first time in the history of Germany, less than half the German population registered as members of one of the two large churches: Catholic and Protestant.

Church representatives from French-speaking Africa have urged closer regional cooperation in Catholic peacebuilding to offset mounting economic and security challenges across the continent.

Like Sts. Peter and Paul, the church must go out to evangelize and not be bound by the chains of routine and spiritual mediocrity that stifles the Gospel message, Pope Francis said.

In a letter titled Desiderio Desideravi ("I have earnestly desired") and released June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Francis insisted that Catholics need to better understand the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council and its goal of promoting the "full, conscious, active and fruitful celebration" of the Mass.

The archbishop of San Antonio offered prayers for dozens of people found dead as well as more than a dozen survivors discovered June 27 in sweltering conditions in a semitruck.

Although he postponed his own trip to Congo and South Sudan, Pope Francis has asked Cardinal Pietro Parolin, his secretary of state, to visit the two countries July 1-8.

Finding healing and exploring ways to work more effectively with diverse communities was the focus of the general session on the second day of the "Alive in Christ: Young, Diverse, Prophetic Voices Journeying Together," a multicultural national gathering of Catholic ministry leaders.

Two years after posting online a step-by-step guide for how bishops, religious superiors and canon lawyers are supposed to handle accusations of alleged abuse by clerics and labeling it "Version 1.0," the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has published an update.

A truly pro-life celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade would lead to cooperative efforts to pass legislation protecting life, women's rights and motherhood, said an editorial in Vatican News and L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

A Dearborn Heights pregnancy center was vandalized June 20 in an apparent attack by protesters who support legal abortion.

On the eve of the World Meeting of Families and with a view toward the beatification Sept. 4 of Pope John Paul I, attention turned to his initial openness to softening Catholic teaching on contraception and his later support for the teaching of St. Paul VI.

The theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches has reached a point where it seems appropriate to consider expanding the opportunities for the faithful of any of the churches to receive the sacraments from one another when they are not available in their own community, Pope Francis said.