Associated Press

A relic of Carlo Acutis, who was declared the Catholic Church's first millennial saint last week, was stolen from a parish in western Venezuela, the coordinator of a youth group devoted to the man known as "God's Influencer" confirmed Friday.

Pope Leo XIV's Augustinian religious order elected a new prior general Tuesday, tapping another American to lead during the pontificate of history's first American pope.

Traditionalist Catholics celebrated news Monday that the Vatican under Pope Leo XIV had given them permission to celebrate the old Latin Mass in St. Peter's Basilica during their upcoming pilgrimage.

The agreement paves the way for a final resolution to yearslong negotiations amid a series of similar settlements from the Catholic Church.

Matthew Schmalz, professor of religious studies at Holy Cross college in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the canonization extends the church tradition of popular piety to the digital age.

Orthodoxy is the majority religion in both Russia and Ukraine and has served as a cultural and spiritual battleground in tandem with the wider war.

"Brothers and sisters, I say this with emotion: It is time to restore dignity to everyone, especially to those who have been denied it," Bishop Franceseco Savino said at a Mass for the pilgrims.

A growing number of prominent tech figures speak of AI using language once reserved for the divine. But there are also plenty of skeptics who doubt the technology merits this kind of fear.

Lying in an intensive care unit hospital bed, 11-year-old Genevieve Bisek is comforted by the many handmade cards she has received from fellow classmates after Wednesday's shooting at a Minneapolis church.

A Filipino priest, who publicly protested then-President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown against illegal drugs despite death threats and helped provide proper funerals to those killed, is among the winners of this year's Ramon Magsaysay Awards — Asia's version of the Nobel Prize.

As if the slaughter of children amid screams and shattered stained glass wasn't cause enough for grief, American opinion makers were convulsed once again this week in a debate over the role of prayer in the wake of a mass shooting, this time at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.

Fr. James Martin met with Pope Leo for about a half-hour. The meeting was officially announced by the Vatican in a sign that Leo wanted it made public. The audience was significant because it showed a strong sign of continuity with Francis.

"The voice of weapons must be silenced, while the voice of fraternity and justice must rise," Pope Leo XIV said.

Despite the horror carried out Aug. 27 by a shooter whose journal entries detail weeks of preparation and a fixation on harming children, stories of bravery and tragedy have emerged as families share their accounts. 

Robin Westman left behind writings that "expressed hate towards almost every group imaginable." But police found no clear motive for the attack on the church Westman once attended. 

James Dobson, who founded the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family and was a politically influential campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, died on Thursday. He was 89.

Pope Leo XIV asked people to fast on Friday to pray for peace and justice in the Middle East and Ukraine, issuing a special appeal as he returned to the Vatican from summer vacation.

Pope Leo XIV prayed Friday for a peaceful end to the "increasingly deafening violence" of wars around the world as he celebrated a Catholic feast day on the same day as a high-stakes U.S.-Russia summit over the war in Ukraine.

Since early June, the Trump administration has significantly ramped up immigration arrests and raids, especially in Southern California. Many faith leaders and groups — including the Catholic Church, which has millions of adherents in the region — have come out in support of the region's immigrant communities. 

When Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation’s largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It’s also a spiritual and cultural one.