Eight Catholic bishops serving Maryland dioceses urged President Donald Trump Dec. 22 to stop the planned federal execution of Dustin Higgs, a Maryland man on death row in Indiana.

With nationwide COVID-19 vaccination efforts underway, one Texas bishop is encouraging parishioners in his diocese to wait for a vaccine with no connection to abortion, telling them to avoid the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines green-lit by the U.S. bishops’ conference last week.

Who would have imagined that our world would have changed so dramatically in one year? The coronavirus and resulting pandemic have altered our lives in ways we never thought possible. May we all watch over one another in helping to curb its spread and to care for each other. We join our hearts and prayers to yours and ask that this holy season bring us all closer to a vaccine and a new normal.

Los decretos autorizados por el Papa reconocen el martirio de Rosario Angelo Livatino, magistrado siciliano asesinado por la mafia en 1990, y las virtudes heroicas de 7 nuevos Venerables Siervos de Dios, entre ellos, Don Vasco de Quiroga, primer obispo de Michoacán y defensor de los indios.

Una nota de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe (CDF), aprobada por el Papa Francisco, da luz verde, en esta época de pandemia, a las vacunas producidas con líneas celulares de dos fetos abortados en la década de 1960.

Millions of Mexicans take to panic shopping ahead of Christmas, as the government announces that all non-essential shops will close until 10 January.

Two top Vatican officials -- Cardinal Konrad Krajewski and Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello -- have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, Italian media reported, and a Vatican source confirmed.

Pope Francis advanced the sainthood causes of one woman and seven men, including an Italian judge who was murdered by the infamous Sicilian Mafia.

"After the election, they reached out across the Capitol to the Senate side about the very important bicameral, bipartisan proposal that became the basis for the package."

Discurso del Santo Padre a los miembros del Colegio Cardenalicio y de la Curia Romana con ocasión del intercambio de saludos por la Navidad. “Conservemos una profunda paz y serenidad, con la plena certeza de que todos nosotros, y yo en primer lugar, somos solamente «servidores a los que nada hay que agradecer», de los que el Señor ha tenido misericordia”.

"Crisis generally has a positive outcome," he said, "whereas conflict always creates discord and competition, an apparently irreconcilable antagonism that separates others into friends to love and enemies to fight. In such a situation, only one side can win."

With so many activities cancelled this year, IHS students, faculty, and families decided to work together to honor our wonderful school tradition of joining together to hear the story of our Savior's Birth and to sing the traditional songs of our Catholic faith on the eve of the last night before Christmas Break. 

Expressing concern for the doctrinal soundness of some of the lyrics of Catholic hymns now available for use in Catholic liturgies, the U.S. bishops' doctrine committee in a forthcoming report suggests guidelines for bishops in evaluating hymn lyrics and for selecting hymnals being considered for use in churches.

Mr. Zam, who was hanged on Saturday, had been living in exile in France until last year when he was lured back to Tehran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.He was forced to make public confessions to 'corruption on Earth.'

The last governor of Hong Kong criticized the Vatican's agreement with China on the appointment of bishops and said Pope Francis has been "exceptionally badly advised" in concluding the pact.

The State Department designated Nigeria as "a country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

The Papal Foundation has announced it will give $1.8 million in grants to support COVID-19 relief efforts in developing nations around the world, with the majority of the funds assisting with health care and basic needs for the poor.

I am an overly avid collector of Christmas tree ornaments. All year, they stay stashed away on shelves in the closet, crammed in storage boxes in the garage, and tucked away in places I forget until I rediscover them when I am seeking my summer clothes at the end of April. But, as December unfolds, they leave their boxes, bags and wrappers for their turn in the spotlight.

What happens when human rights become circumscribed on the basis of capacity, or ethnicity, or some other consideration. The meaning of selective abortions of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome, such as in Denmark, where only 18 Down children were born in the entire country in 2019, and in Iceland, where the syndrome effectively has been “eradicate” is not lost on the disabled and their families.

Solidarity, our communion with one another, requires that we shoulder responsibility to assure that another key principle of Catholic social teaching, the common good of the human family, is achieved.