The Associated Press

Hundreds of Nicaraguans attended a Mass under a heavy police presence Aug. 13 after the government prohibited a religious procession in the capital amid tensions with the Roman Catholic Church.

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Aug. 12 dismissed an appeal by a handful of Creighton University students who sought to be exempt from the private Catholic school's COVID-19 vaccine mandate last year, arguing that getting the shots would violate their religious beliefs against abortion.

As the warming climate produces more extreme weather including bigger and wetter hurricanes, a project in southeast Louisiana aims to utilize houses of worship and community buildings as electricity hubs after disasters and during extended power outages.

The Vatican recorded a 3 million-euro deficit last year, far less than the 33 million euros projected, but faces an uncertain financial future due to structural problems, an underfunded pension system and other debts.

Kamala Khan is the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first Muslim superhero to headline her own television show, "Ms. Marvel," on Disney+.

Archbishop Leonardo Steiner attributed his selection to four priorities of the pope: the desire to do more missionary work in the Amazon and to be attentive to the poor; to care for the Amazon "as our common home" and to be a church that "knows how to contribute to the autonomy of Indigenous people."

Restitution of Indigenous and colonial-era artifacts, a pressing debate for museums and national collections across Europe, is one of the many agenda items awaiting Pope Francis on his trip to Canada.

The FBI has opened a widening investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans going back decades, a rare federal foray into such cases looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.

Pope Francis on June 22 blasted the violence that plagues Mexico as he mourned the slayings of two of his "brother" Jesuits who were gunned down in a remote Mexican church by apparent drug gang members.

Britain announced a new round of sanctions June 16 against Russia, targeting the head of the Russian Orthodox Church for his prominent support for the war in Ukraine as well as Russia's children's rights commissioner.

The next bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said June 10 that he will strive to be open when it comes to investigations of sex abuse, though he said he's not yet caught up on the status of abuse claims in a diocese that serves roughly 1.1 million Catholics.

Pope Francis canceled his participation in a religious procession due to ongoing knee pain, but said he hoped to celebrate a special Mass for Italy's Congolese community after he had to postpone his planned visit to Africa.

One of the principal figures in the Vatican's bungled London real estate venture testified on June 6 that the Holy See would have turned a profit on its valuable investment if it hadn't pulled its money out of a fund prematurely.

A new poll found 63% of U.S. Catholic adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 68% say Roe should be left as is. Those views were in line with the overall American public on the issues.

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has been removed from the latest round of European Union sanctions to punish Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

President Joe Biden made repeated calls to restore a ban on the sale of assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines in an address to the nation June 2.

Indigenous leaders met with Canadian bishops on June 1 and were told Pope Francis won't add more stops, as they requested, to his trip to Canada, where he will apologize in person for the abuse suffered by Indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic Church.

A former Vatican official testified May 31 that he was under intense "psychological pressure" to finalize a deal over the Holy See's troubled investment in a London property, but entered into the negotiations without a lawyer and didn't realize the deal got the Vatican nothing in return.

The Vatican's longtime investment banker testified May 30 that he repeatedly voiced concerns about a fund that was investing in a troubled London property, but said the Holy See's secretariat of state insisted on pursuing the deal even as it lost money.

The Vatican said May 31 that Pope Francis will travel to Kazakhstan in September for an interfaith conference, a meeting that may give him a chance to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.