Jonathan Luxmoore

Cardinal Maurice Piat of Port-Louis, Mauritius, has praised public responses to an oil spill that devastated the island's coastline, as one prominent lay Catholic demanded "honest information" about the disaster.

A senior Catholic aid worker said humanitarian conditions are deteriorating in eastern Ukraine and urged Western governments and churches not to forget the continuing six-year conflict.

Turkey's presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said Hagia Sophia would "retain its character as a cultural monument," reminding people that the building was being converted "not from a church to a mosque, but from a museum to a mosque."

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who retired from the Archdiocese of Lyon, has left his see to serve as a convent chaplain and envoy for the pope.

Catholic organizations and leaders in Europe are urging governments to learn lessons from the coronavirus crisis and introduce far-reaching reforms to help those suffering economically from the pandemic.

Catholic groups across Europe have echoed Pope Francis' call for a universal basic wage as part of recovery plans after the coronavirus pandemic.

Church-government relations are creating some tension in countries like Spain and France, for example, as other EU nations like Germany demonstrate an orderly and earlier coordinated effort to allow public worship to resume.

Poland's Catholic bishops have urged nationwide prayers for rain, amid warnings huge areas of farmland could be ruined by drought during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although Catholics in most East European countries have backed measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic, for some it has also revived painful memories of communist rule.

The coronavirus threat is but one more complication in the Sahel region, which faces a campaign by Islamist militants targeting Christian communities, especially in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

A retired archbishop remained under house arrest March 11 as disputes intensified over Togo's Feb. 22 presidential ballot.

A Catholic archbishop has rejected a church instruction barring him from public appearances and vowed to go on denouncing "heresy and sectarianism."

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's left-wing "progressive coalition," modern Spain's first, faces tough challenges — not least a threatened confrontation with the influential Catholic Church. 

The French bishops' permanent council has approved a recommendation to remove gender references for parents on baptismal certificates.

Eastern Europe is marking the anniversary of the end of communist rule. Amid prosperity, some wonder how stable the foundations are in a continent still recovering from its infamous East-West divide. 

German Catholics insisted their national "synodal way" reform consultation will have an impact on the church worldwide, as final preparations were completed for the consultation's first plenary in January.

German-speaking Catholics paid tribute to Fr. Johann Baptist Metz, the veteran theologian who died Dec. 2 in Munster, Germany, at age 91.

Catholic campaigners at U.N. climate talks welcomed support from Pope Francis and vowed to bring a "firm moral perspective" to intergovernmental negotiations.

Belgium's Salesian order defended its decision to send a priest convicted of child abuse to work with Caritas in Central African Republic, where he has been accused of abusing children again.

France's Catholic bishops plan to open their plenary assembly for the first time to lay participation following the passage of a controversial bioethics law despite mass church-backed opposition.