The Holy See “will not participate” in President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said Feb. 17, citing “points that leave us somewhat perplexed.”

Beneath the Roman pines of the Aventine Hill, Pope Leo XIV led a solemn penitential procession Feb. 18 to Rome’s oldest extant basilica, marking the first Ash Wednesday of his pontificate with a call for “countercultural” repentance for sins from individuals, institutions and the Church itself.

SB359, which would have permitted doctors to prescribe lethal, self-administered drugs to terminally ill patients deemed to have less than six months to live, failed to advance in a full state senate committee hearing Feb. 5.

The Diocese of Camden, N.J., has announced plans to resolve more than 300 abuse claims with a $180 million settlement.

Amid the ravages of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the human heart finds its home in God and in communion with others, said two Catholic clergy from Ukraine’s embattled east at an annual three-day cultural event in New York City.

At the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, Polish ski jumper Kacper Tomasiak made history — and then went to Mass.

On Ash Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV encouraged Catholics to ask the Lord for “the gift of true conversion” at the start of the 40-day penitential season of Lent.

A date for the beatification of five Franciscans known as the Georgia martyrs has been set for Oct. 31, according to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints’ website. It lists Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto as the beatification Mass’ celebrant.

Dozens of national pro-life leaders are calling for the reinstatement of federal guidance that would generally prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining pregnant women and new mothers in a letter sent to the Trump administration.

The naming of a pro-abortion faculty member as head of a Catholic university research institute is “a direct slap in the face to the Church’s moral tradition,” an Illinois bishop said, while several recipients of the school’s top pro-life award have called it a “betrayal.”