Pope Francis has named three U.S. experts — two women and an abbot — to be members of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, a position once reserved for cardinals and bishops.

The Italian bishops’ new program of priestly formation, approved by the Vatican, repeats a prohibition against admitting to the seminary men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” but also says that being gay does not automatically exclude a candidate.

“It’s quite an honor for her to be here with the likes of St. Oscar Romero,” Tom Stang said after a relic of his sister was placed on an altar in Rome alongside a relic of the martyred archbishop from El Salvador.

God has not abandoned the Romani people even if it often seemed that the society and even Catholic Church had, Pope Francis said.

When children are baptized, their parents and the church are giving them the greatest gift ever: the gift of faith, Pope Francis said before baptizing 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel.

“I am praying for all of you,” Pope Francis said, using his televised Sunday Angelus address to speak directly to the people impacted by the wildfires in Southern California.

After congressional lawmakers formally certified Jan. 6 President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, Trump is scheduled to return to the White House Jan. 20, four years after he left the Oval Office in the wake of a failed reelection bid.

The words of slain civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. continue to challenge all “to live out the principle of solidarity and human dignity,” said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops.

President Joe Biden awarded Pope Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the nation’s highest civilian honor, the White House said Jan. 11.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, told thousands of faithful that Pope Francis sent him to preside over the inauguration and consecration of a new Catholic church at the banks of the Jordan River as a sign of the universal church’s closeness to all Christians in the Middle East.