For Iraqi Catholics, it’s a date they will never forget. The takeover of Mosul by militants of the Islamic State group 10 years ago began their bloody and destructive rampage over the weeks that followed through the country’s ancestral heartland which Christians called home for the past 16 centuries.

Proclaiming the Jubilee 2025, Pope Francis appealed to the world’s wealthiest nations to “acknowledge the gravity of so many of their past decisions and determine to forgive the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them.”

Over 300 Catholic women from all walks of life will gather in Washington from June 8 to 12 to participate in the GIVEN Art of Accompaniment Mentoring Program and the Catholic Women’s Leadership Forum. It will be the fifth GIVEN forum since the group’s founding; the previous forums were held in 2019, 2020 (online), 2021 and 2022.

As Western heads of state and government gathered in northern France to mark 80 years since the monumental D-Day invasion that helped secure victory in World War II, one veteran, now age 100, had special memories to share.

The Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s massive military response in Gaza have led to strong papal pleas for peace but also to Vatican-Israeli diplomatic tensions.

A Kentucky bishop’s decision to endorse a hermit who publicly identified as transgender has raised a number of questions and concerns — particularly from another diocesan hermit and theologian, who had counseled the bishop in writing nearly two years before that approving the individual as a hermit would “misuse” canon law governing that vocation, and set a precedent that could endanger the future of eremitical life itself.

On their third week of the pilgrimage, however, the perpetual pilgrims — young adults traveling the full lengths of the four National Eucharistic Pilgrimage routes with the Eucharist — reported meeting enthusiasm at every stop since setting out from points in California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas May 18-19.

While Pope Francis often raises warnings against “clericalism” and “spiritual worldliness” in the priesthood, he expressed his deep gratitude and affection for priests and deacons around the world for what he called their generous and faith-filled dedication to their communities.

A former employee of St. Peter’s Basilica is in Vatican custody after allegedly being caught in a Vatican-orchestrated sting operation involving the sale of a manuscript by Italian baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Legislation to protect access to contraception nationwide failed to advance in the U.S. Senate on June 5 in an expected outcome.