The requirement that most priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church be celibate has theological and spiritual foundations and not only practical motivations, said speakers at an international conference on priesthood.

Meeting leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches — many from countries at war, facing the threat of war or dealing with the destruction left by war — Pope Francis said human beings seem to be “attached to wars, and this is tragic.”

The issue of coercion, rather than the morality of COVID-19 vaccines, that tends to be the preeminent source of tension between those who seek greater restrictions and those who seek greater freedom, and Catholics appear to be divided as societies in general.

Donors contributed more than $22,000 for tuition assistance scholarships as part of a friendly wager between Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles and Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr of Cincinnati over Super Bowl LVI’s outcome.

During a lecture Feb. 15 in Rome, Francesco Buranelli, president of the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of the Holy See and former director of the Vatican Museums, presented a picture of what can happen when fierce family rivalries, a Counter-Reformation “cancel culture” and 500 years of “fake news” find the perfect target in a problematic pope.

Italy’s Constitutional Court has blocked a national referendum on legalizing euthanasia, saying it would violate constitutional protections of human life.

A national network of institutes of Catholic thought will soon launch as part of a new $3.65 million grant, issued by the John Templeton Foundation Feb. 1.

New research from public records and congregation and diocesan archives has found that six congregations of the Sisters of Charity Federation have predecessors who owned slaves.

For Jesuit Father Andriy Zelinskyy and the soldiers he ministers to in Ukraine, the threat of a war with Russia isn’t news; “the war started eight years ago,” he said.

As fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to mount, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops of the U.S. have called for a three-day prayer vigil “for peace and the conversion of the hearts of those who preach violence and escalate war.”