Christians must stand firm in their faith but that is not the same as being rigid and unwilling to bend out of compassion for another, Pope Francis said.

A community of cloistered Carmelite nuns in Arlington, Texas, said they no longer recognize the authority of Bishop Michael F. Olson of Fort Worth, claiming that he has interfered with and humiliated them since initiating an investigation into their prioress in late April.

A federal appeals court threw out a Maryland lawsuit Aug. 14 from parents challenging guidelines barring teachers from notifying parents if a student identifies as transgender. In New Jersey, a case is under consideration by a judge after the state government objected to three Monmouth County school districts implementing new policies requiring school staff to notify parents in such cases.

An Alabama priest disgraced after abandoning his parish to travel to Italy with an 18-year-old woman described himself as “married” to her in a Valentine’s Day letter.

The recently released cinema biopic “Oppenheimer” dramatizes the progressive development, assembly, testing and detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb which then led to the dropping of two such bombs over Japan in the twilight days of World War II.

This spring Trapezium Brewing Co. in Petersburg, Va., launched the second release of his signature “Father Brian’s Bourbon Barrel Brown Ale,” where hundreds of family, friends and past parishioners toasted the beloved priest.

“For us, it’s like a miracle,” Msgr. Terrence Watanabe, the Honolulu Diocese’s vicar of Maui and Lanai, said about Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in the town of Lahaina being seemingly untouched by the fierce Maui wildfires Aug. 8-9.

Former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in Georgia Aug. 14 over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, prosecuting him under an anti-racketeering statute alleging he and his aides conducted a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in office despite his election loss to President Joe Biden.

Besides getting a pope with a great smile and a winning demeanor, the cardinals who elected him Aug. 26, 1978, unwittingly picked a man with health issues that only 33 days later would lead to his death, making his pontificate one of the shortest ever.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered his support to a federal abortion ban limiting the procedure to around the first trimester of pregnancy, but quickly backtracked after earning the praise of a pro-life group.