Each year, some 3 million pilgrims — many with terminal medical conditions — visit the shrine in southwestern France, site of 18 Marian apparitions to St. Bernadette Soubirous, who was a young teenager in poverty and could neither read nor write at the time.

Catholic leaders in Illinois are hailing the state’s newly enacted ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and switches.

To understand the Gospel, its beauty and its power, people need to read it, Pope Francis said.

Catholics see hope that bipartisanship in Congress may save a valuable tool in the fight against poverty and even abortion.

The U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 11 passed two pro-life measures, however neither has a clear path through the U.S. Senate to become law.

Peru’s bishops have called on the country’s government to stop violence that claimed at least 18 lives in anti-government protests Jan. 9-10 and has left more than 40 people dead and hundreds injured since early December.

Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as “Jesus” in the television series The Chosen, and other Catholic speakers are in the lineup for this year’s 50th annual national March for Life on Jan. 20.

Beginning a new series of catechesis focused on evangelization and apostolic zeal, the pope said that when Christian life loses its aim of proclaiming the Gospel, it becomes “self-referential” and “atrophied.”

Pope Francis praised the late Australian Cardinal George Pell as a faithful servant of God and of the Catholic Church, who steadfastly followed the Lord even “in the hour of trial” when he was jailed for sexual abuse before his conviction was overturned by Australia’s highest court.

After the Russian invasion that began Feb. 24, 2022, most of the sisters decided to stay in the war-torn country to support the local population.