Clericalization led to the separation of the clergy from the faithful in the church’s liturgy celebrated before the Second Vatican Council, said Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household.

The Community of Sant’Egidio, which cares for the basilica and the shrine, hosted an event March 23 to dedicate a new exposition space among the ruins in the crypt as a museum and memorial to the new martyrs of both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Two new alternatives to burial and cremation fail to comply with the Catholic Church’s teaching on respect for the bodies of the dead, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine said.

Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood causes of five women and a priest.

A retired Milwaukee priest has been barred from hearing confession and giving absolution, following an essay he wrote favoring legislation that would require priests to report child abuse they learn of during confession.

The man suspected of killing Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell in his Hacienda Heights home pleaded not guilty at an arraignment hearing March 22.

Catholic church leaders in Ethiopia are welcoming a U.S.-funded food security program that will benefit millions of people suffering from the drought in the Horn of Africa country.

When presenting its moral teachings on bioethics, the church needs to avoid falling into the “extremist dynamics of polarization” seen in media debates, Pope Francis said.

A political climate hostile to the needs and existence of immigrants is not only morally wrong, it also weakens the structures of democratic governments, said Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston.

The “distorted” thought that one person is better than another goes against Catholic teachings and flies in the face of universal principles laid out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Holy See’s United Nations envoy told a U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.