Early in the morning Dec. 11, following a tornado warning for Daviess County the night before, Owensboro Bishop William F. Medley found that his cellphone service was down — and that Gov. Andy Beshear had made an announcement about lives lost in a sudden tragedy.

Pope Francis established a new Vatican foundation that will promote initiatives based on the principles set out in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship.”

The Supreme Court turned down emergency requests Dec. 13 from New York health care workers seeking a religious exemption from the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its health care employees.

Catholic men and women formally installed in the new ministry of catechists are not simply religious education teachers but are engaged in “the proclamation and transmission of the faith, carrying out this role in collaboration with the ordained ministers and under their guidance,” said a letter accompanying the Latin text of the Rite of Institution of Catechists.

Pope Francis encouraged people to take part in a new global campaign launched by Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based umbrella organization for national Catholic charities.

Mourning, prayer and a resolve to rebuild shattered lives, homes and businesses in Mayfield followed one of the most powerful twisters in U.S. history that leveled the city of 10,000 in western Kentucky overnight Dec. 10.

The Christmas tree and Nativity crèche should evoke the joy and the peace of God’s love and not the selfish indulgence of consumerism and indifference, Pope Francis said.

Catholics are facing soaring levels of discrimination in some of the most influential countries in Europe, a new report said.

Vulnerable to abuse and hardship, seafarers’ dignity and welfare must be protected around the world, the Vatican foreign minister said.

More than 1,500 people filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral Dec. 8 to witness the formal end of the diocesan phase of the sainthood cause for Dorothy Day.