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.

Pope Francis closed the Year of St. Joseph with a private visit to a community in Rome that helps people experiencing marginalization, crisis or substance abuse.

A dream that Doug LaViolette had for well over a year — something he said a few friends told him was “crazy”– has come true.

Days ahead of a major Marian feast day in the Catholic Church, a marble statue of Our Lady of Fatima near the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington was vandalized, with Mary’s hands and nose cut off, her face scratched and the cross on her crown broken off.