Under the gaze of a seventh-century icon of Mary, Pope Francis launched a monthlong, global recitation of the rosary, pleading for Mary’s intercession for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Updating the Litany of St. Joseph, approved in 1909, the Vatican has added seven invocations, including two that address the guardian of Jesus and husband of Mary as “support in difficulty” and “patron of refugees.”

Bishop-designate William E. Koenig of Wilmington was in his home diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, in late April when his cellphone rang. Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the United States, was on the other end informing him that that he had been chosen to become the 10th bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington.

More than two years after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75, Bishop W. Francis Malooly of Wilmington, Delaware, is stepping down.

The Irish government said a COVID-19-related ban on Catholics attending Mass will be lifted May 10.

In his first major address to Congress as U.S. president, Joe Biden urged Republicans and Democrats April 28 to work together as the country emerges from a pandemic but still faces threats from countries such as China.

While Bishop-designate Christian Carlassare already has forgiven his attackers, he said finding the truth about why he was shot in the legs at his home in Rumbek, South Sudan, will help achieve reconciliation.

Pope Francis approved a new set of laws that require Vatican officials and employees to sign a declaration stating they have not been and are not suspected of committing crimes, including money laundering, corruption or exploitation of minors.

The tedious sci-fi parable “Voyagers” (Lionsgate) seems designed to prove that in space, no one can hear you yawn.

As the guilty verdicts were read April 20 in the trial of a white former Minneapolis police officer in the death of George Floyd, Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana, “could hear the rumble of a collective exhalation” across the New Orleans campus.