Associated Press

A Jesuit priest says he prefers going to prison than paying a 500-euro ($541) fine for participating in a climate activists' street blockade in the southern German city of Nuremberg.

Packed pews, rollicking singing and emotional devotions have marked Lent worship services at Notre Dame d'Haiti, the Catholic church at the heart of the largest Haitian diaspora in the United States.

The Supreme Court appeared March 31 to be leaning toward a Catholic charitable organization pushing back against the state of Wisconsin in the latest religious rights case to come before the court.

Some clutched rosaries, others took selfies or touched the protective glass in front of the seemingly sleeping young man, who died of leukemia at 15 in 2006 and is generating a devotion that astonishes even Assisi's bishop.

"Hallelujah!" That's what countless Catholics exclaimed as Pope Francis left the hospital Sunday after more than a month fighting pneumonia. It's also the name of a new gelato flavor.

Over 12 years, Francis has sought to impose a kind of normality on the papacy with his informal style and disdain for pomp. During his five-week hospitalization for pneumonia, he has followed that same playbook.

Gemelli Hospital medical director Dr. Sergio Alfieri said Saturday (March 22) that Francis will require at least two months of rest and rehabilitation as he continues recovering at the Vatican. 

Details of the British monarch’s visit to the Vatican and Italy were released on Tuesday by Buckingham Palace.

A man revered by millions as the "doctor of the poor" will be the first saint from Venezuela after Pope Francis approved a decree Tuesday.

A former leader of the Church of England is among several members of the clergy facing potential disciplinary action over the way the institution handled sexual abuse allegations, church officials said Tuesday.

A federal judge on Monday blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for Quakers and a handful of other religious groups.

The top figure in Eastern Orthodox Christianity on Sunday declared that "Ukraine's sovereignty is not up for debate, nor can it be negotiated under the guise of diplomacy," as he celebrated Mass in Istanbul on the eve of the third anniversary of Russia's war in Ukraine.

A British court on Friday largely backed the Vatican in refusing to declare that a London-based financier acted in "good faith" in his dealings over the Holy See's 350-million euro (US$375 million) investment in a London property.

The pope looms so large in everyday Italian life that there are lots of expressions that make light of even a dark event like his death.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the administration, by withholding millions even for reimbursements of costs incurred before the sudden cut-off of funding, violates various laws as well as the constitutional provision giving the power of the purse to Congress, which already approved the funding.

Here's a look at Pope Francis' health history from a partial lung removal in 1957 to his entering the hospital on Feb. 14. 

Another woman is taking over a top management job in the Vatican: Sr. Raffaella Petrini, an Italian nun, was named president of the Vatican City State, making her essentially the governor of the 44-hectare territory in Rome that is home to the Catholic Church.

Christianity is by far the largest faith in America, and Christian conservatives have a strong grip on the levers of government. That dominance is leaving many to question why President Donald Trump's new task force on eradicating anti-Christian bias is needed.

"The massive scale of the suit will be hard for them to ignore," said Kelsi Corkran, a lawyer with the Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection who is lead counsel for the lawsuit.

Maryland's Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of a state law that ended the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits following a report that exposed widespread wrongdoing within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.