CATHOLIC

ROME — (AP) — Pope Francis has clarified his recent comments about homosexuality and sin, saying he was merely referring to official Catholic moral teaching that teaches that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. And in a note Friday, Francis recalled that even that black-and-white teaching is subject to circumstances that might eliminate the sin altogether. “It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another.”His comments calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality were hailed by LGBTQ advocates as a milestone that would help end harassment and violence against LGBTQ persons. But his reference to “sin” raised questions about whether he believed that merely being gay was itself a sin. In his decade-long pontificate, Francis has upheld that teaching but has made outreach to LGBTQ people a priority.

Pope Francis has clarified his recent comments about homosexuality and sin, saying he was merely referring to official Catholic moral teaching that teaches that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. Francis first made the comments in an interview Jan. 24 with The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws criminalizing homosexuality were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.” As he often does, Francis then imagined a conversation with someone who raised the matter of the church’s official teaching, which states that homosexual acts are sinful, or “intrinsically disordered.”

The Catholic Church must work to end "unjust" anti-gay laws around the world, the Pontiff said in an interview with the Associated Press.

George Santos, elected to Congress in November, has admitted to lies about work and education experience.

An examination of billing policies and practices at more than 500 hospitals across the country shows widespread reliance on aggressive collection tactics.

Faith leaders working on the border are wary of what's to come. The evangelical pastor has 4,200 migrants packed in his two Reynosa shelters, and more thronging their gates. Men wait in the streets, exposed to cartel violence, said Sister Maria Tello, who runs Casa del Migrante. After arriving in Reynosa and escaping a kidnapping, she found refuge at Casa del Migrante, where she's been since November despite having a sponsor ten miles away in McAllen, Texas. At Casa del Migrante just a day, she read the Gospel aloud in Creole during Mass, a reminder of happier times when her father distributed Communion.

The Gloucester has been hailed as the UK's most important maritime find since the Mary Rose.

As rail workers strike, the influential role of Mick Lynch has become a matter of national interest.

Three men and a woman filed lawsuits against a priest claiming that he sexually abused them as children. The woman claims she was abused in the 1950s.

A bishop referred to Hillary Clinton as an "evil woman" in response to a comment she made appearing to compare abortion restrictions with war crimes.

HONG KONG — (AP) — A 90-year-old Catholic cardinal and five others in Hong Kong were fined after being found guilty Friday of failing to register a now-defunct fund that aimed to help people arrested in the widespread protests three years ago. Cardinal Joseph Zen, a retired bishop and a vocal democracy advocate of the city, arrived at court in a black outfit and used a walking stick. He was first arrested in May on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed National Security Law. They were each fined 4,000 Hong Kong dollars ($512). Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to China's rule in 1997.

BALTIMORE — (AP) — Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services, who oversees Catholic ministries to the U.S. armed forces, was elected Tuesday as the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Broglio, 70, was elected from a field of 10 candidates. Usually the election of a new USCCB president is a formality, with the bishops elevating the conference’s vice president to the post. The 10 candidates ranged from the relatively moderate Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle to San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, a staunch conservative. ___Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

A former Catholic priest in Louisiana is facing a second charge of molestation, authorities said. Wattigny was originally arrested in 2021 after being accused of sexually abusing a minor in 2013 while serving as a pastor of St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church in Slidell, NOLA.com reported. Patrick Wattigny, a Catholic priest accused of molesting an underage boy, is now behind bars in St. Tammany Parish after he was arrested in Georgia. In August, a second victim contacted the sheriff’s office and accused Wattigny of sexually abusing him when he was an elementary student in a Covington, Louisiana, Catholic school, according to WVUE-TV. Wattigny was ordained in 1994, NOLA.com reported.

Pope Francis was answering a question about how best to navigate the digital world.

A poem for Wednesday

The high court declined to take up a case out of Rhode Island over whether fetuses should have constitutional rights.

Now The Satanic Temple is also weighing in. The Satanic Temple, dubbed TST in the lawsuit, is separate from the Church of Satan, which was founded in the 1960s. Founded in 2013, the Satanic Temple advocates for secularism and considers Satan a literary figure who serves as a metaphor for defending personal sovereignty against religious authority. At least 21 states including Idaho, Indiana and Florida have enacted laws barring undo government interference in religious freedom, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. When there is a compelling reason, the interference with the person's religious freedom must be carried out in the least restrictive way.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is considered a potential 2024 White House contender, and he and Biden have sparred on several issues. The White House says the visit will be "above politics."

Francis arrived Tuesday in the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan to meet with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev during the state visit portion of the three-day trip. The most noteworthy aspects of Francis' visit might be missed opportunities: Francis was supposed to have met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church on the sidelines of the conference. But Patriarch Kirill, who has justified the war in Ukraine, cancelled his trip last month. On the pope's flight to Kazakhstan, Francis was asked about a possible meeting with Xi and replied: “I don’t have any news about this. And we expect the same from this visit (of Pope Francis) that we will have peace in our republic.

Francis was flying Tuesday to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan to meet with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev during the state visit portion of the three-day trip. The most noteworthy aspects of Francis' visit might be missed opportunities: Francis was supposed to have met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church on the sidelines of the conference. But Patriarch Kirill, who has justified the war in Ukraine, cancelled his trip last month. And we expect the same from this visit (of Pope Francis) that we will have peace in our republic. And we very much expect that the war in Ukraine will end.”___Winfield reported from Vatican City.

Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Holy See’s strained relations with China are the backdrop to Pope Francis’ visit to Kazakhstan

MAPUTO, Mozambique — (AP) — Extremists allied with the Islamic State group have spread their attacks further south into Mozambique's most populous province, Nampula, including an assault on a Catholic mission in which an Italian nun was among those killed. The extremists first struck the province earlier this month and have sustained the offensive, attacking rural centers and beheading some residents. Their insurgency had been confined to Mozambique's northernmost Cabo Delgado province, where an estimated 4,000 people have been killed and 950,000 displaced over four years. The Islamic State Mozambique Province group has claimed responsibility for setting fire to two churches and more than 120 homes of Christians last week in Nampula province. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Extremists allied with the Islamic State group have spread their attacks further south into Mozambique’s most populous province, Nampula, including an assault on a Catholic mission in which an Italian nun was among those killed

Religious rules guiding Catholic health care systems often mean their doctors can't prescribe contraceptives or perform tubal ligations. And sometimes that leaves patients with few other options.

An assistant principal of an elementary school in Greenwich, Conn., has been placed on administrative leave after he admitted to discriminating against Catholic and conservative teaching applicants.

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that religious freedom rights protect the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis from being sued by a teacher who was fired from his job at a Catholic high school for being in a same-sex marriage. Joshua Payne-Elliott argued in his lawsuit that archdiocese leaders wrongfully forced his firing in 2019 from his job of 13 years as a world language and social studies teacher at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis by mandating that all Catholic schools under its purview enforce a morality clause barring employees from entering into same-sex marriages. The state Supreme Court decision said religious institutions had the First Amendment right to decide matters of church governance for themselves.

BELL GARDENS, Calif. — Police are asking for help to identify a thief caught on camera breaking into a Catholic school in California. >> Read more trending newsThe Bell Gardens Police Department posted surveillance video of the break-in on Twitter, which shows the suspect using a crucifix to pry open a window and gain entry. The burglary happened Aug. 19 at St. Gertrude’s Catholic primary school. On August, 19, 2022, St Gertrude School was burglarized & we are asking for the public’s assistance to help identify the suspect in the video. Furthermore, it is believed the suspect is also related to a separate burglary investigation at St Gertrude School.

Many young people received long jail terms after participating in last year's anti-government protests.

Greece Santorini Cloistered Nuns Cloistered nuns walk on a terrace of the Catholic Monastery of St. Catherine on the Greek island of Santorini on Tuesday, June 14, 2022. Inside this convent on one of the trendiest islands in Greece, a predominantly Christian Orthodox country, 13 cloistered Catholic nuns devote their lives to praying for those visitors and for the world. When God gave us the vocation to being cloistered, he gave us the complete package,” said Sister María Esclava, who’s originally from Puerto Rico. “Despite being cloistered, nuns have always been an important element in the life of a place,” said Fermín Labarga, professor of church history at the University of Navarra in Spain. Sister María Isabel said she liked beaches a lot in her native Puerto Rico.

In a historic monastery set in the tourist-thronged main town of Santorini, one of the trendiest Greek islands, 13 cloistered nuns live a vocation little understood but central to Catholicism — tireless prayer.

SAO PAULO — (AP) — Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the Brazilian Catholic cardinal who inspired Pope Francis to pick his name after the 2013 conclave, died on Monday at the age of 87. Sao Paulo archbishop, Cardinal Odilo Scherer, said in a statement that Hummes died “after a long illness, which he endured with patience and faith in God.” Hummes had been archbishop of Sao Paulo and, before that, of the city of Fortaleza. Hummes was sitting near Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio during the latest conclave, and, according to the pope himself, the Brazilian whispered in his ear “Don’t forget the poor” as soon as Bergoglio was elected. Francis decided to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, who was particularly devoted to caring for the poor. Recently, Francis named the first-ever Amazonian cardinal, given the importance the region has had on his pontificate and the attention he has wanted to draw to it.

Zoom out from the noise of the latest Brexit disagreements and the truth is that unionist disruption will one day have to bow to the inevitable.

New Hampshire's Chris Sununu, Maryland's Larry Hogan, Massachusetts's Charlie Baker and Vermont's Phil Scott govern with a relatively light touch on social issues.

Lawmakers turned their focus to former President Donald Trump's campaign to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes at the third day of hearings.

The bishop says the Nativity School in Worcester can no longer call itself Catholic after flying the Black Lives Matter and Pride flags.

A report has found that at least 196 clerics in the German Catholic diocese of Muenster sexually abused minors between 1945 and 2020, adding to findings from other dioceses that have shaken the church in the country

The Vatican says Pope Francis has canceled his participation in a yearly Mass and procession next weekend due to ongoing knee pain

From the married producing team behind "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" comes something more sinister: scary stories laced with absurdity and humor about the presence of evil in mundane settings, described as "The Exorcist" played for laughs.

(AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto) (Giovanna Dell'Orto)ST. PAUL, Minn. — (AP) — As student anxiety skyrockets, campus ministries are trying to help by not only offering the comforts of faith and community, but also creating collaborations with mental health professionals. In December, halfway through the first academic year when most colleges returned to in-person instruction, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory on the country's youth mental health crisis. While he said the class of 2025 has nearly double the usual number of self-identifying Muslim students, he believes attendance is also driven by how relevant chaplains have become. “Campus ministry can engage students to a more existential level, gets at more profound questions that mental health language has limitations for,” he says. This year, for example, she partnered with the counseling center to launch a group for those processing pandemic-related grief.

As student anxiety skyrockets, campus ministries are trying to help by not just offering the comforts of faith and community, but also creating collaborations with mental health professionals.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back Tuesday on the decision by San Francisco’s conservative Catholic archbishop to deny her Communion over her support of abortion rights, saying she respects that people have opposing views but not when they impose them on others.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted the Catholic Church isn't reprimanding lawmakers who support the death penalty.

With the huge Victoria Park candlelit commemorations blocked starting 2020, the church memorials were the last organized marking of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

PHILADELPHIA — A Catholic school in Pennsylvania has apologized after accidentally having students purchase flowers for their parents with lingerie inside. >> Read more trending newsSt. Anselm’s Catholic School in Parkwood, Pennsylvania, had a Mother’s Day flower sale to raise money, KYW-TV reported. But the faux flowers, rather than being just plastic, contained thong underwear, according to the station. One parent from the school posted video to Facebook showing the underwear hidden inside the fake bloom. The email said: “The roses sold at our Mother’s Day plant sale were not the single faux flowers originally intended.

Cardinal Zen, who was once bishop of Hong Kong, is one of the most prominent pro-democracy activists from the Catholic Church.

Feminist groups have rallied to the support of 18 cloistered Carmelite nuns who have filed an unusual complaint of gender violence against the local Catholic archbishop

Biden has long described a tension between his faith and his politics. As president, the potential end of Roe v. Wade makes him the nation’s highest-profile champion of abortion rights.

Among the teens praying fervently at Fort Bliss during last year's unprecedented arrivals of unaccompanied children was Elena, then 15. Jose de la Cruz Longoria, pastor at five Catholic parishes around Pecos, Texas, who ministers to teens at the shelter there. While awaiting their release, many teens struggle with regrets and low self-esteem, faith leaders told The AP. Brian Strassburger, a Jesuit who ministers to shelter youths in Brownsville and celebrates Mass across the border at a migrant camp in Reynosa, Mexico. Many of the teens who were active in their churches back home volunteer to read Scripture or chant psalms.

Among the teens praying fervently at Fort Bliss during last year's unprecedented arrivals of unaccompanied children was Elena, then 15. Jose de la Cruz Longoria, pastor at five Catholic parishes around Pecos, Texas, who ministers to teens at the shelter there. While awaiting their release, many teens struggle with regrets and low self-esteem, faith leaders told The AP. Brian Strassburger, a Jesuit who ministers to shelter youths in Brownsville and celebrates Mass across the border at a migrant camp in Reynosa, Mexico. Many of the teens who were active in their churches back home volunteer to read Scripture or chant psalms.

Every Sunday afternoon since last Easter, teens kneel by a makeshift altar at Fort Bliss and pray so hard that tears stream down their faces.

The three Christian communities that have uneasily shared their holiest site for centuries are embarking on a project to restore the ancient stone floor of the Jerusalem basilica

Hundreds of Liverpool parents could appeal after their children failed to get into their chosen schools.

Germany Church Abuse The accused Catholic priest is led into the courtroom in Cologne, Germany, Friday, Feb.25, 2022. On Friday, the Cologne Regional Court sentenced a Catholic priest to twelve years in prison for the sexual abuse of children. The 70-year-old priest must also pay damages of 5,000, 10,000 and 35,000 euros to three female joint plaintiffs. (Federico Gambarini/dpa via AP) (Federico Gambarini)BERLIN — (AP) — A German court on Friday convicted a Catholic priest of sexual abuse of children in cases that spanned many years and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The priest was taken into custody during the trial because more victims came forward and the court saw a danger of him reoffending.

The Vatican this week is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention on clergy sex abuse scandals and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power.

A consortium of Catholic women’s groups is calling on the Holy See to join the Council of Europe and sign the European Convention on Human Rights.

The new Texas law that bans most abortions in the state is being welcomed by many of the religious leaders who help bolster the anti-abortion movement.

A Florida couple is suing a Catholic school and demanding the return of a large donation, saying that it isn’t adhering to mainstream Catholic values.

The organization overseeing Catholic schools in the United States gets a new chief executive this week as it seeks to rebound from its biggest one-year enrollment drop since the 1970s.

It's another victory for religious groups at the Supreme Court.

Divisions have flared up among U.S. Catholic bishops as they opened a national meeting highlighted by a sensitive agenda item: a possible rebuke of Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden, who receive Communion while supporting abortion rights.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s “education choice” bill into law Tuesday during a ceremonial signing at a Catholic school in South Florida, expanding the eligibility for students to receive scholarship support to attend private school.

Police in Northern Ireland deployed water cannons for the first time in six years as they tried to disperse protesters who hurled stones, fireworks and gasoline-filled bottles at officers during another night of violence in Belfast.

___ROME — Police in Italy have been cracking down on violators of ordinances aimed at reining in what has been weeks of stubbornly high incidences of COVID-19 cases. North Macedonia has recorded more than 126,000 coronavirus cases and more than 3,600 deaths. ___TIRANA — Albania started a mass inoculation campaign Sunday ahead of the summer tourism season after acquiring 192,000 doses of Chinese coronavirus vaccine Sinovac earlier this week. The church drew media attention after reports it had opened the service to its entire congregation despite a tough coronavirus lockdown and sharply rising infection rate in the Netherlands. ___MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s government is acknowledging that the country’s true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic now stands above 321,000.

Roman Catholic leaders across the United States are discouraging the faithful from getting inoculated against COVID-19 with the newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Some within the Catholic church have called the vaccine “morally compromised” because it was produced using a line of lab-grown cells that descend from cells taken in the 1980s from the tissue of aborted fetuses. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, however, was developed, tested and is produced with abortion-derived cell lines raising additional moral concerns. Therefore, if one has the ability to choose a vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines should be chosen over Johnson & Johnson’s. their vaccine does not contain any fetal tissue.

The poster, she said, celebrated the recent liberalization of the abortion law in Argentina and expressed hope Poland would be next. Mass nationwide protests have recurred repeatedly since then, growing into the largest protest movement in post-communist Poland. The court's judges argued that allowing abortion when there are congenital defects is unconstitutional because the Polish Constitution protects human life. Suchanow and Marta Lempart, the leaders of the Women’s Strike group that has spearheaded street protests against the law, are now looking for inspiration to Argentina. AdIrene Donadio, a leading strategist with International Planned Parenthood Federation, a group promoting reproductive health and choice, said her organization is appalled that such a restrictive law could be imposed in a European Union member state.

(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)WARSAW – A near-total ban on abortion has taken effect in Poland and triggered a new round of nationwide protests three months after the constitutional court ruled that the abortion of congenitally damaged fetuses is unconstitutional. Members of Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, which is aligned with the Roman Catholic Church, had sought the new restriction. The protesters are demanding a full liberalization of the abortion law and the resignation of the government, neither of which seem likely in the short term. Some protesters Wednesday covered their faces with green bandanas, which are the symbol of the abortion rights movement in Argentina. The constitutional court is made up mostly of Law and Justice appointees who ruled on a motion brought by lawmakers from the party.

People gather in Warsaw, Poland Wednesday Jan. 27, 2021 to protest after the country's top court on Wednesday confirmed its highly divisive ruling that will further tighten the predominantly Catholic nation's strict anti-abortion law. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)WARSAW – New anti-government protests broke out in Polish cities Wednesday, shortly after the country's top court confirmed its highly divisive ruling that will further tighten the predominantly Catholic nation’s strict anti-abortion law. The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party is widely seen as having undue influence on the judiciary following reforms it passed affecting the way judges are appointed. It was made in response to a motion from over 100 ruling party lawmakers, whose names have not been made public. A prominent lawmaker for Law and Justice, Marek Suski, said work will begin on an entirely new abortion law that will take into account lethal defects.

(AP Photo/Kemal Softic)MOSTAR – MOSTAR, Bosnia-Long-entrenched ethno-nationalists were projected to win the first local election in Bosnia’s southern city of Mostar in 12 years, but early results of Sunday's vote also indicated multiethnic parties and alliances would be a strong part of the future city council. Mostar is split between Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control over the city during the country’s 1992-95 war. It hasn’t held a local election since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared its election rules discriminatory and ordered them changed. Thus, the lawmakers from multiethnic parties appear set to become tiebreakers in all but certain disputes between the dominant Bosniak and Croat nationalists. Prior to the war, ethnically mixed couples made up 10% of all marriages in Mostar, and the city was markedly cosmopolitan.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed likely to side with a Catholic social services agency in a dispute with Philadelphia over the agency’s refusal to work with same-sex couples as foster parents. Catholic Social Services, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, says its religious views keep it from certifying same-sex couples as foster parents. Kavanaugh, for his part, suggested Wednesday there should be a way for Catholic Social Services to continue to work with foster families. Even liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed to recognize the court was sympathetic to Catholic Social Services. Catholic Social Services did not, and the city stopped placing children with the agency, which sued.

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back Friday against the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco's criticism of COVID-related restrictions, saying he should “follow science” rather than advocate for fuller in-person gatherings for Mass and worship. “With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this,” Pelosi said. Pelosi noted that faith and science are sometimes seen at odds. “Around here, people say to me, You're a person of faith, why do you believe in science?" “I say, I believe science is an answer to our prayers.

MIAMI – The principal of a private Catholic high school tested positive for COVID-19 days after participating in a graduation ceremony at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Saturday, school officials said. Christopher Columbus High School Principal David Pugh tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, spokeswoman Cristina Cruz told the Miami Herald. “Although he does not have any symptoms now, he may have had the virus on Saturday during the graduation ceremony at the raceway,” Cruz told the Herald in an email. The all-boys high school hosted graduation at the racetrack as a way of providing 2020 graduates with an in-person but socially distanced ceremony. The school was closed on Wednesday and will be sanitized over the next few days before reopening on Monday, Cruz said.