Tens of thousands of people have gathered at Judaism’s holiest site in Jerusalem for the traditional priestly blessing prayer.

A clandestine opposition movement remains active in Nicaragua, but options for restoring democracy in the Central American country are dwindling.

A Hamas official says that the Palestinian militant group is sending a delegation to the Gulf Arab state of Qatar to continue the indirect ceasefire talks with Israel.

As the Christian world commemorates Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday, the State Department has issued an appeal for its employees to report instances of alleged anti-Christian bias, including actions taken for opposition to vaccines or personal pronoun choice, that may have occurred during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Turkey has begun a new phase in sweeping restorations of the nearly 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, focusing on preserving the monument’s historic domes from the threat of earthquakes.

A convalescing Pope Francis has greeted the crowd in St_ Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday, wishing more than 20,000 faithful a “Happy Palm Sunday, Happy Holy Week."

The internet has offered up a host of alternatives as egg prices continue to be stubbornly high.

Relatives of hostages in Gaza say they feel the absence of their loved ones acutely during Passover, which commemorates the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their liberation from slavery.

Members of a 104-year-old Pasadena synagogue that was burned down in the Los Angeles fires in January are getting ready to celebrate Passover.

Pope Francis met privately with King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the Vatican during the royal couple’s four-day state visit to Italy and on the occasion of their 20th wedding anniversary.

Preparations for widely popular Lent and Holy Week processions are underway across Latin America – but not in Nicaragua.

Passover celebrations this year will again occur amid anxieties and divisions among many Jews related to the unresolved Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and the specter of widespread antisemitism.

An Israeli airstrike on a residential block in northern Gaza killed at least 23 people, health officials in the Palestinian territory say.

President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the Vatican has defended many of the administration’s foreign-aid cuts at a Senate hearing, even while saying Catholic charitable groups are well-equipped to deliver such aid efficiently.

For more than 50 years, Father Spyridon has prayed, worked and welcomed the faithful in a monastery carved into a cliffside high above the Aegean Sea.

Palestinian medics say Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight and into Tuesday have killed at least 25 people.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is ending a half-century of partnerships with the federal government to serve refugees and children.

Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint in the Gaza Strip since relaunching its war against Hamas last month.

Moroccans are protesting Israel’s latest offensive in Gaza and U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to displace Palestinians and clear the territory for development.

Pope Francis has made a surprise entrance to St. Peter’s Square during a special Jubilee Mass for the sick and medical workers in his first public appearance at the Vatican since leaving the hospital.

With the upcoming canonization of its first millennial saint, the Catholic Church has turned to police in Italy to investigate the online sale of some purported relics of Carlo Acutis.

Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, Florida’s Todd Golden and Duke’s Jon Scheyer are basketball rivals at the Final Four with a unique thread of connection.

Disgraced former Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has died.

Israeli strikes have killed more than a dozen people in the Gaza Strip as Israel sends more ground troops into the Palestinian territory to ramp up its offensive against Hamas.

Sitting under stained glass windows around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as burly wresters body-slammed and threw one another to the floor.

A crackdown on foreign students is alarming college leaders, who say the Trump administration is using new tactics and vague justifications to push some students out of the country.

Church officials say a Catholic priest has been shot and killed in the northeastern Kansas town of Seneca.

Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office is once again ensnared in scandal after police arrested two of his close associates this week on suspicion of accepting money from Qatar to promote a positive image of the Gulf Arab state in Israel.

India's parliament has passed a controversial bill moved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to amend laws governing Muslim land endowments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip.

As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again.

As many as four in five immigrants at risk of deportation from the United States are Christian, according to a new report that calls on their fellow believers to consider the impact of aggressive deportation policies pursued under the Trump administration.

The U.N. food agency is closing all of its bakeries in the Gaza Strip.

The Vatican says Pope Francis spends part of his days at his desk working and concelebrates Mass daily in his private chapel.

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.

A Jesuit priest says he will rather go to prison than pay a fine of 500 euros or $541 for participating in a climate activists’ street blockade in the southern German city of Nuremberg.

The Israeli military has struck a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

María Carmen Rendiles is set to become Venezuela’s first female saint.

The Supreme Court appears 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.

A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced three people to death for the killing of Israeli-Moldovan Zvi Kogan.

The Israeli military has issued sweeping evacuation orders covering Rafah.

The Israeli military has indicated it could soon launch another major offensive in Rafah and ordered most of the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip evacuated.

The usual festive mood of Eid al-Fitr holiday to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan has been subdued in Indonesia this year as people grapple with soaring prices for food, clothing and essential goods.

Even during his five weeks in the hospital battling pneumonia that nearly killed him, Pope Francis has never been shy about showing weakness.

Syria’s new transitional government has been sworn in nearly four months after the Assad family was removed from power and as the new authorities in Damascus work to bring back stability to the war-ton country.

The pope's doctor says Francis has shown ‘’a truly surprising improvement’’ since returning to the Vatican to convalesce after surviving a life-threatening bout with double-pneumonia.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is drawing to an end and Muslims around the world will soon start celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

As they spend their first Ramadan in their country in years, many Syrians who’ve recently returned from abroad to a homeland they were forced to flee have been celebrating the end of the Assad family’s rule.

Carlo Acutis will become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint at a solemn canonization Mass on April 27 in St. Peter’s Square.

Israel has launched an attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire ended fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in November.

Israel has launched an attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November.

Separate Israeli strikes have killed a family of six and a Hamas spokesman in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have been pouring into the medieval hilltop town of Assisi in Italy to venerate the Catholic Church’s newest saint.

The Episcopal bishop who in January angered President Donald Trump by appealing to him to show mercy to migrants in the country illegally and to the LGBTQ+ community has a deal for two books for young people.

Growing numbers of Catholics are taking part in Eucharistic adoration – which this year’s Jubilee will mark this weekend with “24 hours for the Lord.”.

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of parts of Gaza City as it steps up its renewed offensive against Hamas.

Pope Francis’ medical team briefly considered suspending treatment after a Feb. 28 breathing crisis but instead decided on an aggressive treatment course.

Israeli authorities released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was detained by the army after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Hundreds of migrants temporary settled at Mexico's southern border gave up on their dream of reaching the U.S. following President Donald Trump's crackdown on migration.

A controversial South Korean church with powerful political connections faces dissolution in Japan after a Tokyo court issued an order to revoke its legal status.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities have released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director, a day after he was beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by soldiers.

The Unification Church in Japan was ordered dissolved by a court after a government request spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

For Syrians observing Ramadan, this Muslim holy month is their first in their homeland since the end of the Assad family's iron-fisted rule.

Israeli settlers have beaten up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land."

Will Smith could have let his infamous Oscar slap be his cinematic fade out with a career bruised, a marriage dissected and a reputation in a free fall.

Gaza's Health Ministry says Israeli strikes have killed more than 65 Palestinians including women and children.

Greenlanders in recent years have been embracing pre-Christian Inuit traditions like drum dancing or getting Inuit tattoos.

A weak and frail Pope Francis has returned home to the Vatican from the hospital after a five-week, life-threatening bout of pneumonia.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s military has struck the largest hospital in the territory's south, killing two people and wounding others.

Pope Francis has returned home to the Vatican after he was hospitalized for five weeks with a life-threatening bout of pneumonia.

An Orthodox Jewish passenger says a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from an airplane bathroom while he was experiencing constipation.

Pope Francis will be released from the hospital on Sunday, his doctors have said, after 38 days battling a life-threatening case of pneumonia in both lungs.

Over 12 years, Francis has sought to normalize the papacy with his informal style and disdain for pomp while still wielding the awesome power of the papacy.

In what has become a Ramadan tradition, a group of volunteers in Dearborn, Michigan, gathers excess food prepared for the nightly fast-breaking iftar meal and distributes it to those in need in neighboring Detroit.

Two of Pope Francis’ closest advisers are predicting that he will recover from pneumonia and that a “new stage” in his pontificate will open after he is released.

Israel’s renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip threatens to be even deadlier and more destructive than the last, as it pursues wider aims with far fewer constraints.

Three hospitals in the Gaza Strip say at least 85 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on several homes across the war torn territory.

Pope Francis’s condition has continued to improve and he no longer needs to use noninvasive mechanical ventilation to help him breathe at night.

The Italian postal service has seen a huge increase in mail addressed to Pope Francis since his Feb. 14 hospitalization.

Israel says its troops retook part of a corridor that bisects Gaza, and its defense minister warned that attacks would intensify until Hamas frees dozens of hostages and gives up control of the territory.

The Israeli military says it launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor that bisects northern Gaza from the south.

Immigration advocates say a woman who gained prominence after she took refuge in Denver churches to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration has been detained.

The wave of Israeli strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday was the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to get out of the ceasefire with Hamas that he agreed to in January.

An Afghan father of two is among thousands of newly arrived refugees who lost financial assistance when the Trump administration cut off funding for the federal refugee program in January.

An Afghan father of two is among thousands of newly arrived refugees who lost financial assistance when the Trump administration cut off funding for the federal refugee program in January.

Authorities have imposed an indefinite curfew in parts of a western Indian city a day after communal clashes that were sparked by protests by Hindu nationalist groups demanding removal of the tomb of a 17th-century Muslim Mughal ruler.

Pope Francis says in a letter to an Italian newspaper that his lengthy illness has made clearer to him the absurdity of war and the power of words to shape the truth and facts.

The relative calm of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has come to an abrupt end with Israel launching dozens of attacks on targets across the Gaza Strip.

Israel has launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says are “only the beginning” and “a necessary condition for freeing hostages.”.

Israel has launched a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, saying it is hitting Hamas targets in its heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.

King Charles III is scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis during a state visit next month to the Vatican, suggesting the Holy See is optimistic the pontiff will be back at work by then.

Pope Francis is registering new slight improvements in his monthlong treatment for double pneumonia.

A Hindu temple in Chino Hills, California, was desecrated on March 7 with anti-Hindu graffiti, which also targeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A former pastor of a Texas megachurch has surrendered to Oklahoma authorities on child sexual abuse charges.

The Vatican has released the first photograph of the pope in more than a month, showing Pope Francis wearing a purple Lenten liturgical vestments sitting in a wheelchair in front of an altar in the hospital chapel.

Pope Francis has entered the fifth week of hospital treatment for double pneumonia very much looking ahead as he continued work on a signature priority of his papacy.

The nuns who operate the Vatican’s switchboard are fielding a growing number of calls.

International students and foreign faculty have watched the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University with apprehension.