Alva Review-Courier -

ROME (AP) — An international campaign to ban surrogacy received a strong endorsement Friday from the Vatican, with a top official calling for a broad-based alliance to stop the "commercialization of life." A Vatican-affiliated university hosted a t...

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis rallied from a winter-long bout of respiratory problems to lead some 60,000 people in Easter celebrations Sunday, making a strong appeal for a cease-fire in Gaza and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. Francis p...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has been trying for years to debunk the idea that its vaunted secret archives are all that secret: It has opened up the files of controversial World War II-era Pope Pius XII to scholars and changed the official name to...

TORVAIANICA, Italy (AP) — Pope Francis' recent gesture of welcome for transgender Catholics has resonated strongly in a working class, seaside town south of Rome, where a community of trans women has found help and hope through a remarkable r...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis shamed and challenged world leaders on Wednesday to commit to binding targets to slow climate change before it's too late, warning that God's increasingly warming creation is fast reaching a "point of no return." I...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — An unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics has called for the church to take concrete steps to promote women to decision-making roles, for a "radical inclusion" of the LGBTQ+ community and for new accountability measures t...

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Pope Francis warned Saturday that South Sudan's future depends on how it treats its women, as he highlighted their horrific plight in a country where sexual violence is rampant, child brides are common and the maternal mortal...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as "unjust," saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church. "Being h...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis agreed Saturday that the attempt to eliminate Indigenous culture in Canada through a church-run residential school system amounted to a cultural "genocide." Speaking to reporters while en route home from C...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis authorized spending up to 1 million euros to free a Colombian nun kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali, a cardinal testified Thursday, revealing previously secret papal approval to hire a British security f...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — His appeals for an Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine went unheeded. His planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was canceled. A proposed visit to Moscow? Nyet. Even his attempt to showcase Russian-Ukrainian f...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Indigenous leaders from Canada and survivors of the country's notorious residential schools met with Pope Francis on Monday and told him of the abuses they suffered at the hands of Catholic priests and school workers. They came h...

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine in a ceremony Friday that harked back to a century-old apocalyptic prophecy about peace and Russia that was sparked by purported visions of the Virgin Mary to three peasant children in Fatima, Port...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has changed Catholic Church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse their authority and to say that laypeople who hold church office also can be sanctioned for similar sex c...

ROME (AP) — A top official at the European Medicines Agency says there's a causal link between AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine and rare blood clots, but that it's unclear what the connection is and that the benefits of taking the shot still o...

PLAINS OF UR, Iraq (AP) — Pope Francis walked through a narrow alley in Iraq's holy city of Najaf for a historic meeting with the country's top Shiite cleric Saturday, and together they delivered a powerful message of peaceful coexistence in a c...

QARAQOSH, Iraq (AP) — Pope Francis urged Iraq’s Christians on Sunday to forgive the injustices against them by Muslim extremists and to rebuild as he visited the wrecked shells of churches and met ecstatic crowds in the community’s historic heart...

DENVER (AP) — The Vatican has cleared a retired U.S. bishop of multiple allegations he sexually abused minors and teenagers, rejecting lay experts' determination that a half-dozen claims were credible and instead slapping him on the wrist for what i...

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is supporting demands for racial justice in the wake of the U.S. police killing of George Floyd and is blasting COVID-19 skeptics and media organizations that spread their conspiracies in a new book penned during the Vatican'...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has indicated its support for a campaign to provide a proper Christian burial for hundreds of babies and toddlers by first exhuming their bodies from the grounds of a Catholic-run Irish home for unwed mothers. The V...

ROME (AP) — Italy bid farewell to its coronavirus dead on Sunday with a haunting Requiem concert performed at the entrance to the cemetery of Bergamo, the hardest-hit province in the onetime epicenter of the outbreak in Europe. President Sergio M...

ROME (AP) — Italy mulled imposing even tighter restrictions on daily life and announced billions in financial relief Wednesday to cushion economic shocks from the coronavirus, its latest efforts to adjust to the fast-evolving health crisis that also...

CODOGNO, Italy (AP) — Italy reported its first death from the new virus from China early Saturday and the number of people infected more than quadrupled due to a cluster of cases that prompted officials to order schools, restaurants and businesses t...

SAMBURU, Kenya (AP) — When Sabina Losirkale went into labor, her sister Scolastica recalls, priests and religious sisters filled the delivery ward waiting to see the color of the baby's skin — and if their worst fears had come to pass. Sco...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Texas couple that accused top U.S. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of mishandling a sexual misconduct case against his former deputy is denying his office's claims that they fabricated quotes and demanded $10 million, saying they a...