Witnesses and medics in Gaza say an Israeli airstrike on a seaside cafe has killed at least 30 people in Gaza City.

Zohran Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel, is the expected Democratic nominee for mayor in America’s most Jewish city and that's raising alarms among some in the New York's Jewish community.

Pope Leo XIV is marking a feast day as the Vatican launches a new campaign to boost donations from the faithful.

U.S. President Donald Trump is urging a ceasefire deal on the war in Gaza.

The Rev. James Kelly baptized and married thousands of people, ministered to the ill at hospitals, and traveled the world.

Health workers in Gaza say Israeli strikes killed at least 72 people across Gaza overnight and into Saturday.

Texans quarterback, foundation provide resources for seven youth from Space City Church to attend church camp in Waxahachie

Israeli leaders are denying claims that soldiers were ordered to shoot at Palestinians approaching aid sites in Gaza.

A lawyer says the Supreme Court's ruling that Maryland parents who have religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons using LGBTQ storybooks is a historic victory for parental rights.

The Supreme Court has preserved a key part of the Affordable Care Act’s preventive health care coverage requirements, rejecting a challenge from Christian employers to the provision that affects 150 million Americans.

Security forces faced off with crowds at the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church as the government sought to arrest a cleric in the latest move against outspoken critics of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The U.S. Catholic Church is grappling with a severe priest shortage.

The Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, recently ordained 12 new Catholic priests in a joyful Mass at its cathedral.

Israel’s air force has carried out intense airstrikes on mountains overlooking a southern Lebanon city.

Palestinian hospital officials say an Israeli airstrike has hit a street in central Gaza, killing 18 people.

The Vatican Museums has unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms.

A new poll finds few Americans support allowing religious schools to become tax-funded public charter schools.

The first female Orthodox saint in North America was an Indigenous woman who spent her entire life with her Yup'ik family and neighbors in a village in southwest Alaska.

The Orthodox Church in America has its first female saint from North America.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says his country has delivered a "slap to America’s face” with its strike on an American base in Qatar and warned against any further U.S. attacks on Iran.

The families of hostages held in Gaza have faced a 20-month-long nightmare.

The bombing has quieted in Iran’s 12-day conflict with Israel, but the battle over the future of Tehran is likely to soon begin.

Zohran Mamdani had been a state lawmaker unknown even to most New Yorkers before announcing his run for mayor.

A group of Dallas-area families and faith leaders has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block a new Texas law requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

One of Armenia’s top religious leaders was arrested on terrorism charges and accused of plotting to overthrow the government, the second arrest in a week of a prominent political opponent.

Pope Leo XIV has affirmed that priests must be celibate.

The fast-changing war between Israel and Iran, which the U.S. recently inserted itself in by targeting Iran’s nuclear sites, has caused a mix of emotions among many in the Iranian diaspora in America.

The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding on Wednesday while U.S. President Donald Trump said that U.S. and Iranian officials will talk next week.

Israel is reporting one of its deadliest days in Gaza in months as its military says seven soldiers have been killed in a bomb attack.

Charities received $592.5 billion in donations in 2024, a 3.3% increase over 2023, after adjusting for inflation, according to the most recent ”Giving USA″ report, which takes a comprehensive look at U.S. philanthropy.

Pope Leo XIV is kicking off a weeklong celebration of Catholic clergy for the Holy Year.

Palestinian witnesses and hospitals say Israeli forces and drones have opened fire toward hundreds of people waiting for aid in southern and central Gaza, killing at least 44 people.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a former Louisiana prison inmate whose dreadlocks were shaved by guards in violation of his religious beliefs.

A pastor says God had a hand in preventing a mass shooting at his suburban Detroit church where more than 100 people had gathered to worship.

The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a church in Syria has risen to 25, state media say.

Muslims will soon welcome a new lunar year in what's known as the Hijri calendar.

Texas will require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a new state law that will make the state the nation’s largest to attempt to impose such a mandate.

Pope Leo XIV has said there should be no tolerance in the Catholic Church for any type of abuse.

A panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state’s public school classrooms is unconstitutional.

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has been released from federal immigration detention.

A week into their war, Israel and Iran have exchanged more strikes while diplomatic efforts led by the Europeans took place in Geneva.

Iranian missiles have hit a major hospital in southern Israel and struck residential buildings in Tel Aviv, wounding 240 people and causing extensive damage.

A groundbreaking is scheduled in Virginia for the rebuilding of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.

A televangelist in Kenya who was notorious for claiming to cure infertility in women died in a car crash on Tuesday.

U.S. efforts resulted in the release of 135 Nicaraguan political prisoners including faith leaders in September 2024.

Hundreds of Jews from the United States and elsewhere have been evacuated from Israel aboard a cruise ship to Cyprus.

Explosions were heard in Iran's capital as Israeli warplanes pounded Tehran throughout the day and night.

Mother Emanuel AME church made an ecumenical gesture for the commemoration of a racist shooting that killed nine of its Black members 10 years ago on Tuesday.

In the south of Italy, Matera is known as the “City of Stones” for its architecture.

U.S. President Donald Trump has posted an ominous message on his social media site, calling for the immediate evacuation of Tehran but later denied reports that he'd rushed back to Washington to work on a ceasefire.

Residents of Iran’s capital were seen leaving the city and shops and the historic Grand Bazaar were closed Tuesday, the fifth day of the intensifying conflict started by Israel.

Intense Israeli airstrikes targeted Iran’s capital early Wednesday after it issued a warning about a new area it could target, a day after U_S_ President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender.”.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court says the state can have a grand jury investigate allegations of clergy sexually abusing children and report findings.

Israel's opposition leader pushed just days ago to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Officials in Ireland are starting work to excavate the site of a former church-run home for unmarried women and their babies to identify the remains of some 800 infants and young children who died there.

The Vatican has beatified a Congolese government worker who was killed for resisting corruption, giving young people in a part of the world wracked with violence a new model of holiness.

Israel and Iran have traded missile strikes for a third straight day.

A helicopter carrying Hindu pilgrims has crashed in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, killing seven people on board.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff, American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.

In his first words directed specifically to Americans, Pope Leo XIV told young people on Saturday how to find hope and meaning in their lives through God and in service to others.

Iran has launched a second round of missiles against Israel as Israel’s military kept up attacks on Iran following earlier strikes that targeted nuclear and military sites.

French President Emmanuel Macron says a top-level U.N. conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians scheduled for next week has been postponed.

The Catholic Church’s first millennial-era saint Carlo Acutis will be canonized Sept. 7.

Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. says Israel’s ongoing attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, top generals and scientists killed 78 people and wounded more that 320.

Faith leaders across denominations are joining nationwide protests against immigration raids ordered by the Trump administration and making a united call on nonviolence to curb clashes with law enforcement.

Gaza's Hamas-run police force said it killed 12 members of an Israeli-backed militia after detaining them early Thursday.

Southern Baptist representatives have fended off two efforts to move the staunchly conservative body even more sharply to the right.

Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu faces the greatest test to his rule since Oct. 7, 2023.

The Gaza Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has passed 55,000.

Pope Leo XIV has made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop.

Southern Baptist delegates at their national meeting overwhelmingly endorsed banning same-sex marriage — including a call for a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 10-year-old precedent legalizing it nationwide.

Victor Wembanyama is in China, and it’s not all about vacation.

International pressure has increased again on Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a vote to dissolve parliament Wednesday and key coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government.

Pope Leo XIV has criticized the surge of nationalist political movements in the world as he prayed for reconciliation and dialogue.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest school dropout rates and a driving factor is that parents are being crushed by unpredictable school fees.

This year's Boulder Jewish Festival has been reimagined to focus on community healing.

The leader of al-Qaida’s Yemen branch has threatened both U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip in his first video message since taking over the group last year.

The top Taliban leader has slammed President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Afghans, calling the United States an “oppressor.”.

The Vatican doesn’t tax its residents or issue bonds, and it's got a very big budget problem.

One of the greatest challenges facing Pope Leo XIV is financial.

More than 1.6 million Muslims are completing a core element of the Hajj, the symbolic stoning of the devil.

Representation of many of the world’s faiths and spiritual traditions has been minimal to nonexistent in the mainstream comics universe.

Representation of many of the world's faiths and spiritual traditions has been minimal to nonexistent in the mainstream comics universe.

People across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip have marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays with prayers outside destroyed mosques and homes, with little hope the war with Israel will end soon.

Less spending, higher prices and fewer animal sacrifices subdued the usual festive mood as the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha was celebrated in many parts of the world.

A federal judge has ruled that two federal agencies cannot punish Catholic employers and health care providers if they refuse, for religious reasons, to provide gender-affirming care to transgender patients or won’t provide health insurance coverage for such care to their workers.

The Supreme Court has handed down a unanimous ruling in a religious rights case, finding a Catholic charity in Wisconsin can’t be required to pay unemployment taxes when other religious groups are exempt.

Pope Leo XIV has met with members of the Vatican’s child protection advisory commission for the first time amid questions about his past handling of abuse and demands from survivors that he enact a true zero tolerance for abuse policy across the Catholic Church.

How do you conserve an incomparable set of murals that have accumulated more than 80 years’ worth of soot, salt and other deterioration.

Workers have completed a phase of conservation work on historic murals by the late artist Maxo Vanka at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church near Pittsburgh.

Israel has recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

For the leaders of U.S. Jewish institutions, the recent attacks in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, D.

Muslims from around the world are in the Saudi city of Mecca for this year's Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

On the rural islands of Nagasaki a handful of believers practice a version of Christianity that has direct links to a time of samurai, shoguns and martyred missionaries and believers.

Louisiana lawmakers have for the third consecutive year rejected a bill that would have added some rape cases to the narrow list of exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

An agenda driven by conservative priorities, schools’ financial duress and teacher needs led to an $8.5 billion boost, new discipline rules, more Christianity in classrooms and a DEI ban.

Saudi officials say they have stopped more than 269,000 Muslims without permits for the Hajj pilgrimage from entering Mecca.

Pope Leo XIV blessed the 159 cyclists competing in the Giro d’Italia as the three-week race’s final stage began with an unprecedented ride through the Vatican gardens behind St. Peter’s Basilica.

A group of young Catholics attend Mass every weekday at noon at the Princeton University Chapel.