VATICAN CITY - The sainthood cause of Argentine Cardinal Eduardo Francisco Pironio, who organized the first World Youth Days as president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, has been forwarded to the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has approved new rules to tighten financial oversight of the canonization process after leaked documents revealed abuses and high costs in creating saints.

DETROIT - When Fr. Benjamin Kosnac decided to start offering confessions 30 minutes before every Mass, he wasn't sure anyone would come. 

Passion (Palm) Sunday (Year C) March 20 (Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 2:14-23:56)

How do we make sense of catastrophe and disaster? We usually look for explanations and causes, or more often than not, someone to blame. 

Many of us, I am sure, have been inspired by the movie Of Gods and Men, the story of a group of Trappist monks who, after making a painful decision not to flee from the violence in Algeria in the 1990s, are eventually martyred by Islamic extremists in 1996. Recently, I was much inspired by reading the diaries of one of those monks, Christophe Lebreton. Published under the title Born from the Gaze of God, The Tibhirine Journal of a Martyr Monk, his diaries chronicle the last three years of his life and give us an insight into his, and his community’s, decision to remain in Algeria in the face of almost certain death. 

VATICAN CITY - The number of baptized Catholics worldwide has grown at a faster rate than that of the world's population, according to Vatican statistics.

Pope Francis said four nuns executed by gunmen in Yemen at a home where they cared for elderly and disabled residents are “today’s martyrs.”

There is intense anticipation in the Catholic Church — and no small amount of anxiety for traditionalists — over what Pope Francis will say about Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics in a key document expected in the coming weeks.