The Catholic Church in Germany is at a point where serious debate – including on priestly celibacy and the role of women – and openness to doing things in a new way must encouraged, said the president of the German bishops' conference.

VATICAN – Taking their cue from Christ, moral theologians can see that people need to be liberated and healed, not condemned, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – To keep silent about the truths of the Catholic faith or to teach the contrary is a form of religious deception that comes from the anti-Christ, said Cardinal Gerhard Muller.

As Ontario courts grapple with the case against the provincial government on basic income, the Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice is reminding Catholics that Catholic social teaching demands society must provide an economic minimum that supports families and human dignity.

VATICAN – The death penalty is an inhumane form of punishment that ignores the primacy of mercy in the name of justice, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – Welcoming the finalization of global compacts on migration and on refugees, the Vatican urged nations to adopt the nonbinding agreements to protect people who are on the move and to promote their orderly acceptance in new countries.

WASHINGTON – The revelation in late November that a Chinese researcher had edited genes in human embryos and then implanted them in a woman was "a train wreck of a thing to do," said an ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

The Vatican challenged countries gathered for the 24th U.N. Climate Change Conference to focus on the needs of the present and the future as it worked to take swift action.

Pro-life women are portrayed as being on the outside looking in when it comes to today’s feminist movement, but they actually are truer to feminism’s roots.

BARRY'S BAY, Ont. – Every week, Kayla Pires travels 70 kilometres to St. Hedwig’s Parish in Barry’s Bay, Ont., so she can learn more about her faith. 

VATICAN – The Catholic Church must be a place of justice and mercy, and its members must be catalysts for change, some young observers have told the Synod of Bishops.

VATICAN – John Paul II spent much of his papacy speaking to youth. Now some of those youth are bishops.

When Archbishop Fergus P. McEvay started the St. Elizabeth Nurses in Toronto 110 years ago, it was all about the beginning of life. Four qualified midwives were stationed in the city’s poorer neighbourhoods to deliver babies, ensure the mother’s health and then get those babies baptized.

ROME – Cardinal Raymond Burke urged Catholic young people attending a conference to hold fast to the teachings of Jesus Christ and to resist temptations by a “profoundly secularized culture” to change the Church into “one more Protestant denomination.” 

VATICAN – At a Synod of Bishops where "cultural shift," "epochal change" and "massive challenge" are almost buzz phrases, Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg said, "I'm very optimistic."