Religion

Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful prelate who was expelled from the priesthood for sexual abuse, pleaded not guilty Friday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception in Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago. 

Users who are members of faith-based Facebook groups will find an option allowing them to request prayers and other group members will be able to respond via the “I prayed” icon.

The Associated Press reports that defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who served as archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, is facing charges in the 1970s sexual assault of teen.

Hillsong Church Founder Brian Houston said much of his staff are fully vaccinated after church member Stephen Harmon, refused to get inoculated and later died from COVID-19.

“Unfortunately, a mask shields our humanity,” the Resurrection School in Lansing, Michigan said in a lawsuit that is now in the appeals process.

Pope Francis arrived at the Vatican Wednesday after being discharged from a Rome hospital 10 days after intestinal surgery to remove half of his colon.

Pope Francis has made his first public appearance since surgery a week earlier.

Pope Francis ate breakfast Tuesday and took a walk as he continues to recover from a scheduled intestinal surgery, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis is “in good condition, alert and breathing on his own,” a day after he underwent planned intestinal surgery, the Vatican said.

U.S. Catholic bishops have overwhelmingly approved the drafting of a “teaching document” that many of them hope will rebuke Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden, for receiving Communion despite their support for abortion rights.

Delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting have voted overwhelmingly to create a task force to oversee an independent investigation into the denomination’s handling of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is refusing to turn over documents to state investigators who are looking into clergy sexual abuse in Wisconsin's five Roman Catholic dioceses.

After 14 years of study, Pope Francis has changed 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 can be sanctioned too.

Germany’s powerful Catholic progressives are openly defying a recent Holy See pronouncement that priests cannot bless same-sex unions.

A magistrate slain by mobsters in Sicily and praised by two popes has been beatified by the Roman Catholic church on Sunday in the last formal step before possible sainthood.

There’s a deep gulf between Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego in the high-stakes debate over whether politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion