The royal couple made a four-day state visit to Italy and marked their 20th wedding anniversary.

In an effort to blunt criticism of the poor air quality in Beijing prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics, the Chinese government implemented ambitious measures to curb air pollution. The result was not exactly shocking to Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist and director of community engagement at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic: Community and maternal health improved.

As Ukraine experienced a deadly weekend with a barrage of attacks from Russia on Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv, the capital, the papal almoner handed a gift from Pope Francis — four ambulances — to local authorities in Zaporizhzhia. The papal point man on charity was also personally distributing bread to the needy population during his 10th mission to the war-torn country.

As the Trump administration moved to formally dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development, Catholic Relief Services, the overseas charitable arm of the Catholic Church in the U.S., has advocated for U.S. foreign aid to continue on a new path shaped by Catholic principles.

Aging membership and an increasingly secular society are causing challenges for Pax Christi, the 80-year-old international Catholic peace movement that defends human rights and focuses on ending wars across the globe.

The budgetary problems at the bishops' conference are real. No one expected the new administration's policy changes to be so draconian or so immediate. Still, the bishops didn't put up much of a fight, did they?

Brian Burch, President Trump's nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, told senators on April 8 that he agreed with the administration’s broad cuts to foreign aid.

"With Cardinal McCarrick's death, we lose one of the great villains of Roman Catholicism in the U.S.," said Colt Anderson, a Fordham professor who is writing a book on clericalism and the clergy sex abuse crisis.

The clergy-led gathering stood in defiance of ICE policies, drawing on shared interfaith values.

For more than 50 years, Spyridon Denaxas has prayed, worked and welcomed the faithful in an island monastery carved into a seaside cliff that's little changed since its founding more than a millennium ago.