Israel’s defense minister says its military operation in the Gaza Strip is expanding to seize “large areas."

Israel’s defense minister says the country's military operation in the Gaza Strip is expanding to seize “large areas.”.

As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again.

As many as four in five immigrants at risk of deportation from the United States are Christian, according to a new report that calls on their fellow believers to consider the impact of aggressive deportation policies pursued under the Trump administration.

The U.N. food agency is closing all of its bakeries in the Gaza Strip.

The Vatican says Pope Francis spends part of his days at his desk working and concelebrates Mass daily in his private chapel.

Packed pews, rollicking singing and emotional devotions have marked Lent worship services at Notre Dame d'Haiti, the Catholic church at the heart of the largest Haitian diaspora in the United States.

A Jesuit priest says he will rather go to prison than pay a fine of 500 euros or $541 for participating in a climate activists’ street blockade in the southern German city of Nuremberg.

The Israeli military has struck a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

María Carmen Rendiles is set to become Venezuela’s first female saint.

The Supreme Court appears to be leaning toward a Catholic charitable organization pushing back against the state of Wisconsin in the latest religious rights case to come before the court.

A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced three people to death for the killing of Israeli-Moldovan Zvi Kogan.

The Israeli military has issued sweeping evacuation orders covering Rafah.

The Israeli military has indicated it could soon launch another major offensive in Rafah and ordered most of the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip evacuated.

The usual festive mood of Eid al-Fitr holiday to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan has been subdued in Indonesia this year as people grapple with soaring prices for food, clothing and essential goods.

Even during his five weeks in the hospital battling pneumonia that nearly killed him, Pope Francis has never been shy about showing weakness.

Syria’s new transitional government has been sworn in nearly four months after the Assad family was removed from power and as the new authorities in Damascus work to bring back stability to the war-ton country.

The pope's doctor says Francis has shown ‘’a truly surprising improvement’’ since returning to the Vatican to convalesce after surviving a life-threatening bout with double-pneumonia.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is drawing to an end and Muslims around the world will soon start celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

As they spend their first Ramadan in their country in years, many Syrians who’ve recently returned from abroad to a homeland they were forced to flee have been celebrating the end of the Assad family’s rule.

Carlo Acutis will become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint at a solemn canonization Mass on April 27 in St. Peter’s Square.

Israel has launched an attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire ended fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in November.

Israel has launched an attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November.

Separate Israeli strikes have killed a family of six and a Hamas spokesman in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have been pouring into the medieval hilltop town of Assisi in Italy to venerate the Catholic Church’s newest saint.

The Episcopal bishop who in January angered President Donald Trump by appealing to him to show mercy to migrants in the country illegally and to the LGBTQ+ community has a deal for two books for young people.

Growing numbers of Catholics are taking part in Eucharistic adoration – which this year’s Jubilee will mark this weekend with “24 hours for the Lord.”.

The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of parts of Gaza City as it steps up its renewed offensive against Hamas.

Pope Francis’ medical team briefly considered suspending treatment after a Feb. 28 breathing crisis but instead decided on an aggressive treatment course.

Israeli authorities released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was detained by the army after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Hundreds of migrants temporary settled at Mexico's southern border gave up on their dream of reaching the U.S. following President Donald Trump's crackdown on migration.

A controversial South Korean church with powerful political connections faces dissolution in Japan after a Tokyo court issued an order to revoke its legal status.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities have released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director, a day after he was beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by soldiers.

The Unification Church in Japan was ordered dissolved by a court after a government request spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

For Syrians observing Ramadan, this Muslim holy month is their first in their homeland since the end of the Assad family's iron-fisted rule.

Israeli settlers have beaten up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land."

Will Smith could have let his infamous Oscar slap be his cinematic fade out with a career bruised, a marriage dissected and a reputation in a free fall.

Gaza's Health Ministry says Israeli strikes have killed more than 65 Palestinians including women and children.

Greenlanders in recent years have been embracing pre-Christian Inuit traditions like drum dancing or getting Inuit tattoos.

A weak and frail Pope Francis has returned home to the Vatican from the hospital after a five-week, life-threatening bout of pneumonia.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s military has struck the largest hospital in the territory's south, killing two people and wounding others.

Pope Francis has returned home to the Vatican after he was hospitalized for five weeks with a life-threatening bout of pneumonia.

An Orthodox Jewish passenger says a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from an airplane bathroom while he was experiencing constipation.

Pope Francis will be released from the hospital on Sunday, his doctors have said, after 38 days battling a life-threatening case of pneumonia in both lungs.

Over 12 years, Francis has sought to normalize the papacy with his informal style and disdain for pomp while still wielding the awesome power of the papacy.

In what has become a Ramadan tradition, a group of volunteers in Dearborn, Michigan, gathers excess food prepared for the nightly fast-breaking iftar meal and distributes it to those in need in neighboring Detroit.

Two of Pope Francis’ closest advisers are predicting that he will recover from pneumonia and that a “new stage” in his pontificate will open after he is released.

Israel’s renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip threatens to be even deadlier and more destructive than the last, as it pursues wider aims with far fewer constraints.

Three hospitals in the Gaza Strip say at least 85 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on several homes across the war torn territory.

Pope Francis’s condition has continued to improve and he no longer needs to use noninvasive mechanical ventilation to help him breathe at night.

The Italian postal service has seen a huge increase in mail addressed to Pope Francis since his Feb. 14 hospitalization.

Israel says its troops retook part of a corridor that bisects Gaza, and its defense minister warned that attacks would intensify until Hamas frees dozens of hostages and gives up control of the territory.

The Israeli military says it launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor that bisects northern Gaza from the south.

Immigration advocates say a woman who gained prominence after she took refuge in Denver churches to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration has been detained.

The wave of Israeli strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday was the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to get out of the ceasefire with Hamas that he agreed to in January.

An Afghan father of two is among thousands of newly arrived refugees who lost financial assistance when the Trump administration cut off funding for the federal refugee program in January.

An Afghan father of two is among thousands of newly arrived refugees who lost financial assistance when the Trump administration cut off funding for the federal refugee program in January.

Authorities have imposed an indefinite curfew in parts of a western Indian city a day after communal clashes that were sparked by protests by Hindu nationalist groups demanding removal of the tomb of a 17th-century Muslim Mughal ruler.

Pope Francis says in a letter to an Italian newspaper that his lengthy illness has made clearer to him the absurdity of war and the power of words to shape the truth and facts.

The relative calm of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has come to an abrupt end with Israel launching dozens of attacks on targets across the Gaza Strip.

Israel has launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says are “only the beginning” and “a necessary condition for freeing hostages.”.

Israel has launched a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, saying it is hitting Hamas targets in its heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January.

King Charles III is scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis during a state visit next month to the Vatican, suggesting the Holy See is optimistic the pontiff will be back at work by then.

Pope Francis is registering new slight improvements in his monthlong treatment for double pneumonia.

A Hindu temple in Chino Hills, California, was desecrated on March 7 with anti-Hindu graffiti, which also targeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A former pastor of a Texas megachurch has surrendered to Oklahoma authorities on child sexual abuse charges.

The Vatican has released the first photograph of the pope in more than a month, showing Pope Francis wearing a purple Lenten liturgical vestments sitting in a wheelchair in front of an altar in the hospital chapel.

Pope Francis has entered the fifth week of hospital treatment for double pneumonia very much looking ahead as he continued work on a signature priority of his papacy.

The nuns who operate the Vatican’s switchboard are fielding a growing number of calls.

International students and foreign faculty have watched the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University with apprehension.

If it’s March, and it’s green, it must be St. Patrick’s Day.

Hamas says it has accepted a proposal from mediators to release one living American-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four dual-nationals who had died in captivity.

Pope Francis was hospitalized on Feb. 14, after suffering a bout of bronchitis for weeks and after increasingly finding it hard to speak publicly.

Dozens of clerics and others from Syria’s minority Druze community have crossed into the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights Friday for the first time in decades.

When the Episcopal Church announced cuts to its national staff last month, it was the latest in a long-running cycle among historic U.S. Protestant denominations — declines in members leading to declines in funding and thus in staff.

Quintonil is not your typical Mexican restaurant.

Iran increasingly relies on electronic surveillance and the public to inform on women refusing to wear the country's mandatory headscarf in public, even as hard-liners push for harsher penalties for those protesting the law.

Millions of people in South Asia are celebrating Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, by smearing each other with brightly colored powder, dancing to festive music and feasting on traditional sweets prepared for the occasion.

Syria’s interim president has signed a temporary constitution that leaves the country under Islamist rule for five years during a transitional phase.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is on a four-day visit to Bangladesh for a first-hand look at the situation of more than 1 million Rohingya refugees as fears mount of serious aid cuts.

Tennessee became the first state in the country a hundred years ago to ban the teaching of evolution in public school classrooms.

United Nations-backed human rights experts allege Israel has caused “disproportionate violence against women and children” during the war against Hamas in Gaza,.

Pope Francis marked the 12th anniversary of his pontificate in the hospital as he received increasingly positive medical news on his recovery and hundreds of messages wishing him well.

Pope Francis’ recovery from double pneumonia continues.

Israeli fire has killed eight people in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours even as a fragile ceasefire with Hamas has largely held.

Pope Francis has participated remotely in the Vatican’s spiritual retreat after getting good news from his doctors.

Pope Francis has written and spoken at length about sickness, aging and death.

Greece’s National Gallery says a Greek lawmaker attacked four paintings in an exhibition, including one he had previously criticized as offensive on religious grounds.

Police in Australia say an explosives-filled trailer that politicians earlier described as an antisemitic terrorism plot and a foiled mass casualty event was staged by criminals in a complicated hoax.

Doctors said Pope Francis is no longer in imminent danger of death as a result of pneumonia but have decided to keep him hospitalized for several more days to receive treatment.

Pope Francis has issued a message thanking volunteers for the “miracle of tenderness” they offer the sick as he continues his recovery from double pneumonia.

A war monitoring group says the death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, including nearly 750 civilians, making it one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago.

Pope Francis has entered his fourth week in the hospital with double pneumonia, increasingly handing off his day-to-day duties to cardinals as questions swirl about the near and long-term future of his papacy.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is responding well to therapy for double pneumonia and has shown a “gradual, slight improvement” in recent days.

Religious leaders, scholars and diplomats have gathered at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana for a conference on Ukraine studies with a theme of hope.

Some 90,000 Palestinians have prayed at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City under tight security by Israeli forces.

Police used batons and tear gas to disperse thousands of members of a banned Islamist group as they marched through streets in Bangladesh's capital.

Pope Francis has hit the three-week mark in his hospitalization for double pneumonia.

Officials from USAID say the the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. humanitarian agency have frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in contractual payments to aid groups.

A 40-day boycott of Target that calls for supporters to give up shopping at the company’s stores during the Lenten period kicked off this week.