A House vote showed broad support for the measure that would let districts set aside time for prayer or religious study.

The Supreme Court has effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were colleagues, and they were a couple, days away from a marriage proposal.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans has agreed to pay nearly $180 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse under a settlement announced Wednesday.

Investigators in Tennessee say a fire that severely damaged a historic Black church that served as the headquarters for a 1968 sanitation workers’ strike which brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis was intentionally set.

A lot of American adults — about 3 in 10 — make use of astrology, tarot cards or fortune tellers at least once a year.

The Lebanese and Palestinian presidents have agreed that Palestinian factions won't use Lebanon as a launchpad for any attacks against Israel.

During Syria’s civil war, protecting the revered Sayyida Zeinab shrine was a rallying cry for some Shiite fighters and groups from beyond the country’s borders backing then-President Bashar Assad.

Pope Leo XIV has called for humanitarian aid to reach the Gaza Strip and for an end to the “heartbreaking” toll on its people.

The U.N. says it is trying to get the desperately needed aid that has entered Gaza this week into the hands of Palestinians.

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse are amplifying calls for a global zero-tolerance policy and other reforms from the American hometown of the new pope.

Some people thought the 1925 Scopes monkey trial marked a cultural defeat for biblical fundamentalism.

The 1925 Scopes monkey trial famously put the spotlight on evolution and appeared to mark a defeat for biblical fundamentalism.

The parents of Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American soldier who was held captive in Gaza for 19 months, are overjoyed he is home and slowly absorbing their son's life in captivity.

There is a new landmark at the home of the Chicago White Sox — Section 140, Row 19, Seat 2.

Popes -- they’re just like us.

President Donald Trump's establishment of a White House Faith Office, a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias and a Religious Liberty Commission has raised cheers from his base of conservative Christian supporters.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has extended an invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States during a meeting at the Vatican.

Pope Leo XIV has vowed to work for unity so that the Catholic Church becomes a sign of peace in the world.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that the Vatican can be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

Beginning next school year, the curriculum standards for Oklahoma high school students will including conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

The Chicago White Sox plan to unveil a graphic installation on Monday that honors Pope Leo XIV.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the federal refugee program has upended the lives of many Afghans who worked with the United States during wartime.

Pope Leo XIV has affirmed core Catholic teaching on marriage and the unborn in his first meeting with the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Israel has launched dozens of airstrikes across Gaza -- attacks that local health officials say killed 108 people, mostly women and children, and which Israeli officials described as a prelude to a larger campaign to pressure Hamas to release hostages.

In his public appearance as pope, Leo called himself an Augustinian, putting an unusual spotlight on his religious order.

A woman who was nine months pregnant and on her way to the delivery room is dead after a Palestinian gunman opened fire on her car.

A hospital in southern Gaza says 54 people have been killed in overnight airstrikes on the city of Khan Younis.

Before becoming Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms of Pope Francis’ pontificate by having women serve on the Vatican board that vets nominations for bishops.

Pope Leo XIV has apparently made peace with Jannik Sinner.

Pope Leo XIV is vowing to actively promote and protect the spirituality and traditions of the eastern rite churches, those Catholic communities with origins in the Middle East and North Africa that have been decimated by conflict and persecution.

Hospitals and health officials say Israeli airstrikes have pounded northern and southern Gaza and killed at least 70 people.

Pope Leo XIV has met with members of his Augustinian religious order during a visit to the congregation’s headquarters outside St. Peter’s Square.

The contrast between President Donald Trump and Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV couldn’t be more stark, politically, personally or in their world views.

Jannik Sinner says it’s “a good thing for us tennis players” that the new pope likes to play the sport.

Some conservatives and traditionalist Catholics are cautiously optimistic over the historic election of Pope Leo XIV.

The Episcopal Church’s migration service is refusing a directive from the U.S. federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church’s longstanding commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.

A dilapidated industrial site in the Czech Republic where German businessman Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during the World War II is coming back to life.

Food security experts say the Gaza Strip is at critical risk of famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.

Pope Leo XIV has called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the “precious gift of free speech and the press.”.

Hamas has freed an Israeli-American soldier who was held hostage in Gaza for more than 19 months.

Hamas says it has released an American-Israeli hostage held in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of faithful Catholics gathered in St. Peter’s Square to watch Pope Leo XIV deliver the first Sunday blessing of his pontificate exactly at noon.

News that the global Catholic church would get its first-ever U.S.-born pope was welcomed by Catholics across the ideological spectrum in Pope Leo XIV’s homeland, raising the question of whether he might be able to ease some of the deep divisions within its ranks.

Pope Leo XIV has called for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza with the release of hostages and delivery of humanitarian aid.

Hamas says the last living American hostage in Gaza will be released as part of efforts to establish a ceasefire, reopen crossings into the Israeli-blockaded territory and resume aid delivery.

As firefighters in Suriname battled to save buildings in the historic city center of Paramaribo in April, volunteers were scanning documents from the Neveh Shalom Synagogue in an effort to preserve the history of the thousands of Jews who have called the city home since the 1700s.

The new pope, Leo XIV, is scheduled to deliver his first such prayer on Sunday from the loggia where he first appeared in public after being elected three days ago.

A group of Quakers are marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington, D.

The election of Pope Leo XIV, who is the first U.S. pope and has Creole roots, is raising more awareness about the complexity of the Creole identity.

Pope Leo XIV, now the successor of St. Peter, leads the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic Church in a sacred role that few others will ever hold.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas says the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights investigation into a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state’s largest mosques near Dallas.

Church bells rang out for hours in celebration at Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia after one of their graduates was elected the first pope from the U.S. in the history of the Catholic Church.

The new pope, Leo XIV, has something in common with many of his peers in the Catholic hierarchy.

A Chicago-born cardinal walks into a conclave.

Margot Friedländer, a German Jew who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp and became a high-profile witness to Nazi persecution in her final years, has died.

Pope Leo XIV in 2012 made comments critical of what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and the role of mass media in promoting acceptance of same-sex relationships that conflicted with Catholic doctrine.

Speakers blasted “Born in the U.S.A.

International aid agencies warn that plans presented by Israel to control aid distribution in Gaza will only increase suffering and death in the devastated Palestinian territory.

Pope Leo XIV has celebrated his first Mass, a day after his historic election as the first U.S.-born pope in the church’s 2,000-year history.

Details have begun to emerge of how votes swiftly coalesced to make Pope Leo XIV history’s first American pope.

When white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel revealing that a new pope had been chosen, John Prevost turned on his television in Illinois and watched in awe as his brother’s name was announced.

Catholic Chicagoans gathered in churches, cheered from classrooms and celebrated from their homes as the historic decision was announced that a native son, Cardinal Robert Prevost, had been elected pope.

Americans in St. Peter’s Square were stunned and joyous when they learned that an American cardinal, Robert Provost, was elected pope and had taken the name Leo XIV.

Peruvians are elated after a Catholic cardinal who spent years guiding the faithful in the South American country was elected pope and hoped he will visit them soon in his new role.

Pope Leo XIV's choice of name signals a commitment to social justice, very much in line with the late Pope Francis’ global ministry.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, the first U.S. pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church, previously led a Catholic religious order.

Robert Prevost may have made history Thursday by becoming the first pope from the United States.

Cardinals are meeting in a secret, sacred conclave for a second day as they seek a new pontiff to follow Pope Francis.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians has warned against the unchecked rise of artificial intelligence and automation, calling it an “impending robotocracy.”.

Cardinals are meeting in a secret, sacred conclave for a second day as they seek a new pontiff to follow Pope Francis.

Robert Prevost has been elected the first pope from the United States in the history of the Catholic Church.

Robert Prevost has been elected the first pope from the United States in the history of the Catholic Church.

A Palestinian student arrested during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship has helped launch an initiative to help other immigrants facing deportation in Vermont.

With a Vatican official calling out “extra omnes” and the door to the Sistine Chapel shutting, the conclave to elect Pope Francis’ successor has officially begun.

Families of hostages held in Gaza were surprised and angered to hear U.S. President Donald Trump say that three of the hostages who Israel had said were alive had died.

A change in popes is a complicated process.

Black smoke was pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, indicating no pope was elected on the first ballot of the conclave to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church.

Mexico City lawmakers recently voted to ban violent bullfighting in the country’s capital.

One hundred and thirty-three cardinals are sequestering themselves behind the Vatican’s medieval walls for the start of a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.

Black smoke has poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, indicating no pope was elected on the first ballot of the conclave to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic bishop of a New Jersey diocese says he would no longer oppose a state grand jury investigation of clergy sexual abuse that the church has been fighting behind closed doors in court for years.

The United States is home to 10 of the 133 cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope.

Cardinals have wrapped up their pre-conclave meetings before they enter the conclave to elect a new pope.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has governed Kashmir with an iron fist in recent years.

Before he died, Pope Francis donated one of his popemobiles to be converted into a mobile health unit to serve the children of Gaza, officials said Monday.

Nuns don’t have a vote in the election of a pope.

All Vatican personnel involved in supporting the upcoming papal conclave must take an oath of secrecy — under penalty of automatic excommunication.

Cardinals hailing from 71 different countries are eligible to elect a pope this week in the most geographically diverse conclave in history.

At Masses across Rome and socioeconomic lines, Catholics prayed the next pope focuses on poverty and peace days before the conclave that will elect Pope Francis’ successor.

While Pope Francis accomplished a lot in his 12-year papacy, he left much unfinished business and many challenges for his successor — from the Vatican’s disastrous finances to the wars raging on multiple continents.

Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini is taking to his first conclave the same spirit that guided his decades-long front-line ministry among the migrants, poor and Indigenous people in Guatemala’s highlands.

President Donald Trump has posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself dressed as pope.

Vatican workers have installed the simple stove in the Sistine Chapel where ballots will be burned during the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope.

Growing numbers of people are making bets on next week’s conclave to elect the next pope.

British Cardinal Vincent Nichols provides an insider's view of what's going on these days before the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.

Several thousand Turkish Cypriots took to the streets of the northern half of ethnically divided Cyprus’ capital Nicosia to protest what they say is Turkey’s attempt to erode their secular roots and to strengthen the hold of political Islam over their society.

Four days of clashes between pro-government gunmen and members of a minority sect in Syria have left nearly 100 people dead and raised fears of deadly sectarian violence.

Israeli forces are preparing to carry out home demolitions across two northern urban refugee camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

A Lutheran church in Minneapolis is taking practical steps to help its mostly Latino immigrant congregation deal with the uncertainty and stress of a Trump administration crackdown.