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ROME (AP) — Pope Francis met privately with King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Wednesday at the Vatican during the royal couple’s four-day state visit to Italy and on the occasion of their 20th wedding anniversary, the Vatican announced. It was the first known meeting since the pope’s return to the Vatican after five weeks in the hospital for life-threatening double pneumonia. Francis had planned to have an audience with Charles, but the official state visit to the Vatican was postponed due to the pope’s health. The pope issued a new invitation for a private audience, but ...

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(AP) — Preparations for popular, often daylong Lent and Holy Week processions are underway across Latin America — but not in Nicaragua. They’ve been largely banned for a second year, one of many concerns for the faithful in a country that human rights advocates, exiled priests and the U.S. government say is pursuing one of the world’s most flagrant persecutions of religion. The Associated Press spoke with several priests who are in exile in different countries, some after being imprisoned in inhumane conditions in Nicaragua. All requested their names, current locations and ...

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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 the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies. The report says about 10 million Christians are vulnerable to deportation and 7 million U.S. citizens who are Christian live in households where someone is at risk of deportation. The report, under the auspices of major Catholic and evangelical organizations, draws on a range of data, including percentages of religious affiliation in various ...

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HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) — Twice a week, Luisa Arguello and her husband spend from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. praying in the perpetual adoration chapel at St. Benedict Catholic Church, tucked on a quiet palm-fringed residential street in the Miami suburb of Hialeah. “Your body clock gets used to it. You feel that the Lord embraces you, and everything changes,” said Arguello, who has been the chapel’s coordinator since it opened in 2019. “I don’t feel the same as when I started. Adoration takes you to the presence of the Lord.” In hundreds of parishes across the United States and ...

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By PETER SMITH Associated Press When the Episcopal Church recently announced cuts to its national staff, 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. And it wasn’t alone. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) also announced recent cuts to staff at its headquarters and in its global missions program. The United Methodist Church, after undergoing a major schism, has settled into a historically low budget, having cut its numbers of bishops and other positions. While the ...

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ROME (AP) — The pope looms so large in everyday Italian life that there are lots of expressions that make light of even a dark event like his death. “A pope dies, they make another,” goes one, suggesting how life goes on. “Every death of a pope …” starts another, indicating a rare occurrence. But the one most frequently heard when a pope is actually sick is perhaps the darkest: “The pope is fine until he’s dead.” That one’s been making the rounds as Pope Francis nears a week in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, battling pneumonia and a complex respiratory ...