It has been more than 500 years since Vatican decrees gave European colonizers permission to carve up the “New World” – and just one since Pope Francis disavowed them. On March 30, 2023, Francis repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery”: a set of ideas the Spanish and Portuguese, in ...

On Wednesdays, the support group meets over Zoom. The members talk about their lives, their religious families and their old parochial schools. But mostly, they are there to talk about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Catholic nuns. The topic deserves more attention, they say. ...

EL COBRE, Cuba (AP) — One religious icon unites Cubans: The Virgin of Charity of Cobre. Cuba’s patron saint is venerated by observant Catholics and followers of Afro-Cuban Santeria traditions as well as Cubans in exile and back on the island. The wooden statue of the Virgin Mary is kept ...

Many Americans believe the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and the idea is energizing some conservative and Republican activists. But the concept means different things to different people, and historians say that while the issue is complex, the founding documents prioritize ...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has been trying for years to debunk the idea that its vaunted secret archives are all that secret: It has opened up the files of controversial World War II-era Pope Pius XII to scholars and changed the official name to remove the word “Secret” from its ...

NEW YORK (RNS) — At a Sunday morning service on Sunday (Feb. 4), a priest gave a sermon, a choir sang devotional hymns and a congregation bowed heads in a joint prayer. It was a typical Sunday for these faithful New Yorkers. Yet rather than a church, this service took place at a spiritual ...