Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Rome and Vatican City this week in a bid to ease rising tensions between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV over U.S. policies, particularly the Iran war.

The Supreme Court will hear from Catholic preschools that say it’s unconstitutional to exclude them from a state-funded program because they won’t admit kids from LGBTQ+ families.

The annual pilgrimage on Friday started at 7 a.m. with a Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine. Next year, the walk will start in Helotes.

The Archdiocese of San Antonio has announced it will include all of its Catholic schools in the state’s new Education Savings Account program, informally known as school vouchers.

Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica is ready to raise its immense central tower over the coming months and become the tallest Christian church in Europe.

The Supreme Court is ordering a New York court to take a new look at whether some religious organizations should be excluded from a state regulation requiring health insurance plans to cover abortions.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff, American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.

A federal judge has ruled that two federal agencies cannot punish Catholic employers and health care providers if they refuse, for religious reasons, to provide gender-affirming care to transgender patients or won’t provide health insurance coverage for such care to their workers.

The Supreme Court has handed down a unanimous ruling in a religious rights case, finding a Catholic charity in Wisconsin can’t be required to pay unemployment taxes when other religious groups are exempt.

Human-caused climate change intensified deadly rainfall in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and other states in early April and made it more likely to occur.

While Catholic faithful gathered Monday at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to mourn the death of Pope Francis, several parishioners prayed and paid their respects at San Fernando Cathedral in downtown San Antonio.

Every year, crowds fill the streets of the central Mexican town of Atlixco on the Catholic holiday of Good Friday to witness the sight.

In an online statement, the archdiocese said the school has only about 100 students, has had to rely on about $250,000 from the parish each year, and has more than $1 million in deferred maintenance needs.

A San Antonio Catholic priest, who was arrested in 2023 on an aggravated sexual assault charge, appeared in court Monday as his attorneys sought access to investigative documents from the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

A series of earthquakes near the Greek island of Santorini have led authorities to shut down schools, dispatch rescue teams with sniffer dogs and sent instructions to residents including a request to drain their swimming pools.

Pope Francis has warned that bullying in schools prepares students for war rather than peace.

A network of faith-based organizations minister to seafarers in hundreds of the world’s ports.

President-elect Donald Trump says he’s nominating the president of the advocacy group CatholicVote to be the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Several U.S. Catholic bishops on Wednesday encouraged the church to boldly share Vatican teachings on a range of hot-button issues, including the condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy and gender-affirming surgery.

Hundreds of people have turned out for the burial of Catholic priest Marcelo Pérez, an activist for Indigenous peoples and farm laborers who was killed in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas.

Catholic priest Marcelo Pérez has been killed in Mexico.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades.

Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters through door-knocking and Spanish-language ads.

Pope Francis has taken the unusual decision to expel 10 people from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.

A federal judge is allowing more than 8,000 Catholic employers nationwide to reject government regulations that protect workers seeking abortions and fertility care.

Governor Greg Abbott made the trip south to Boerne to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new Catholic school.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s 2019 conversion to Catholicism helped shape his political worldview.

The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal group, has covered up defining features of the mosaics in its Washington D.

Each Holy Week, thousands of residents of the colonial, volcano-fringed city of Antigua participate in some of Guatemala’s oldest and most popular Easter traditions.

While some American cities celebrated St. Patrick’s Day a day early, others, including Boston, one of the most Irish cities in the country, kicked off parades and festivities on Sunday.

A ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court is raising the bar for religions to show that their charity arms deserve tax exemptions.

The sexual abuse of children by Catholic sisters and nuns has been overshadowed by far more common reports of male clergy abuse.

After last year's wave of wins for the so-called school choice movement, some religious schools in those states are seeing enrollment rise and are planning for a fuller future.

A study has found more than 57% of Argentina's people are considered poor, the worst poverty level in 20 years.

The archbishop of Port-au-Prince says six nuns kidnapped in Haiti last week along with two other people have been released.

No criminal charges have been filed against two Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse against minors.

Researchers have discovered new documentation that substantiates reports that Catholic convents and monasteries in Rome sheltered Jews during World War II.

Spain is set to unveil what is touted as one of Europe’s cultural highlights of the year with the opening in Madrid of The Royal Collections Gallery next month.

Through more than 200 years of service, the Sisters of Charity of New York have nursed Civil War casualties, joined civil rights and anti-war demonstrations, cared for orphans, and taught countless children.

French authorities and media reports say a teacher has been stabbed to death in southwestern France by a high school student.

Known as the San Antonio Four at the time, the Latina lesbians whose 1998 sexual assault convictions were thrown out in 2016 and their records expunged, are trying to help do the same for a gay Apache convicted in the 1981 murder of a Catholic priest in Odessa.

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller held a special mass to honor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the San Fernando Cathedral Sunday.

A Latina leader from South Texas discusses her roots

Sunday marks the first day of Advent, the first of four Sundays before Christmas.

In a historic monastery set in the tourist-thronged main town of Santorini, one of the trendiest Greek islands, 13 cloistered nuns live a vocation little understood but central to Catholicism — tireless prayer.

As student anxiety skyrockets, campus ministries are trying to help by not just offering the comforts of faith and community, but also creating collaborations with mental health professionals.

Every Sunday afternoon since last Easter, teens kneel by a makeshift altar at Fort Bliss and pray so hard that tears stream down their faces.

The Vatican this week is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention on clergy sex abuse scandals and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power.

A consortium of Catholic women’s groups is calling on the Holy See to join the Council of Europe and sign the European Convention on Human Rights.

The new Texas law that bans most abortions in the state is being welcomed by many of the religious leaders who help bolster the anti-abortion movement.

The organization overseeing Catholic schools in the United States gets a new chief executive this week as it seeks to rebound from its biggest one-year enrollment drop since the 1970s.

It's another victory for religious groups at the Supreme Court.

Divisions have flared up among U.S. Catholic bishops as they opened a national meeting highlighted by a sensitive agenda item: a possible rebuke of Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden, who receive Communion while supporting abortion rights.

Police in Northern Ireland deployed water cannons for the first time in six years as they tried to disperse protesters who hurled stones, fireworks and gasoline-filled bottles at officers during another night of violence in Belfast.

___ROME — Police in Italy have been cracking down on violators of ordinances aimed at reining in what has been weeks of stubbornly high incidences of COVID-19 cases. North Macedonia has recorded more than 126,000 coronavirus cases and more than 3,600 deaths. ___TIRANA — Albania started a mass inoculation campaign Sunday ahead of the summer tourism season after acquiring 192,000 doses of Chinese coronavirus vaccine Sinovac earlier this week. The church drew media attention after reports it had opened the service to its entire congregation despite a tough coronavirus lockdown and sharply rising infection rate in the Netherlands. ___MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s government is acknowledging that the country’s true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic now stands above 321,000.

The poster, she said, celebrated the recent liberalization of the abortion law in Argentina and expressed hope Poland would be next. Mass nationwide protests have recurred repeatedly since then, growing into the largest protest movement in post-communist Poland. The court's judges argued that allowing abortion when there are congenital defects is unconstitutional because the Polish Constitution protects human life. Suchanow and Marta Lempart, the leaders of the Women’s Strike group that has spearheaded street protests against the law, are now looking for inspiration to Argentina. AdIrene Donadio, a leading strategist with International Planned Parenthood Federation, a group promoting reproductive health and choice, said her organization is appalled that such a restrictive law could be imposed in a European Union member state.

(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)WARSAW – A near-total ban on abortion has taken effect in Poland and triggered a new round of nationwide protests three months after the constitutional court ruled that the abortion of congenitally damaged fetuses is unconstitutional. Members of Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, which is aligned with the Roman Catholic Church, had sought the new restriction. The protesters are demanding a full liberalization of the abortion law and the resignation of the government, neither of which seem likely in the short term. Some protesters Wednesday covered their faces with green bandanas, which are the symbol of the abortion rights movement in Argentina. The constitutional court is made up mostly of Law and Justice appointees who ruled on a motion brought by lawmakers from the party.

People gather in Warsaw, Poland Wednesday Jan. 27, 2021 to protest after the country's top court on Wednesday confirmed its highly divisive ruling that will further tighten the predominantly Catholic nation's strict anti-abortion law. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)WARSAW – New anti-government protests broke out in Polish cities Wednesday, shortly after the country's top court confirmed its highly divisive ruling that will further tighten the predominantly Catholic nation’s strict anti-abortion law. The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party is widely seen as having undue influence on the judiciary following reforms it passed affecting the way judges are appointed. It was made in response to a motion from over 100 ruling party lawmakers, whose names have not been made public. A prominent lawmaker for Law and Justice, Marek Suski, said work will begin on an entirely new abortion law that will take into account lethal defects.

New Braunfels – A New Braunfels man is sharing his passion for music and ministry with his community through his collection of unique instruments. He has collected, rebuilt, and played different organs including the Caracal Organ, or band organ, which features many different instruments, and the Calliope organ, which is sitting on an old Model T car. You can see it in their eyes.”AdFey said he and his brother began this journey of this unique way of sharing music. Christmas music, classical music, patriotic music, Rock and Roll. “I think anybody with unique talents, if they are open to sharing them with people, I think that is a plus for the people you are serving and for yourself.”RELATED: What’s Up South Texas!

(AP Photo/Kemal Softic)MOSTAR – MOSTAR, Bosnia-Long-entrenched ethno-nationalists were projected to win the first local election in Bosnia’s southern city of Mostar in 12 years, but early results of Sunday's vote also indicated multiethnic parties and alliances would be a strong part of the future city council. Mostar is split between Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control over the city during the country’s 1992-95 war. It hasn’t held a local election since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared its election rules discriminatory and ordered them changed. Thus, the lawmakers from multiethnic parties appear set to become tiebreakers in all but certain disputes between the dominant Bosniak and Croat nationalists. Prior to the war, ethnically mixed couples made up 10% of all marriages in Mostar, and the city was markedly cosmopolitan.

"If not, I understand because of what [El Paso] is going through, and I understand what [the church] is going through as well." The pandemic has disproportionately affected El Paso compared to cities of similar or larger sizes. As of Wednesday, there had been more than 91,000 cases recorded in El Paso County, the fourth-highest total in the state. Her family and hundreds of others in El Paso have applied for financial assistance to help pay for funerals. But it allotted an additional $350,000 in CARES Act funding this year as the deaths started to mount, said Irene Valenzuela, the executive director of El Paso County’s Community Services Department.

The case is a big test of religious rights on a more conservative court. Catholic Social Services, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, says its religious views keep it from certifying same-sex couples as foster parents. Kavanaugh, for his part, suggested Wednesday there should be a way for Catholic Social Services to continue to work with foster families. Even liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed to recognize the court was sympathetic to Catholic Social Services. Catholic Social Services did not, and the city stopped placing children with the agency, which sued.

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back Friday against the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco's criticism of COVID-related restrictions, saying he should “follow science” rather than advocate for fuller in-person gatherings for Mass and worship. “With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this,” Pelosi said. Pelosi noted that faith and science are sometimes seen at odds. “Around here, people say to me, You're a person of faith, why do you believe in science?" “I say, I believe science is an answer to our prayers.

SAN ANTONIO A man is accused of trying to rob a woman and get into her vehicle in the parking lot of a Catholic school, San Antonio police said. According to an arrest affidavit, Mata approached the woman in the parking lot of St. James Catholic School as she was walking to her vehicle. She tried to drive away as the suspect attempted to open the doors to her vehicle, the affidavit states. The victim believed the defendant wouldve injured or killed her due to the look of terror and anger in his eyes, the affidavit states. Police said Mata was a suspect in an attempted car burglary at the same parking lot earlier that day.

SAN ANTONIO – A car parade was held Friday morning for the Class of 2020 at Providence High School. Class of 2020, upload your pics! Principal Alicia Garcia said the car parade was held because a traditional Mass honoring the graduates couldn’t be celebrated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Car parades have become a creative and safe way to recognize people on special occasions during the pandemic. Garcia said she thanks all of the staff for their hard work, especially during this difficult time.

Día de Muertos — as it’s known in Mexico — is a holiday that remembers and honors our deceased loved ones. As part of Christianizing and enculturating the people of Mexico, Spain’s evangelizers moved them to the Catholic Calendar — All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Families clean the gravesites of their deceased loved ones and put out food and drink on their graves and on their ofrendas, or altars. For example, if your deceased grandfather loved tamales and a good tequila, those items would be placed out for him to enjoy on Día de Muertos. Despite its name, Día de Muertos begins after midnight on Oct. 31 and ends on Nov. 2.

SAN ANTONIO – The foundation of the University of Incarnate Word can be traced back to a single letter in 1869, that was sent from a bishop in San Antonio to the Catholic sisters in France. The letter asked for the sisters to help take care of victims of a cholera outbreak in the city. “The sisters and the school always emphasized science, along with the humanities and the arts,” said Hinojosa. “At Christmas time we celebrate, the Nativity of the Lord, which is the celebration of the word incarnate,” Hinojosa said. “It's been a long haul from that little letter where the mayor needed help and bishop wrote for help for the sisters.”