IMAGE: CNS photo/Guglielmo Mangiapane, Reuters By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican has created a set of pastoral guidelines to inspire and improve the church’s work in addressing the crime of human trafficking and the care of its victims worldwide. The Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery …

IMAGE: CNS photo/courtesy Lauren Desberg By Carl Peters CAMDEN, N.J. (CNS) — In recent months, violinist Alana Youssefian has performed at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Yale University and venues in Texas, California, Washington and Canada. But she’s coming home to New Jersey — her hometown …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Rhina Guidos WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a second letter issued in mid-January about what he knew and didn’t regarding abuse allegations involving his predecessor, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, Washington’s retired archbishop, apologized Jan. 15 for what he called a "lapse of memory," clarifying that he knew …

IMAGE: CNS photos/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — At the upcoming meeting on protecting minors, Pope Francis wants leaders of the world’s bishops’ conferences to clearly understand what must be done to prevent abuse, care for victims and ensure no case is whitewashed or covered up. "The …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — To pray well, people need to have the heart of a child — a child who feels safe and loved in a father’s tender embrace, Pope Francis said. If people have become estranged from God, feel lonely, abandoned or have …

IMAGE: CNS photo/courtesy Mazur via catholicnews.org.uk By Judith Sudilovsky JERUSALEM (CNS) — Visiting with Christian communities in northern Israel and the northern Palestinian Territories has helped bishops participating in the annual Holy Land Coordination see "the great need" to promote an understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, said Bishop Noel Treanor …

WASHINGTON–In response to Monday’s federal court ruling from Pennsylvania granting a nationwide injunction barring the broadened moral and religious exemption to the HHS mandate, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, Chairman …

IMAGE: CNS photo/FBI handout via Reuters By Carol Zimmermann WASHINGTON (CNS) — For nearly three months, parishioners at St. Peter Catholic Church in Cameron, Wisconsin, were praying for the safe return of one of their own — 13-year-old Jayme Closs. When parishioners heard the news that she had escaped her …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Marking the Pontifical Academy for Life’s 25th anniversary, Pope Francis encouraged the research and advisory body to promote human solidarity and fraternity as part of its mandate to promote human life. A sense of fraternity between people and nations …

IMAGE: By Julie Asher WASHINGTON (CNS) — The conclusion reached by a Pennsylvania grand jury that six of the state’s Catholic dioceses acted "in virtual lockstep" to cover up abuse allegations and dismiss alleged victims over a 70-year period starting in 1947 is "inaccurate," "unfair" and "misleading," said a veteran …