U.S. & World News

"Access to safe drinkable water," Pope Francis said in his milestone 2015 ecological encyclical "Laudato Si'," "is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights."

The Vatican has published new norms for the church to discern alleged supernatural phenomena, such as Marian apparitions and mystical visions, which streamline the discernment process for bishops, allow the Vatican to avoid making definitive judgments on the authenticity of the events and reaffirm that Catholics are not obliged to believe in the purported phenomena.

Most of the pro-life activists sentenced to federal prison terms in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia May 14 and 15 along with Lauren Handy are Catholics with years in the "rescue movement" and other arrests.

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision making abortion a constitutional right, a majority of Americans said they support legal abortion in all or most cases, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

Pope Francis supports the steps taken by California to halt the use of the death penalty, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

St. John Paul II's American biographer, George Weigel, was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by President Andrzej Duda at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw May 13.

The cross over Notre Dame's choir and the eight bronze bells in the north tower can now be reinstalled in their rightful place in the iconic Paris cathedral.

The niece of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) welcomed plans for him to be proclaimed a saint on the centenary of his death, predicting it will testify to the Catholic Church's confidence in young people.