Hundreds of Buddhist monks in Cambodia gather to praise ceasefire with Thailand and mourn the dead

August 9, 2025

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Hundreds of Buddhist monks in Cambodia on Friday held a religious ceremony to honor soldiers killed in recent border clashes with Thai forces and to pray for peace. They marched from the country’s main religious school near the Royal Palace in the capital, Phnom Penh, to a nearby temple, where they were joined by nuns and laymen and women. The monks chanted and prayed to honor the souls of the dead soldiers. A board inside the temple displayed the photographs of more than 40 men in uniform. It wasn’t clear whether these images were of soldiers ...

Pope thrills hundreds of thousands of young Catholics at Holy Year youth festival

August 4, 2025

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV urged hundreds of thousands of young people on Saturday to have the courage to make radical choices to do good, as he presided over his first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics during the highlight of the Vatican’s 2025 Holy Year. Leo ...

At 100, this globetrotting Catholic priest still bakes pies, enjoys opera and celebrates daily Mass

July 5, 2025

BLUE BELL, Pa. (AP) — Throughout his remarkable lifetime, the Rev. James Kelly has baptized thousands of people, married thousands more, ministered to the sick in hospitals, and traveled the world extensively. He became friends with an opera superstar and, yes, even with a saint. The ...

Pope Leo XIV appeals for unity within the Catholic Church in Holy Year messages to priests

June 28, 2025

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV doubled down on Friday on his appeal for unity in the polarized Catholic Church, urging priests to act in communion with their superiors and be models of reconciliation in a world driven by conflicts and divisions. Leo appealed for unity in a triptych of ...

Faith leaders and families sue to block Texas’ new Ten Commandments in schools law

June 28, 2025

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A group of Dallas-area families and faith leaders have filed a lawsuit seeking to block a new Texas law that requires copies of the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom. The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims the measure is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state. Texas is the latest and largest state to attempt a mandate that has run into legal challenges elsewhere. A federal appeals court on Friday blocked a similar law in Louisiana. Some families have sued over Arkansas’ law. The plaintiffs in the ...

Alaska Native woman, ‘everybody’s helper,’ is Orthodox church’s first female North American saint

June 28, 2025

KWETHLUK, Alaska (AP) — It was in the dusty streets and modest homes of this remote Alaska Native village that Olga Michael quietly lived her entire life as a midwife and a mother of 13. As the wife of an Orthodox Christian priest, she was a “matushka,” or spiritual mother to many ...