Roman Catholicism

A man looks at the heart relic of Carlo Acutis, the 15-year-old Italian boy who died in 2006 of leukemia and beatified in 2020, at the San Rufino Cathedral in Assisi, Italy, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

You shouldn’t buy a piece of a saint. Catholic Church denounces online sale of Carlo Acutis relics

With the upcoming canonization of its first millennial saint, the Catholic Church has turned to police in Italy to investigate the online sale of some purported relics of Carlo Acutis.

An image of Blessed María Carmen Rendiles stands at the entrance of her museum in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela will have its first female saint after approval from Pope Francis

The body of Carlo Acutis, an Italian boy who died in 2006 of leukemia, lies in his tomb in Assisi, Italy, on Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

What to know about Carlo Acutis, the Catholic Church’s new millennial saint

Luisa Arguello, second from right, and other parishioners pray in the perpetual adoration chapel at St. Benedict Catholic Church in Hialeah, Fla., on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Perpetual adoration is a growing Catholic trend. A Holy Year event is scheduled for the weekend

The day before the European Day of the artisanal ice cream, pilgrims and tourists are offered free jubilee-inspired Hallelujah ice cream as they arrive at the Vatican, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Hallelujah! A day to celebrate the Pope’s release from the hospital — and his beloved gelato

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Worshippers join procession honoring the Virgin of Solitude as part of Holy Week events in Guatemala

Catholic women processed through the streets of the historic Guatemalan town of Antigua on Saturday, bearing a statue of the Virgin of Solitude in a ceremony commemorating Mary’s mourning after the death of her son Jesus. (AP video/Santiago Billy)

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Filipino Catholic faithful join Easter Sunday rites in Quezon City

Vance meets with the Vatican’s Parolin amid tensions over the US crackdown on migrants, AP explains

US VP JD Vance and his family arrive at the Vatican and meet Cardinal Sec of State Pietro Parolin

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The Apache Christ painting hangs behind the altar of St. Joseph Apache Mission church in Mescalero, New Mexico, Saturday, July 13, 2024. The painting, an icon that depicts Christ as a Mescalero medicine man, was the forefront of a tension-filled episode between the community and the local Diocese when it was removed by the church's then priest when the region was reeling from wildfires. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Apache Christ icon controversy sparks debate over Indigenous Catholic faith practices

Opposition supporters hold a rosary with a flyer showing presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez during a prayer event in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 21, 2024. Venezuela is set to hold presidential elections July 28. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

As Venezuela holds a presidential election Sunday, what does its religious landscape look like?

The Rev. Marko Rupnik’s mosaics depicting biblical scenes, saints and the Virgin Mary that grace the walls of Luminous Mysteries Chapel are seen covered with paper at Saint John Paul II National Shrine, Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in Washington. The Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal group, has covered up defining features of the mosaics in its Washington D.C. shrine after the famous ex-Jesuit artist who designed them was accused of abusing women. The influential charitable organization announced earlier this month that it was covering the works as a sign of solidarity with victims of abuse. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Knights of Columbus covers shrine’s mosaics by ex-Jesuit artist accused of abusing women

Thousands gather during the National Eucharistic Congress opening ceremonies, July 17, 2024, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

For Catholic pilgrims, all roads lead to Indy for an old-style devotion in modern stadium setting

FILE - Abbe Pierre addresses journalists in his home of Alfortville, east of Paris, on Aug. 5, 2005. Several women have accused late French priest Abbe Pierre of sexual assault or harassment, his foundation said Wednesday July 17, 2024. Abbe Pierre was one of France's most beloved public figures and a lifelong advocate for the homeless. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Beloved priest Abbe Pierre was the conscience of France. Several women now accuse him of assault

FILE - Pope Francis meets a group of nuns during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, on Aug. 30, 2023. Pope Francis urged leaders of religious orders on Monday July 15, 2024 to work and pray harder for new vocations, as he acknowledged the congregations’ futures are at risk as the numbers of men and women entering Catholic religious life are tanking in parts of the world. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Pope urges religious orders to pray for new priests and nuns as their numbers continue to fall

A mosaic by ex-Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik is seen on the main facade of the Church of Our Lady of the Canadian Martyrs, in Rome Friday, June 28, 2024. Five women urged Catholic bishops around the world to remove from their churches Rupnik's mosaics after they accused him of psychologically, spiritually and sexually abusing them. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Mosaics by an artist accused of abusing women will stay on the Lourdes shrine, for now

FILE - Ruins of a Native American boarding school on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation are pictured in Mission, S.D., Oct. 15, 2022. U.S. Catholic Bishops are slated to approve a new outreach plan for Native American Catholics during a convention on Friday, June 14, 2024, in Louisville, Ky. The plan is part of an effort to make amends for the widespread abuses inflicted on Native youths at Catholic-run boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

US Catholic bishops approve outreach to Native Americans and acknowledge boarding school ‘traumas’

FILE - In this July 29, 2013 file photo, Pope Francis answers reporters questions during a news conference aboard the papal flight of his famous quip "Who am I to judge?", on the journey back from Brazil. Francis' apology Tuesday, May 28, 2024, for using a vulgar term to refer to gay men was the latest comment to make headlines about the Catholic Church's teachings on homosexuality. Francis has made a hallmark of reaching out to LGBTQ+ Catholics, but his 11-year pontificate has also seen plenty of problems arise over his informal way of speaking and his outreach, evidence of how fraught the issue is for the church. (AP Photo/Luca Zennaro, Pool, file)

A look at Pope Francis’ comments about LGBTQ+ people

Catholic diocesan hermit approved by Kentucky bishop comes out as transgender

The Most Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, archbishop of Hartford, walks in a procession during a Pentecost Vigil at Blessed Michael McGivney Parish in St. Mary's Church, Saturday, May 18, 2024, in New Haven, Conn. The Eucharistic Procession from St. Mary's Church is one of four pilgrimage routes crossing the country and converging at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis on July 16. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Why US Catholics are planning pilgrimages in communities across the nation

Pope Francis in his popemobile leaves at the end of a Mass where he canonized shepherd children Jacinta and Francisco Marto at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima, Saturday, Friday, May 13, 2017, in Fatima, Portugal. On Friday, May 17, 2024, the Vatican will issue revised norms for discerning apparitions "and other supernatural phenomena," updating a set of guidelines first issued in 1978. (Paulo Novais/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Some of the Catholic Church’s best-known approved, and not approved, reports of apparitions of Mary

The Benedictine College sign is seen Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Atchison, Kan., days after Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gave a commencement speech that has been gaining attention. Butker's speech has raised some eyebrows with his proclamations of conservative politics and Catholicism, but he received a standing ovation from graduates and other attendees of the commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 11. (AP Photo/Nick Ingram)

Why the speech by Kansas City Chiefs kicker was embraced at Benedictine College’s commencement

Benedictine College students, from left, Madeline Hays, Niki Wood, Ashley Lestone and Hannah Moore gather for evening prayers in a room which they converted to a chapel in the house they share Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. Across the U.S., the Catholic church is undergoing an immense shift. Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

‘A step back in time': America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

Cardinal Alvaro Ramazzini, center back, waits for the start of a religious procession, in Guatemala City, Saturday, March 23, 2024. Elevated by Pope Francis in 2019 to the top hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Ramazzini has continued his focus on the poor, the Indigenous and the migrant. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Unfazed by danger and power, Guatemalan cardinal keeps up fight for migrants and the poor

Tis 2022 photo shows a self-portrait of Maxwell Kuzma, a transgender man working as a film editor and writer living outside of Columbus in rural Ohio. Kuzma expressed dismay at a Vatican document issued Monday, April 8, 2024, that rejected the idea that one’s biological sex can change. (Maxwell Kuzma via AP)

Transgender Catholics say new Vatican document shows no understanding of their lives

FILE - The Jasna Gora Monastery, Poland's most revered Catholic shrine, during a sunset in Czestochowa, Poland, on Sept. 23, 2023. The leaders of Poland’s influential Catholic Church on Thursday, March 14, 2024 chose moderate Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda to be their new principal, at a time when the church is still struggling to reckon with the abuse of minors by some Polish clergy, while the number of Poles going to church has fallen sharply. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk, File)

Polish Catholics get a new leader as the church struggles to reckon with sexual abuse

FILE - Michael Voris, founder of Church Militant, speaks during a rally, Nov. 16, 2021, in Baltimore. Church Militant, a far-right, unofficial Catholic media website, has agreed to pay $500,000 to a New Hampshire priest who sued for defamation over a 2019 article that it now disavows. The website also is planning to shut down soon, the priest's attorney says. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

Catholic news site Church Militant agrees to pay $500k in defamation case and is expected to close

At least 15 Catholic worshippers were killed in an attack during a service in northern Burkina Faso

FILE - Catholics take part in a reenactment of the Stations of the Cross during the Lenten season at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua, Friday, March 17, 2023. Amid tensions between the Vatican and the Daniel Ortega government, Catholics staged the devotional commemoration of Jesus Christ's last day on Earth in the gardens of the Cathedral due to the police ban on celebrating religious festivities on the streets. Nineteen priests kicked out of the country, dozens of incidents of harassment and church desecrations, rural areas lacking worship and social services – the situation for Catholic clergy and faithful in Nicaragua is only worsening in 2024, according to exiled priests, laypeople in the Central American country and human rights advocates. (AP Photo/Inti Ocon, File)

Nicaragua’s crackdown on Catholic Church spreads fear among the faithful, there and in exile

In this photo provided by America Media, from left, the Rev. James Martin, Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., and Rev. Eric Andrews attend the closing Mass for the Outreach conference at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, in New York, June 18, 2023. Martin is the founder of Outreach, a unique Jesuit-run program of outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics. (Cristobal Spielmann/America Media via AP)

Jesuits in US bolster outreach initiative aimed at encouraging LGBTQ+ Catholics

FILE - Dancers perform in front of an image of St. Brigid projected onto The Wonderful Barn in Leixlip, Kildare, Ireland, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023 during the Herstory Festival of Light. Devotees of St. Brigid in Ireland plan to celebrate on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024, with the scheduled return of a relic associated with the so-called “matron saint of Ireland” — about a millennium after her remains were removed from her hometown of Kildare. It's part of a series of observances in Ireland and around the world marking the 1,500th anniversary of her death. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison, File)

Who was St. Brigid and why is she inspiring many 1,500 years after her death?

FILE - Victor Manuel Fernandez, then archbishop of La Plata, smiles after a Mass at the Cathedral in La Plata, Argentina, Sunday, July 9, 2023. The Vatican’s new doctrine chief, already under fire from entire bishops conferences for his approval of blessings for same-sex couples, is raising eyebrows anew over a book he wrote as a young priest describing orgasms in graphic terms. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

Vatican’s doctrine chief is raising eyebrows over his 1998 book that graphically describes orgasms

Devotees pull the statue of the Black Nazarene during its annual procession which was resumed after a three-year suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024 in Manila, Philippines. A mammoth crowd of mostly barefoot Catholic devotees joined a chaotic procession through downtown Manila Tuesday to venerate a centuries-old black statue of Jesus Christ with many praying for peace in the Middle East where Filipino relatives work. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Filipino Catholics pray for Mideast peace in massive procession venerating a black statue of Jesus

FILE - Shelby Ruch-Teegarden, center, of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, joins other protestors during the United Methodist Church's special session of the general conference in St. Louis, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. United Methodist rules forbid same-sex marriage rites and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals,” but progressive Methodist churches in the U.S. have increasingly been defying these rules. (AP Photo/Sid Hastings, File)

How to deal with same-sex unions? It’s a question fracturing major Christian denominations

In this photo provided by Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, actor Shia LaBeouf participates in his Catholic confirmation ceremony at Old Mission Santa Inés Parish in Solvang, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023. “The Capuchin Franciscan friars are overjoyed to welcome him into the fold and witness his deep commitment to his faith journey,” the Catholic religious order said. (Word on Fire Catholic Ministries via AP)

Shia LaBeouf converts to Catholicism after being confirmed at New Year’s Eve Mass

Vatican says no heresy in allowing blessings for same-sex couples after pushback by some bishops

FILE - A man crosses himself while bathing in the water during a traditional Epiphany celebration as the temperature dropped to about -24 degrees (-11,2 degrees Fahrenheit) near the Achairsky monastery outside Siberian city of Omsk, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021. Water that is blessed by a cleric on Epiphany is considered holy and pure until next year's celebration, and is believed to have special powers of protection and healing. The Russian Orthodox Church follows the old Julian calendar.. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Sofiychuk, File)

What is the Epiphany? Why is it also called Three Kings Day? And when do Christians celebrate it?

Kierre Williams, right, sits with his attorneys in court Wednesday morning, Jan. 3, 2024, in Blair, Neb. Williams is charged with fatally stabbing a small-town priest during a Dec. 10, 2023, break in at the home where the priest lived next to his church in Fort Calhoun, Neb. (AP Photo/Josh Funk)

Nebraska judge allows murder case to proceed against suspect in killing of small-town priest

Pope Francis delivers his blessing during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

After approving blessings for same-sex couples, Pope asks Vatican staff to avoid ‘rigid ideologies’