IMAGE: CNS photo/Rebecca Cook, Reuters By Mark Pattison WASHINGTON (CNS) — When the news revealed the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, was contaminated by lead, affecting roughly 100,000 people in the city and nearby areas, attention rightly focused on a staggering public health crisis. However, the crisis may not be …

IMAGE: CNS/Reuters By Tom Tracy WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CNS) — As the church in the U.S. has shown an increasing presence of Spanish-speaking Catholics, so will the tens of thousands of young people traveling to 2016 edition of World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland. “There are more groups coming …

IMAGE: CNS/Nancy Wiechec By Colleen Dulle WASHINGTON (CNS) — As World Youth Day approaches, U.S. organizers offered tips on how pilgrims can prepare logistically, spiritually and even digitally. The largest U.S. group to attend a World Youth Day outside of North America, 30,000 American pilgrims plan to attend the July …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Junno Arocho Esteves VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican court, citing freedom of the press, acquitted two journalists who published confidential documents while their source, a Spanish monsignor, was sentenced to 18 months behind bars. Judge Giuseppe Della Torre, head of the tribunal of the Vatican …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis has named Chicago Archbishop Blase J. Cupich a member of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that advises the pope on the nomination of bishops around the world. Archbishop Cupich, 67, takes the place …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Three months after the publication of Pope Francis’ exhortation on marriage and family, bishops and bishops’ conferences around the world are studying practical ways to apply it. Some still disagree on what exactly the pope meant. In the first week …

IMAGE: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Meeting the grieving parents of a U.S. student who was found dead in Rome, Pope Francis mourned the death of the teenager, who had been set to begin a study-abroad program. Beau Solomon, 19, was found dead in the Tiber …

IMAGE: CNS/Debbie Hill By Judith Sudilovsky BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) — An Italian team has completed restoration of Crusader-era mosaics in the Church of the Nativity, but the mosaics will only be unveiled publicly after work on lighting, electricity and the fire alarm system is also finished. The work involved …

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pray for those responsible for extreme poverty, for the rich who feast unaware of people in need at their door, and for priests who ignore those who are hurting, Pope Francis told people living a precarious existence. Say a prayer …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Gary Cameron, Reuters By NEW YORK (CNS) — Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and prolific author who died July 2 at age 87 in his New York home, has been remembered in tributes from around the world for standing up for human dignity and …