In front of a national cathedral that lay in rubble, Catholic leaders marked the anniversary of Haiti's deadly earthquake by praying for its victims and calling for reconstruction of this tattered country.

Pope Benedict has instituted a new agency to monitor all Vatican financial operations and make sure they meet international norms against money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Teresa Pitt Green sat in her car in the church parking lot. She watched parishioners walk up the steps to Mass. It was so easy for them, she thought.

When words are not enough, beautiful music can express the joy and mystery of God’s love, Pope Benedict said.

If farmers in Africa had greater access to fertile, arable land safe from armed conflict and pollutants, they would not need genetically modified crops to produce food, said the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Oblate Father John Harvey, who founded an organization for celibate Catholic homosexuals that now has more than 100 chapters worldwide, died Dec. 27 at Union Hospital in Elkton, Md.

Three former Anglican bishops were received into the Catholic Church just hours after they officially gave up their ministries in the Church of England.

A year to the day after his installation as the 11th archbishop of Milwaukee, Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced Jan. 4 that he had directed archdiocesan attorneys “to file a petition for a Chapter 11 reorganization of its financial affairs under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.”

The Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, one of Europe’s best-known pilgrimage sites, has been partially closed for repairs amid reports that falling rocks in its fabled grotto could signal a major landslide.

An Italian company is offering an electronic rosary, complete with headphones, with the voice of Pope John Paul II leading the prayers.