International News

VATICAN CITY -- In preparation for the May 18 resumption of public liturgies in Italy and a morning Mass with Pope Francis at the tomb of St. John Paul II, Vatican workers cleaned and sanitized the inside of St. Peter's Basilica May 15.

ROME -- Sweden’s high death rate among the elderly raises questions about the government’s effectiveness in combating COVID-19, said the nation’s cardinal.

MANCHESTER, England -- Churches in England and Wales must wait until July before they may reopen, under a coronavirus recovery strategy published by the government.

BONN, Germany -- Catholic bishops have distanced themselves from a letter in which several prominent Catholic clergy warned there were attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic to create a "world government beyond all control."

JERUSALEM -- Moving forward with an Israeli plan to unilaterally annex West Bank land could mean the end to the already languishing Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, said the heads of the Holy Land churches.

ROME -- With a number of countries in Europe slowly easing restrictions as part of a long-term strategy for containing the spread of the coronavirus, churches, too, are seeing changes in what is or will be allowed.

VALLA BEACH, Australia -- The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse published redacted sections of its 2017 report, and new findings said it did not believe some of the testimony given to it by Cardinal George Pell.

CLEVELAND -- Laudatory comments about President Donald Trump by New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan have been blasted in a letter to the prelate from more than 1,500 faith leaders.

WASHINGTON -- Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, and five other bishops have concluded that alleged apparitions of Our Lady of America -- said to have taken place more than six decades ago -- were not of supernatural origin.

ROME -- The Italian bishops and government have agreed on a protocol to allow the public to be present for liturgical celebrations starting May 18.