Ireland celebrates 'matron saint' with prayers, new holiday

KILDARE, Ireland (AP) — St. Patrick has long received the attention and the big parades, but another patron saint of Ireland is making a 21st century comeback. St. Brigid of Kildare, a younger contemporary of St. Patrick, is quietly and steadily gaining a following, in Ireland and...

South Korean court says stolen statue must return to Japan

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court ruled Wednesday that a 14th century Korean Buddhist statue should be sent back to a Japanese temple from where it was stolen in 2012. The statue’s return had been put on hold for years after a South Korean temple claimed ownership of...

Before a crowd of 1 million, Pope urges Congolese to forgive

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Pope Francis urged Congo's people on Wednesday to forgive those who have harmed them as he presided over a Mass before an estimated 1 million people in a country wracked by decades of violence. Many of the faithful spent the night on the vast airfields of the...

Pell mourned at Sydney cathedral day before funeral, protest

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Mourners paid their respects to Cardinal George Pell in a Sydney cathedral Wednesday a day before the funeral and interment of a polarizing church leader who was once the most senior Catholic convicted of sex abuse. Pell, who died last month at age 81,...

Minnesota governor signs broad abortion rights bill into law

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz enshrined the right to abortion and other reproductive health care into Minnesota statutes Tuesday, signing a bill meant to ensure that the state's existing protections remain in place no matter who sits on future courts. Democratic leaders took...

'Hands off Africa!': Pope blasts foreign plundering of Congo

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Pope Francis demanded Tuesday that foreign powers stop plundering Africa’s natural resources for the “poison of their own greed” as he arrived in Congo to a raucous welcome by Congolese grateful he was focusing the world’s attention on their forgotten plight. ...

Indiana justices won't hear 2nd abortion case for now

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's high court said it will not immediately consider a challenge to the state's abortion ban that is based on the argument that the law violates some people's religious freedoms, leaving that decision to an appeals court, at least for now. The state...

Church of England sheds light on 'shameful' slave trade ties

LONDON (AP) — Three centuries ago, an enslaved person in Virginia wrote to a leader of the Church of England, begging to be released from “this cruel bondage.” There was no reply from the church, which at the time was accumulating a tidy profit from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. ...

Emhoff visits synagogue, Holocaust memorial in Berlin

BERLIN (AP) — Doug Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, met with Ukrainian refugees at a Berlin synagogue and visited the city's Holocaust memorial on Tuesday as he wrapped up a tour of Poland and Germany focused on Holocaust remembrance and combating rising antisemitism. ...

Pope Francis arrives in Congolese capital to begin six-day visit to Congo, South Sudan