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Jurors given piano performance, crash course in music as part of copyright suit over Catholic hymns

The dispute involves apparent similarities in two decades-old songs.

Catholic ethicists file amicus brief backing Anthropic in Pentagon dispute

Catholic moral theologians say Church teaching supports Anthropic’s refusal to allow its AI systems to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons.

U.S. Catholic bishops express solidarity with Church in South Sudan as over 170 killed

The USCCB has expressed solidarity with the Church in South Sudan following the reported killing of at least 170 people in two separate incidents in the country.

Immigration enforcement harms children, drives family separation, speakers at Democratic forum say

More than 3,800 children, including 20 infants, were detained by U.S. immigration authorities from January to October 2025, according to data shared by the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

Holy See calls on UN to eradicate surrogacy ‘in all its forms’

Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations, laid out the economic reasons surrogacy exists, the harm it does, and why it is wrong.

Scottish bishops say ‘prayer moved hearts’ after Scottish Parliament rejects assisted suicide

In a decisive vote, Scottish members of Parliament have rejected the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, a victory the bishops in Scotland are praising.

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage registration opens; schedule released

The 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will bring the faithful together in prayer and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

Vienna’s archbishop: ‘What comes from the Holy Spirit, canon law cannot stop’

Vienna’s new archbishop preached at Austria’s bishops’ conference plenary, calling for change on women’s roles and saying canon law cannot hold back the Holy Spirit.

Bishops of global south urge abandonment of fossil fuels; some Catholic economists warn against it

The bishops called for an end to fossil fuel use. But some Catholic economists say it is necessary to bring developing nations out of poverty.

Communion of faithful, not just clergy, shares role in safeguarding faith, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- All baptized Christians share in the Church's mission and, guided by the Holy Spirit, are fit for renewing and building up the Church, Pope Leo XIV said at his weekly general audience.

Every person who has been baptized is called to bear witness to Christ, and the whole Church, beyond its leaders, has a role in preserving the truth of the faith, the pope said March 18 in St. Peter's Square.

Continuing his series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council, the pope focused on the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ("Lumen Gentium"), and the participation of the lay faithful in Jesus Christ's "priestly, prophetic and royal offices," that is, the offices of teaching, sanctifying and governing.

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Pope Leo XIV greets visitors and pilgrims from the popemobile while riding around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience March 18, 2026. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

Everyone enters the Church as a layperson, he said. Through Baptism and Confirmation, the faithful are "more perfectly bound to the Church" and are endowed "with special strength" by the Holy Spirit, so that they are "more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ," he said, quoting the document.

"This consecration is at the root of the common mission that unites the ordained ministries and the lay faithful," Pope Leo said. In fact, everyone is called to bear witness to the truth of the faith. 

The Doctrinal Commission of the Council specified that the sense of faith "belongs to individual believers not in their own right, but as members of the People of God as a whole," the pope said.

The function of the Holy Spirit is to lead Christians to the truth, and because the entire body of the faithful is anointed by "the holy one," he said, "the Church, therefore, as the communion of the faithful -- which naturally includes the pastors -- cannot err in matters of faith."

"From this unity, which the Magisterium of the Church safeguards, it follows that every baptized person is an active agent of evangelization, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon His whole Church," he said. 

The Holy Spirit, who comes from the Risen Christ, he said, distributes"special graces" among all the faithful, who are then able to contribute to the renewal and building of the Church. 

"Dear friends, let us rekindle in ourselves the awareness of and gratitude for having received the gift of being part of God’s people; and also the responsibility that this entails," he said.