The world’s oldest church has been found

Christmas in Gaza: the visit of the Cardinal Patriarch of Jerusalem to local Catholics

ZENIT Staff

The cardinal is visiting Christian communities in Gaza, ravaged by more than two years of war

Freedom Before Christmas: Nigeria’s St. Mary’s Abductions End, but the Questions Remain

Elizabeth Owens

For the Catholic Church in Nigeria, the episode reopens painful questions about the safety of faith-based institutions and the pastoral care of traumatized communities. Bishops and clergy have repeatedly warned that schools and parishes are increasingly vulnerable, even as they continue to serve populations with few alternatives

Germans trust Leo XIV more than Islam: new survey results released

Joachin Meisner Hertz

Data released from a representative Forsa poll indicate that 28 percent of Germans now say they place high or very high trust in the Pope

Priestly vocations in England and Wales: data pointing to either stabilization or decline

Elizabeth Owens

In 2024, the Catholic dioceses of England and Wales, together with the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, recorded 22 priestly ordinations, two more than the previous year

Trump administration bans “gender reassignment” surgeries on minors

ZENIT Staff

At the center of the initiative is a shift in how federal health programs will define acceptable standards of care. HHS intends to make participation in Medicare and Medicaid contingent on hospitals refraining from providing sex-change-related treatments to minors. In practical terms, this condition would affect the vast majority of U.S. hospitals, given their dependence on public funding streams

Nigeria: A decade of terror for Catholic priests

Maria Lozano

New data highlights scale of priest kidnappings amid Nigeria’s security crisis

How do music and sound generate experiences of wonder? Stanford researchers launch investigation into sound and transcendence

Jorge Enrique Mújica

At the heart of the project lies a provocative hypothesis. Many sacred sites, the researchers argue, produce acoustic effects that disrupt ordinary sensory expectations. Echoes blur spatial boundaries, sound sources become difficult to locate, distances seem to stretch or collapse. What the eyes perceive as finite and material, the ears experience as expansive and elusive

The world’s oldest church has been found: where is it, what is it like, and how can you visit it?

ZENIT Staff

Discovered in 1998 by a team led by American archaeologist Thomas Parker, the church was constructed between approximately 293 and 303, during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. Unlike earlier Christian meeting places—often adapted private homes known as domus ecclesiae—the Aqaba structure was built from the ground up as a church

A simple, concrete, and timely meditation on work based on the nativity scene created by Leo XIV

ZENIT Staff

Congratulations to the employees of the Roman Curia, the Governorate of Vatican City State, and the Vicariate of Rome, together with their families.

2 two fundamental aspects of the life of the Church: mission and communion explained by Leo XIV to the curia in a great speech

ZENIT Staff

Address of the Pope to the Roman Curia on two fundamental aspects of the life of the Church: mission and communion, on the occasion of the annual Christmas greetings

Cardinal Damasceno confers ministries on 69 Heralds of the Gospel and hints at upcoming ordinations (end of Vatican intervention?)

ZENIT Staff

It was at the conclusion of his reflection that the cardinal offered a cautious yet decisive sign of progress: “I hope that in the near future we will be able to confer the Holy Orders to those who are duly prepared.”

A new “labor law” for the Vatican: this is what Pope Leo XIV approved

Valentina di Giorgio

At the heart of the reform lies a significant expansion of ULSA’s governing council, the body responsible for consultation and for drafting proposals in labor legislation. For the first time since the office was created in 1988 under Saint John Paul II, the Secretariat of State will have a formal seat at the table

Polonia: Sunday Mass Attendance Rises as Sacramental Life Continues to Thin

Joachin Meisner Hertz

According to the 2024 edition of the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae in Polonia, 29.6 percent of Polish Catholics eligible to attend Mass were present on an average Sunday last year

The current situation of the priesthood: this is what Leo XIV’s letter to priests says about identity, formation, loneliness, desertions, renewal, etc.

Jorge Enrique Mújica

Leo XIV Recasts the Meaning of Priesthood for a Wounded Church

PHOTO GALLERY: Pope Leo XIV revives childhood tradition: mass blessing of “baby Jesus” figures at the Vatican

ZENIT Staff

The initiative, organized by the Centro Oratori Romani and dating back to 1969 under Paul VI, has long been a fixture of Advent in Rome

These are the three topics the Pope will address with cardinals in his first consistory

Elizabeth Owens

The announcement, confirmed on 20 December by the Holy See Press Office, puts an end to weeks of speculation in Vatican circles

This is the new Catholic bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV for London: he is from Africa, enjoys horse riding, and was a soldier

Elizabeth Owens

Born in 1958 in Chingola, in what was then Northern Rhodesia and is now Zambia, Richard Moth grew up in Kent after his family returned to England. His vocation emerged early, influenced by parish life and a priest whose personal holiness left a lasting impression