Religion News

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In the streets around the Vatican, where Pope Francis used to make impromptu outings, some of the shopkeepers are mourning the man they knew, not as the leader of a church or head of state, but as an ordinary person.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hours after Pope Francis’ death was announced, Israel's Foreign Ministry posted a short message on X: “Rest in peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing." Several hours later, it was deleted without explanation.

This is a photo collection curated by AP photo editors. The Associated Press

OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) — The Polish and Israeli presidents joined thousands of Israeli youth and others in an annual march Thursday at the former Auschwitz death camp on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

After the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, ignited the devastating war in Gaza, a deadly new reality also took hold for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Central African Republic’s capital had been torn apart by inter-religious violence leading up to Pope Francis’ 2015 visit , its streets haunted by fear and division.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Legendary attorney Fred Gray — once deemed the “chief counsel” of the Civil Rights Movement by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — was honored with a statue outside the Alabama State Bar Association on Thursday.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The mayor of Amsterdam apologized Thursday for the role the Dutch capital played in the persecution of its Jewish citizens during World War II, saying the government at the time “let its Jewish residents down terribly.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 50 people, many of them women and children, the territory’s Health Ministry said Thursday.