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A recent study reveals that nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria. The researchers at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health adjusted for various factors, including the some 241,000 residents who were displaced from the island. In the end, the number of deaths that could be directly or indirectly attributed to Hurricane Maria was reported at an estimated 2,975 - a number that stands in stark contrast to the previously reported 64.

Richard D'Souza and Eric Bell of the University of Michigan recently grabbed headlines for their discovery: The Milky Way once had a ‘sibling,’ which was devoured by the neighboring galaxy of Andromeda about 2 billion years ago. Their study, published in the Nature Astronomy journal last month, has its implications on the understanding of how galaxies evolve over time. D'Souza, the lead author of the study, hails from the Indian state of Goa and interestingly, he is also a staff member of the Vatican Observatory, an astronomical research institute supported by the Roman Catholic Church.

By way of explanation, Robert Jefress, a member of the advisory group, told CBN the president is "genuinely appreciative" of the steady approval rating he holds with evangelicals. White evangelicals voted for Trump in the 2016 election by about 80 percent.

Standing just a few feet away from where many Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared in 1879 to a dozen denizens of this bucolic corner of western Ireland at the height of a famine, on Sunday morning Pope Francis begged God’s forgiveness for the abuse of countless innocents by priests and other members of the Catholic Church.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar delivered a firm challenge to Pope Francis and the Catholic Church Saturday in Dublin Castle, where the two met with authorities, civil society, and diplomatic corps. Pope Francis visits the country after decades of revelations of abuse of women and children at the hands of clergy. Hundreds died from apparent malnutrition, unwed mothers lived in servitude, and many of their babies were illegally adopted.

Whenever people try to exclude LGBT Catholics from the life of the church, they are “tearing apart the body of Christ,” Fr. James Martin told the standing-room-only crowd that packed a tented hangar Aug 23. at an international meeting of Catholic families in Dublin, Ireland. “At the World Meeting of Families, this is an important aspect: By not welcoming, by excluding LGBT Catholics, the church is falling short of its call to be God’s family."

Francis will pray at the Knock shrine as part of his two-day visit to Ireland this week, the first by a Pope in almost 40 years that have transformed the once staunchly Catholic country into a far more secular and liberal society. 

Pope Francis has responded today to recent reports of clerical sexual abuse and ecclesial cover-up through a letter titled “Letter to the People of God.” This letter comes on the heels of a 884-page reportdocumenting clerical abuse in Pennsylvania and ahead of the World Meeting of Families taking place Aug. 21-26 in Dublin, Ireland, where Pope Francis is scheduled to speak later in the week.

The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, withdrew on Saturday from next week's World Meeting of Families in Dublin, the second senior cleric to pull out of the Roman Catholic event amid clerical sexual abuse scandals in the United States.