The number of COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County was 144 as of March 17, with additional cases in nearby counties.

I am writing this column from my bedroom in New York on the seventh day of my self-quarantine. Last month I had the honor to co-lead America Media’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Father James Martin.

Francis counseled: “Don’t waste these difficult days,” instead “rediscover” the importance of “small, concrete gestures expressing closeness and concreteness toward the people closest to us, a caress for our grandparents, a kiss for our children, for the people we love.”

It is good to know that people are still people, still willing to visit each other, still willing to bring hope, still willing to share what they have.

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” the hosts discuss the pope’s pilgrimage through the empty streets of Rome.

"The strength of a culture is seen, not when things are going well, but when crisis strikes," Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry said March 17 in his St. Patrick's Day homily in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

We cannot allow the coronavirus to make us see others as a threat.

In this time in which we are not able to encounter Christ in the assembly or the Eucharist, we always have the opportunity to encounter Christ in the vulnerable.

Many hope the church will repeat that activist role as political divisions depress the economy and the living conditions for average Zimbabweans, and as a severe drought threatens a hunger crisis for millions this year.

Medically, the afflictions are quite different, and AIDS in the early days appears to have been much deadlier than Covid-19 today. Socially, the stigma that affected early cases of H.I.V. and AIDS is largely absent today.

Pope Francis prayed for families who are cooped up in their homes and for all those who are ill with COVID-19.

A reporting system accepting sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. bishops and eparchs is in place.

In a sign of how much the pandemic has grown, China now accounts for less than half of the world's 168,000 cases, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

After an appeals court found his sweeping 2012 trial flawed and his conviction was twice overturned, Monsignor Lynn, 69, is set to be retried Monday on a single child endangerment count.

New Rochelle has the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in the country. Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed schools in the zone to close and forbade large gatherings of people.

Pope Francis traveled the nearly deserted streets of Rome this afternoon to pray at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major and the church of St. Marcello, home to a venerated crucifix from the 16th-century plague.

The Mass has power whether we are able to be there in person or not, writes Sam Sawyer, S.J., reflecting on a Sunday when circumstances mean that many are participating in liturgy via modern technology.

In a video address, Pope Francis thanked caregivers and assured his audience that ‘spiritual communion‘ remains strong even during the isolation of the coronavirus epidemic. Gerard O’Connell reports from the Vatican.

While public gatherings, including Masses, have been banned in Italy through April 3, Holy Week begins with the Palm Sunday liturgy April 5, so the notification from the Prefecture of the Papal Household was read as a sign that the ban would be extended, at least at the Vatican.

The coronavirus has become Italy's most major crisis since World War II.