Catholic leaders urge humane treatment for Haitian migrants as numbers grow
By Julie Asher Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ migration committee and the head of Catholic Charities USA issued a joint statement Sept. 22 urging humane treatment of Haitians and other migrants as their numbers grow in...
Bishops to faithful: Discern ‘ecological conscience’ using papal teaching
By Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — The chairmen of two U.S. bishops’ committees echoed Pope Francis’ invitation to cultivate an “ecological conscience” in response to growing environmental challenges that affect human life in a message...
Bishops say U.S. government must urgently act to relocate fleeing Afghans
By Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — Saying that a humanitarian crisis is developing in Afghanistan, the chairmen of two U.S. bishops’ committees called on the U.S. government to “act with utmost urgency” to resettle thousands of Afghan...
After historic floods, amount of parish, community support is ‘phenomenal’
By Katie Peterson | Catholic News Service WAVERLY, Tenn. (CNS) — Henry Kersten was pacing back and forth inside his family’s home in Waverly Aug. 21 when he saw the backyard shed being carried off by the flood waters. His wife, Leslie, was trapped inside....
Virginia man rows to raise awareness, funds for Alzheimer’s caregivers
By Jennifer Neville | Catholic News Service YORKTOWN, Va. (CNS) — It wasn’t breaking the world record for rowing distance of which John Musser was the most proud. Nor was it that he rowed on a rowing machine for 24 hours at his parish, St. Joan of Arc in...
Olympian is ‘still trying to process’ winning silver in swimming relay
By Glenn Rutherford | Catholic News Service LOUISVILLE, Ky. (CNS) — Olympic silver medalist Brooke Forde returned to her alma mater, Sacred Heart Academy in Louisville Aug. 19 to talk with other Valkyries about her experience in Tokyo. The 2017 graduate of the...
Environmental leaders: U.N. climate change report can spur prayerful action
By Dennis Sadowski | Catholic News Service Amadou Diallo, a program manager for Catholic Relief Services in Senegal, knows from talking with the farmers and cattle herders in his country that the cyclical droughts the country experienced occurred about once every 10...
Boston Globe: Police charge McCarrick with assault in case dating to 1970s
The Boston Globe reported July 29 that police in the Boston suburb of Wellesley have charged former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 in a criminal complaint filed by Wellesley Police in a district court in nearby Dedham, Massachusetts.
Bishops vote to draft teaching document on the Eucharist
The U.S. bishops approved by a wide margin a plan to draft a document to examine the “meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church” following a lengthy debate during their spring general assembly.
Pope Francis names Jesuit educator as bishop of Hong Kong
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis has named Jesuit Father Stephen Chow Sau-yan, a native of Hong Kong and provincial of the Jesuits’ Chinese province, to be the new bishop of Hong Kong. The appointment of the 61-year-old Jesuit, who also serves as supervisor of the...
Monthlong global rosary begins
Pope prays resources move from military to pandemic prevention By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Under the gaze of a seventh-century icon of Mary, Pope Francis launched a monthlong, global recitation of the rosary, pleading for Mary’s...
Vocations answer God’s call to make great dreams come true, pope says
By Carol Glatz | Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Religious and priestly life must be filled with the simple joy of caring every day for what really matters — faithful friendship with God and one another, Pope Francis said. “I pray that you will experience...
Kings Bay Plowshares protester receives 21-month prison sentence
By Dennis Sadowski | Catholic News Service CLEVELAND (CNS) — A Kings Bay Plowshares participant convicted of federal charges stemming from a 2018 protest at a Georgia naval submarine base received a 21-month prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood...
Biden announces commission to study potential changes to Supreme Court
By Carol Zimmermann | Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order April 9 announcing the formation of a commission to look into possible reforms to the Supreme Court, including the idea of expanding the court or instituting...
San Francisco archbishop leads prayers for unity, end to ‘virus’ of racism
By Catholic News Service SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) — Decrying a rise in racial violence especially against Asian Americans, including in San Francisco, a city that has always offered “a welcoming and stable home” to newcomers, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone led a prayer...
Bishop urges unity to find solutions to violence after Knoxville shootings
By Catholic News Service KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) — Bishop Richard F. Stika of Knoxville offered prayers for a teenager who was killed and an injured police officer involved in a school shooting. The bishop also expressed concern in a statement April 12 following the...
By Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — The American Rescue Plan is “an extraordinarily practical way to help the American people,” New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said in a statement March 11, the same day President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19...
Latest COVID-19 vaccine can be used in good conscience
By Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a new video, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine reiterated that use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine “can be used in good moral conscience.” “There’s no moral need to turn down a vaccine,...
Bishop Rhoades: Latest COVID-19 vaccine can be used in good conscience
By Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a new video, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine reiterated that use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine “can be used in good moral conscience.” “There’s no...
A Lenten meditation
By Effie Caldarola | Catholic News Service Jesus, as I make the 40-day pilgrimage through Lent, I ask that my journey may always be at your side. My one Lenten goal, indeed the one goal of my life, is to enter into a relationship with you. What I do, the time I give...
Lent is time to grow in faith, hope, love — and to share them, pope says
By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As Christians pray, fast, and give alms during Lent, they also should consider giving a smile and offering a kind word to people feeling alone or frightened because of the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis...
Growing our hearts this Lent
By Lindsey Weishar | Catholic News Service I don’t know about you, but I often mentally brace myself for Lent. The season feels so long, so winter-ridden, and in this time of lingering pandemic, especially isolating. Yet, the Online Etymology Dictionary reminds me...
Keep fighting, pro-life advocates told in virtual March for Life
By Carol Zimmermann | Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — Although the 2021 March for Life was far different from the previous 47 annual marches to protest the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion, organizers and rally speakers stressed that the smaller,...
Delaware students abuzz as one of their own takes presidential oath of office
By Joseph P. Owens | Catholic News Service WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) — It’s not every kid who gets to say, “I’m a student at the president’s high school alma mater.” As of noon Jan. 20, the students at Archmere Academy had that going for...
Second Catholic president causes some to celebrate, gives others anxiety
By Chaz Muth | Catholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) — Joe Biden became the second Catholic to be inaugurated as president of the United States Jan. 20, giving some U.S. Catholics and their religious leaders a reason to rejoice and others to fear more access to...
Biden’s inaugural address calls for Americans to work for unity
In his inaugural address Jan. 20, President Joe Biden said he is committed with his “whole soul” to bring this country together. He pleaded with Americans — having come through a bitter election, a time of racial reckoning, and still in the midst of a deadly pandemic — to similarly take up this cause.
Pope prays Biden works to heal divisions, promote human dignity
Pope Francis prayed that President Joe Biden would work to heal the divisions in U.S. society and promote human dignity and peace around the globe.
USCCB president prays God grants Biden ‘wisdom, courage’ to lead nation
As Joe Biden prepared to be inaugurated as the 46th U.S. president, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed hope the incoming administration “will work with the church and others of goodwill” to “address the complicated cultural and economic factors that are driving abortion and discouraging families.”
Leaders of both parties join Biden, Harris for Mass of thanksgiving
Hours before his inauguration as president, Joe Biden and incoming Vice President Kamala Harris were joined by their spouses and congressional leaders from both political parties for what was termed a Mass of thanksgiving early Jan. 20 at St. Matthew Cathedral in Washington.
