Catholic News Service

The Archdiocese of Omaha said it intends to cooperate with a request from the Nebraska Attorney General's office to review its "investigative records" as state officials pursue information concerning sex abuse in the state's three Catholic dioceses.

Catholic Church leaders are urging the Colombian government to protect community leaders who are being targeted by hired assassins.

Parish priests in the Archdiocese of Washington -- on the front lines dealing with the fallout of the church sexual abuse crisis this summer -- have stressed the need to listen to and pray with their parishioners.

During the second day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh said his experience serving the homeless with Catholic Charities and tutoring at Washington Jesuit Academy has influenced him as a judge because of the importance of "standing in the shoes of others."

Myanmar's military continues to persecute ethnic Kachin, the predominant Christian group in a conflict-torn part of the country, as well as Rohingya Muslims, said Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, Myanmar.

Clericalism has led to a distorted view of authority that has contributed to the problems of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience affecting the Catholic Church, said the head of the Vatican's clergy office.

People need to make peace with their lives and anything they are running from, rather than lose themselves to escapism and playful distraction, Pope Francis said.

Though recent revelations of past sex abuse by priests in the Catholic Church began in Pennsylvania when a grand jury released a report on Aug. 14 detailing the claims, it has given rise to similar claims and investigations at dioceses big and small around the country.

Jesuit Fr. Edward Reese, the president of St. Ignatius Prep School in San Francisco, offered prayers in both Phoenix and Washington, including a homily at the National Cathedral in Washington, after the death of John McCain.

Addressing the clergy abuse crisis in the church will require "wider lay engagement, more realized accountability and evident transparency," said Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl at the end of a Sept. 2 Mass in Washington.

Water is a gift of God that makes life possible and yet millions of people do not have access to safe drinking water, and rivers, seas and oceans continue to be polluted, Pope Francis said.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput is asking Pope Francis to call off the Synod of Bishops on young people this October to focus instead on the life of the bishops.

Dallas Bishop Edward Burns has asked Pope Francis for an extraordinary synod to address issues in the latest Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis, including "abuse of power, clericalism, accountability and the understanding of transparency in the church."

Vatican City -- Days after he called on Pope Francis to resign for allegedly ignoring sanctions placed on then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano provided his version of a meeting that, in the minds of many, changed the overall narrative of Pope Francis' visit to the United States in 2015.

Jesus himself showed that the best way to respond to scandal and divisiveness is to stay silent and pray, Pope Francis said Sept. 3 as he resumed his early morning Masses with invited guests.

Echoing what Pope Francis said during a Mass in May, the bishop who heads the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development said, "The struggle of working people, of the poor" is not first a "social or political question. No! It is the Gospel, pure and simple."

Fifty years ago, Bob Graf and 13 of his friends broke into nine neighboring draft boards in a Milwaukee office building, grabbed thousands of 1-A records, doused them in homemade napalm in a nearby park and set them afire.

Bishops from three countries issued letters supporting Pope Francis in late August following fallout from allegations made by a former apostolic nuncio to the U.S., claiming that the pope and others knew about abuse allegations involving Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

Australia's Catholic bishops and religious orders, responding to recommendations from the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, accepted 98 percent of its suggestions, but said they could not accept recommendations that would violate the seal of confession.

Scheduled to respond to a Pennsylvania grand jury report that hundreds of priests were accused of the sexual abuse of children and seminarians, a prayer service in Metuchen, N.J., drew people from throughout the diocese for exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, prayer, song and reflection.