OSV News

Record-breaking storms in Southern California have damaged several Catholic schools and church properties, while forcing one archdiocese to reschedule its rite of election for catechumens.

The recent passing of Bishop Mario Dorsonville, a former Washington auxiliary who had headed the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, for just under a year, has filled many with great sadness but also with much gratitude for his life and ministry.

Key Senate negotiators Feb. 4 released an approximately $118 billion emergency national security bill that would send a fresh wave of aid to Ukraine as that nation fends off Russia's invasion and would implement strict new migration policies for the U.S.-Mexico border.

The parish serves as a distribution center for needed supplies, such as water, food, diapers and other necessities. In addition, the parish organizes a community meal held on a monthly basis.

Breaking barriers to access to quality education is key to preventing economic disparities and ensuring generations of Latinos fully contribute to society, said panelists at a Jan. 29 dialogue at Georgetown University.

As the Israel-Hamas war enters its fourth month, ending hostilities "all around" to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has become critical, the head of a U.S.-based Catholic aid agency said.

Sixteen parishes in the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, will be reconfigured into seven parishes, with five churches closing, in order to optimize the diocese's resources for its future and evangelization, the diocese announced Jan. 25.

An upcoming webinar series hosted by a U.S. bishop will explore synodality through the prism of Jesus Christ's words at the Last Supper.

While trying to increase food production and yet reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment, the farmers are faced with rising costs, including soaring energy prices. They feel they are being unfairly accused of going against ecological concerns by the European Union.

Cardinal Gérald Lacroix of Québec has announced he will temporarily step aside from his duties, after he was named in court documents Jan. 25 in connection with a class-action sex abuse lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Québec in 2022.

The Supreme Court Jan. 24 rejected an appeal by death-row inmate Kenneth Smith, whose planned execution by the state of Alabama -- the first known execution by nitrogen gas -- was openly decried by more than 100 Alabama faith leaders just days earlier.

Cardinal Michael Czerny has warned that humanity is in danger of "losing its home" as the world continues to reel from the effects of climate change. The prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development made the comments Jan. 20 in Cotonou, Benin, during a roundtable on the Green Church Program, an initiative of the Archdioceses of Cotonou that was launched in March 2023.

The bishop of Covington has rescinded permission for two priests to minister in his diocese after they publicly dismissed the contemporary celebration of Mass in the Roman rite as "irrelevant."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 allowed Border Patrol agents to cut through or remove razor wire that Texas installed on a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the state's effort to prevent illegal border crossings.

After authorizing blessings for homosexual couples, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, is facing backlash from multiple national churches and certain clerics across the globe.

The situation in the Gaza Strip is "extremely catastrophic," and people are dying not only from violence but from preventable illnesses, said the CEO of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Shortly after New Year's Day, 32 kidnapped migrants appeared in the border city of Rio Bravo, Mexico, after a media storm over their disappearance -- having been forced off an intercity bus by a drug cartel convoy.