OSV News

The Vatican's United Nations mission condemned in remarks to the U.N. Security Council what it said was a worldwide increase in violence against women, and a decline in women's involvement in the decision-making process.

Marking the first anniversary of the Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and praying that God will "have mercy and save us" and "convert those who foster aggression and war," Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory and Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, led a March 7 ecumenical prayer service for peace at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

A Catholic university in Ohio is making alternate arrangements for students to attend what is commonly called the "traditional Latin Mass," after the local bishop implemented recently issued restrictions from the Vatican.

After the Archdiocese of New York's Feb. 15 announcement it would close 12 elementary schools and merge four others into two, Superintendent of Schools Michael J. Deegan unveiled to OSV News a Catholic educational pilot program that offers new hope to entire communities.

Catholic aid agencies are working alongside other international humanitarian organizations to house, feed and administer additional life-saving assistance to tens of thousands of people in Syria and Turkey.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to consider a case April 18 that could have broad implications for employees seeking religious accommodations from their employers.

Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O'Connell was remembered as a man "gripped by grace" and "at ease with movers and shakers and also with the moved and shaken" as nearly 5,000 attended a funeral Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels March 3.

The Biden administration recently announced it would take new actions aimed at preventing the labor exploitation of migrant children released from U.S. custody, saying there has been an increase in such exploitation.

The Diocese of Albany, New York, has placed a hold on parish celebrations of Mass with the 1962 Roman Missal, the older usage of the Roman rite, commonly called the "traditional Latin Mass." The celebration of the older usage, however, will continue at the Our Lady of Martyrs Shrine in Auriesville, New York, which honors three Jesuit martyrs and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the "lily of the Mohawk nation."

 As Pope Francis prepares to mark the tenth anniversary of his pontificate in March, one hallmark of his papacy has been to make both sides of the American political aisle "uncomfortable," panelists, including Washington's Cardinal Wilton Gregory, said at a Feb. 28 event hosted by Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

On Feb. 25, just following a snow flurry that morning, a tent with seats for about 100 people was put up among gravesites on the property behind Sacred Heart Parish's chapel in the Washington suburb of Bowie for an afternoon prayer service honoring the departed.

The dark clouds of a weather system of historic proportions added to the heaviness already felt by the thousands at the 2023 LA Religious Education Congress Feb. 23-26 in Anaheim, a week after the death of beloved Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O'Connell.

As the continental phase of the synod travels across the globe in February and March with sessions in Europe, Oceania, North America, Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Middle East encounter took place during a time of mourning for victims of the tragic earthquake.

Prosecutors are challenging the medical report claiming former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial on charges he sexually abused a teen in the 1970s.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Robert Taylor Jr. ruled Feb. 24 that a redacted version of the Maryland Attorney General Office's report on child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore must be released publicly.

The Biden administration Feb. 21 proposed its most restrictive border control measure to date, announcing it plans to issue a temporary rule blocking asylum-seekers who cross the border without authorization or who do not first apply for protections in other nations before coming to the United States. Catholic immigration advocates condemned the proposal.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced Feb. 22 that the suspect arrested in the shooting death of Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O'Connell has been charged with murder.
 

Wrapping up his three-day visit to Poland Feb. 22, President Joe Biden attended Ash Wednesday Mass in his hotel room in Warsaw. The Mass took place at the Marriott Hotel, where the U.S. president stayed during his trip to Poland's capital, and was celebrated by a Polish priest, Fr. Wieslaw Dawidowski.

The latest phase of the 2021-24 Synod on Synodality is coming to a close, with a final document to be written over the next six weeks and submitted to the Vatican by March 31.

The church is called to pray, preach the Gospel and be attentive to God's word in all circumstances, but even more so in the time of war, explained both the Vatican's ambassador to the United Nations and the U.S. archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.