OSV News

The Nicaraguan government closed the country's most prominent Catholic radio station as the Sandinista regime continues to persecute the church and increasingly infringe on citizens' religious freedom and the ability to worship.

Mexico's Interior Ministry has requested the participation of priests in courses promoting "civic values" in the aftermath of the ruling Morena party's massive electoral victory and disquiet from the country's episcopal conference over social peace in the deeply divided country.

Russian forces have driven out all Greek and Roman Catholic clergy from the occupied areas of Ukraine, said the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Catholic aid organizations in the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese confirmed they cannot get to work just yet because of the power outage that left about 2.5 million people in the dark following Hurricane Beryl's landfall July 8 that cut a damaging path through eastern Texas and left at least eight people dead. Weather officials said "exceptionally warm ocean temperatures" were effectively rocket fuel for Beryl's rapid development.

The heroic work and witness of the Eastern churches in some of the world's most conflict-ridden regions was highlighted at the annual Catholic Media Conference held in Atlanta in June.

Catholic groups working with migrants traversing the treacherous Darién Gap have expressed skepticism over a joint U.S.-Panama plan to deport people passing through the thick jungle between Colombia and Panama on journeys toward the U.S. border. The groups called for governments to attend to the needs of migrants instead and deal with issues such as organized crime, which controls access to the Darién Gap. They also argue that migrants are not easily deterred, making it likely they would seek out new but risky routes instead.

God is present in the "dark corners" of local communities and in people's lives, Pope Francis said. "His presence reveals itself precisely in the faces marked by suffering and where degradation seems to triumph," the pope said in his homily at Mass in the northern Italian city of Trieste July 7.

Gov. Jeff Landry said that he vetoed the funds for the largest homeless shelter in Lafayette, Louisiana, because its operator, Catholic Charities of Acadiana, works with migrants. The governor, a Catholic, alleged Catholic Charities facilitates illegal immigration, a charge the agency denied.

In his first public address since Hurricane Beryl visited the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles region as the earliest formed Category 5 hurricane on record, the bishop of St. George's in Grenada took to social media to offer a spiritual message of hope and resilience following the July 1 landfall there.

St. Mary's Cathedral in Linz made headlines around the world as a controversial sculpture of Mary displayed inside the church was beheaded July 1 by unknown vandals. The sculpture, depicting the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus designed by Austrian artist Esther Strauss, was scheduled to be exhibited in the cathedral for three weeks. The work has drawn criticism from some Catholics who said it was blasphemous.

For unspecified reasons, an Indigenous image of Jesus Christ was "taken in the middle of the night," says a parishioner of St. Joseph Apache Mission, located on tribal land in Mescalero, New Mexico.

A state judge denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's effort to shut down Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, a Catholic nonprofit serving migrants.

In his native Argentina, Pope Francis' vision of "a poor church, for the poor" is a reality.

The Supreme Court has overturned the Chevron deference, reducing the regulatory power of federal agencies — some of which have led to major disputes with the Catholic Church and Catholic entities.

A Massachusetts priest has been placed on administrative leave, following allegations of sexual misconduct involving an apparent adult victim — while an attorney for a separate alleged adult victim accused the diocese of having engaged in a "cover up" regarding the priest.

The Vancouver, British Columbia, Archdiocese and Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation marked Canada's Indigenous Peoples Day by releasing to the public a signed "Sacred Covenant," written in both English and Chinook.

Mexican authorities recently rescued 13 kidnapped migrants from a Ciudad Juárez stash house, where the captives "were beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and extorted for additional smuggling fees by members of a transnational criminal organization."

The Supreme Court on June 27 dismissed a case concerning abortions for medical emergencies in Idaho, sending the case back to a lower court without resolving the central question of whether a conflict exists between Idaho's abortion restrictions and federal law governing emergency health care.

The Supreme Court June 26 ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over the government's effort to restrict misinformation on social media on topics including COVID-19.