OSV News

The United Nations held its first-ever "Climate Ambition Summit" Sept. 20 — a conference that included 41 countries, but excluded both the United States and China because the U.N. invited only leaders from nations with concrete plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett discussed the importance of academic freedom and offered career advice in remarks to law students at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law in Washington Sept. 21.

Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Cardinal Louis Sako said he would like more Vatican support as he tries to regain formal recognition as the Chaldean patriarch in the country.

Grim developments on the southern U.S. border and the "frustrating" lack of immigration reform were on the minds of some 1,500 Southern California Catholics at the annual Mass in Recognition of All Immigrants Sept. 17 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

A religious order priest serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has been arrested and charged with possessing hundreds of images of child pornography.

In what is thought to have been the largest climate change rally since 2019, an estimated crowd of as many as 75,000 demonstrators from some 700 organizations and activist groups paraded through the streets of New York City Sept. 17 in the "March to End Fossil Fuels."

October's general assembly in Rome for the Catholic Church's Synod of Bishops on synodality aims to address human reality -- not abstractions -- in order to more effectively share Jesus Christ and his Gospel with others, said Bishop Daniel E. Flores, a U.S. member of the global assembly's preparatory commission.

Catholic activists called on Congress to ensure funding for migrant services is protected in upcoming appropriations bills at a Sept. 13 event near the U.S. Capitol.

A federal judge declared unlawful a revised version of a program that offers protection from deportation to certain immigrants brought to the country as children. The program has been in place for more than a decade and has nearly 600,000 recipients.

As authorities in Libya announced a three-day mourning period following a deadly flood disaster, Bishop George Bugeja, apostolic vicar of Tripoli, expressed the church's closeness to the people, many of whom are injured, missing or trapped by the storm waters.

A New Mexico archbishop said the state's temporary ban on openly carrying firearms in and around Albuquerque is not "a threat to the Constitution."

A Holy See delegation at a Sept. 11-14 meeting of nations that are parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions urged nations that have not yet done so to sign the treaty, which "prohibits under any circumstances the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions."

The Justice Department and the manufacturer of an abortion drug asked the U.S. Supreme Court Sept. 8 to overturn a lower-court ruling that would limit access to the drug, setting the stage for the high court to weigh in on the future of the drug's availability.

The devastating earthquake that struck Morocco's High Atlas Mountains not only showed the destructive power of nature but also the strength of the country's men and women to unite to help their compatriots, a Caritas official said.

Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, called for a peaceful end to the months-long blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh that has left some 120,000 ethnic Armenian Christians at risk of what experts are calling "genocide by starvation."

More than a year after floods submerged one-third of Pakistan, "women in particular are (still) being impacted," said Gul Wali Khan, the head of programming for Catholic Relief Services in the country. More than 33 million people were affected by the 2022 floods, caused by a severe heatwave that melted glaciers, followed by heavier than usual monsoon rains.

A federal judge ordered Texas to remove controversial floating barriers in the Rio Grande and prohibited the state from adding or reinstalling additional buoys in the river aimed at reducing unauthorized border crossings, marking a legal victory for the Biden administration, which opposed their use.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, an influential figure in Democratic politics who also was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary in the Clinton administration, died Sept. 1, according to a statement from the Richardson Center for Global Engagement.

The Irish prelate credited with being among the first to tackle the clerical abuse crisis head-on said he did not believe there will be women priests in the Catholic Church in his lifetime.

A Catholic priest ordained just over four years ago for the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, has been charged with several counts of child sexual abuse and removed from ministry.