OSV News

Portugal's Catholic Church has reiterated new safeguarding commitments in line with an independent commission on sexual abuse by clergy, although most of its dioceses also reported inconsistencies in the commission's findings.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed in March the first federal limits on "forever chemicals" in drinking water, a move the Biden administration said will save thousands of lives and prevent some serious illnesses attributed to exposure to these chemicals over time.

The church in Ireland is launching a Year for Vocations as it grapples with a steep decline in seminary numbers and with aging priests.

President Joe Biden announced March 14 he would sign an executive order aiming to increase the number of background checks on prospective gun buyers, as well as measures to promote red flag laws and the secure storage of firearms.

Women leaders from among Canada's Indigenous nations were at the United Nations' New York headquarters, seeking broad support, including from Pope Francis, in their ongoing campaign to stop violence against their communities' women and girls.

The Diocese of Santa Rosa filed for bankruptcy March 13, days after its bishop finally concluded the decision was necessary in order to address potentially 200 new claims brought against the diocese by survivors of child sexual abuse.

Pope Francis has brought a fresh perspective to established Catholic teaching, panelists said March 13 at an event hosted by Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life to mark the pontiff's 10th anniversary.

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.