Religion News Service

Signs of the Times: Fr. Tom Reese offers some ideas on improving liturgy, to get the conversation going on how to develop good liturgy that is supported by a consensus within the community.

Signs of the Times: Although charged with overseeing liturgy for the church, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has done little to support badly needed liturgical reform.

Six Catholic elementary schools in the Los Angeles Archdiocese are closing at the end of the 2020-21 school year due to financial hardships heightened by COVID-19.

At events in 14 cities across the U.S., an estimated 5,000 people demonstrated in support of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders March 28 after attacks on people of Asian descent in the Atlanta area this month.

Signs of the Times: Joe Biden will soon be the first Catholic president to nominate an ambassador to the Holy See, something that in earlier days would have been anathema to American Protestants.

As Luz Gallegos hosted a workshop March 18 informing agricultural workers about the COVID-19 vaccine, she held up two photos — one of her late uncle, a missionary Catholic priest, and the other of a beloved local pastor. Both died of COVID-19.

A group of clergy and activists met with Sen. Chris Coons to show support for the sweeping LGBTQ rights bill known as the Equality Act, ahead of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the bill.

Since the Catholic Church forbids same-sex marriage as a sacrament, some Catholics, and even some bishops, have discussed having a blessing for such couples as an alternative. But the Vatican said no.

People from a number of Native American nations came to support the Apache people in their fight to save Oak Flat, a sacred site that's at risk of being turned over to an Australian mining venture.

Pope Francis' pilgrimage to Iraq helped to show pastoral solidarity with his suffering Christian flock, call for peace and reconciliation for the Iraqi people and establish improved relations between Christians and Muslims.

For more than a century, Catholic social teaching has advocated not for a minimum wage but for a living wage for workers. Sadly, however, the U.S. Congress cannot even increase the minimum wage because of parliamentary rules and Republican opposition.

Leaders at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are discouraging Catholics from using the new Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine if given a choice, citing the use of cells with a distant link to abortion in the development of the vaccine.

Olga Segura has often been asked why she’s chosen to remain involved in the Catholic Church, an institution that, in her eyes, has often ignored the trauma of Black people. As a journalist who’s built her career in Catholic media, has asked herself that same question: Why did she attach her identity to such an institution?

The archdiocese said the vaccine is 'morally compromised' because it utilized cells with a decades-old link to an aborted fetus.

The history of Black Christianity in America came to television screens this month in a documentary series based on a new book, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, by Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr., a Harvard University historian. An interview with Stacey Holman, who produced and directed the series.

A group of Apache peoples and other Native American and non-Native supporters has filed an emergency motion to stop the U.S. government from transferring an Apache sacred site in Arizona to a mining company in the next two weeks.

A Catholic social justice activist who police knocked down during a protest over racism last year has sued the city of Buffalo, its mayor, the police commissioner and several police officers.

Following months of lockdown, the historic collection at the Vatican Museums reopened to the public last week but drew criticism from guides and visitors for the excessive crowds and lack of social distancing.

I suggest we should use our digital gadgets to celebrate Lent better, especially during the pandemic that has made it so difficult to go to church. 

There are filters that blur "imperfections" in photos and filters that turn lawyers into cats on Zoom. Now there are filters to help Christians safely display the very visible Ash Wednesday mark on social media.