Rhina Guidos

Guatemalans tired of institutional political parties on Aug. 20 elected Bernardo Arévalo, a former diplomat who had little chance of winning two months ago, as their next president.

Jesuit communities worldwide are condemning the actions of the Nicaraguan government after police ordered a community of priests from the Company of Jesus to leave their private residence Aug. 19 in the capital of Managua.

The archbishop of El Salvador's capital city announced Aug. 6 that a canonization process has begun for a group of martyrs killed during the country's bloody civil war, including Jesuit Fr. Ignacio Ellacuría, the rector of the Catholic university who was murdered in 1989.

 El padre franciscano Brendan Forde, un misionero irlandés que vivió algunos de los conflictos más turbulentos de América Latina del siglo XX, incluso la dictadura militar en Chile y la guerra en El Salvador, murió el 8 de julio en Irlanda.

Franciscan Fr. Brendan Forde, an Irish missionary who lived through some of the most turbulent conflicts of 20th century Latin America, including a military dictatorship in Chile and the war in El Salvador, died July 8 in his native Ireland.

Catholics at the U.S.-Mexico border, including many sisters, are working to better assess how to help migrants and to talk about what they have learned and how to go forward post-Title 42. 

In a meeting of women and men religious from Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. St. Joseph Sr. Carol Zinn proposed a "new beginning" that would include groups of consecrated life from all corners of the Americas.

St. Oscar Romero was killed in a hospital chapel in San Salvador. Sisters keep his memory alive on the hospital grounds in what they consider his "shrine": a small residence they built for him at the property's entrance.

The ending of Title 42 restrictions on immigrants' asylum claims were expected to lead to a surge of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. That surge did not materialize, yet Catholic organizations feel a sense of uncertainty.

Tensions were already high at the U.S.-Mexico border and they escalated May 7 after a car ran into a crowd outside a Brownsville, Texas, building that provides shelter to migrants, leaving eight dead and at least 10 injured.

Days before El Salvador marked the anniversary of a law suspending due process rights as part of a supposed gang crackdown, priests and a cardinal lambasted bishops for not speaking out more forcefully for those being held indefinitely.

In a candid account of his five decades in the Salvadoran church, the country's first cardinal tells of calumnies against El Salvador's St. Oscar Romero, but also of slights against him by other prelates.

The Diocese of Oakland, California, issued a statement of support for those suffering after a Nov. 19 attack on an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado. The diocese also clarified that comments made by one of its deacons on Twitter following the shooting are "not representative of the church's teachings."

A Ukrainian Catholic archbishop asked his fellow U.S. bishops Nov. 16 to pray for Ukraine, and, if possible, to go to Ukraine and pray there for its people, inviting them on a trip he is embarking on in February.

From an altar set on a platform just above the waters that straddle the U.S. and Mexico, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, celebrated a Mass Nov. 5 to remember migrants who've died trying to cross the waters below or along the border in 2022.

Bishop W. Shawn McKnight, of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, asked for prayers after three people died following an Oct. 24 shooting at a high school in St. Louis.

A study of U.S. priests released Oct. 19 details clerics' "crisis of trust" toward their bishops as well as fear that if they were falsely accused of abuse, prelates would immediately throw them "under the bus" and not help them clear their name.

Five members of the armed forces of El Salvador are part of 28 reported fatalities related to the weather system known as Julia as of early Oct. 11, but the death toll is expected to rise. 

Authorities in Florida continued rescue efforts and Catholic parishes and dioceses moved rapidly to collect aid in the storm's aftermath as President Joe Biden said it could take years to rebuild what was destroyed.

One of the most powerful hurricanes in Florida's history, Hurricane Ian made landfall Sept. 28 in a direct hit on the Sunshine State with the extent of the damage not yet known in the Catholic dioceses of Venice and St. Petersburg.