Rhina Guidos

A Franciscan friar who was on his way to join a new religious community in New York became Washington's first COVID-19 fatality March 20 and the first known U.S. Catholic cleric to die after contracting the coronavirus.

The Vatican announced Feb. 22 that Pope Francis has recognized the martyrdom of a fellow Jesuit, Salvadoran Fr. Rutilio Grande, and two companions who were murdered en route to a novena in 1977 in El Salvador.

A Catholic priest helping feed and shelter migrants in Central America has filed a complaint with Guatemalan authorities after he and his staff received death threats for providing humanitarian aid for the latest mass of migrants headed toward the United States.

Over the last year, Catholic dioceses on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico, in places such as El Paso and Brownsville, Texas, scrambled to accommodate the growing number of children, men and women crossing the border, seeking asylum and entering the U.S.

A national newspaper published a document that, it says, is a copy of a report now in the hands of the Vatican, detailing what witnesses say transpired during the tenure of the retired bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, as well as other allegations of sexual misconduct while he was the rector of Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Washington authorities apprehended a suspect in an incident involving an attack Dec. 10 against two security guards at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Marian shrine in the United States, at the height of its busiest season.

Each year, the students flock to a hotel just outside of Washington. Like migrating birds signaling winter, you can tell the time of year by the arrival of the high schoolers, college students and young alumni from Jesuit universities around the country.

Around the world, communities of their Jesuit brothers, but also laity involved in social justice circles and even Pope Francis, made sure their names and what they stood for was not forgotten.

In a wide-ranging report on immigration Nov. 12, U.S. bishops heard a grim landscape facing immigrants and refugees trying to find shelter in the United States. But they also heard of the wide network of Catholic organizations trying to help, even as they, too, face challenges.

In a brief presentation Nov. 11 to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Boston's Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley told the bishops gathered in Baltimore the Vatican may publish what it knows about the ascent to power of now-disgraced former U.S. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick by Christmas, or perhaps the New Year.

"Some reporting has spoken of 'extending TPS.' That has important legal meaning, and that's not what happened (with) the agreements," Ken Cuccinelli.

Catholics joined an array of faith communities, human rights groups, clergy, refugees and refugee resettlement agencies gathered outside the U.S. Capitol Oct. 15 protesting deep cuts to the refugee admissions program.

It's a pastoral letter that pulls no punches, goes far into the past and continues up to the recent present of racism at the U.S.-Mexico border.  

During the summer of 2019, the bishop of El Paso, Texas, decided his diocese would open a fund to help a growing number of immigrants piling into shelters on the other side of the U.S. border in the sister city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.

The daily struggle here does not involve strife between the neighbor cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez on the Mexico side, but of keeping up with the policies, mandates and rules directed out of Washington causing chaos in their midst.

A group of U.S. Catholic bishops, along with a Vatican representative and other priests, celebrated Mass Sept. 26 next to a field of chili peppers with farmworkers and their families and other immigrants.

You could feel the hurt that remains in this border city by the tension and occasional tremble in the voices.

The University of Notre Dame Sept. 21 released a groundbreaking report that looked at sexual harassment in U.S. Catholic seminaries, revealing that just 6% of seminarians reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment or misconduct, while 90% reported none.

Four Massachusetts Catholic bishops warned of environmental red flags documented by scientists and urged a change in behaviors in a Sept. 16 statement calling for substantial changes to safeguard creation.

A large part of the exhibit at a Washington museum known as The Phillips Collection, focuses on the emotional toll as well as the dangers of such immigration journeys, and one experienced in modern times by a record 70.8 million around the world, fleeing war, persecution and conflict.