Rhina Guidos

The U.S. Supreme Court June 4 threw out a lower court's ruling that allowed a 17-year-old last year to obtain an abortion while she was in a detention center after an illegal border crossing.

The official tally of 64 deaths on the island of Puerto Rico attributed to 2017's powerful Hurricane Maria has been disputed for some time, but in late May, a study in a respected scientific journal said that figure may have underestimated the island's fatalities by the thousands.

A group of Hondurans pleaded with U.S. lawmakers May 17 to stop military aid to the nation and to allow the country's citizens living under a particular immigration status in the U.S. to remain here until conditions improve in their native country.

Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin said he worries that reducing the number of immigrants, particularly refugees to the U.S., and demonizing them represents a "hardening of the American heart," and that should be of concern to a country that has been historically a welcoming place.

Invoking a Salvadoran who's about to become the country's first Catholic saint, the man who now occupies his old post asked immigrants and their children during an April 11 Mass in Washington to pray for Blessed Oscar Romero's intercession, a "miracle," that would allow U.S. lawmakers to grant immigration relief to thousands of Salvadorans and other immigrants to the United States.

During an April 11 homily in Washington, Salvadoran Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas said the canonization of Blessed Oscar Romero will "probably" be in Rome and "probably" take place at end of October.

Catholic officials in El Salvador were shaken and expressed outrage and sadness after the assassination of a 36-year-old priest during Holy Week, in what some suspect may be a gang killing.

On the day that marked the fifth anniversary of the election of a pope who has called on others to "build bridges, not walls," the president of the United States toured Southern California to look at prototypes for a wall he promised to build on the border with Mexico.

The U.S. Supreme Court has dealt a blow to the Trump administration's effort to end a program in March that protects young adults brought to the U.S. without legal permission as minors.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, has apologized for a tweet that sent Twitter tongues tweeting -- and accusing -- late Feb. 22 when he wished someone "Nighty-night, baby, I love you" on the public part of his feed.

A border bishop pleaded with the Trump administration to think about the well-being of some Salvadoran immigrants' children who are U.S. citizens.

The political ads that aired in the Washington metro region in the fall of 2017 made many stop in their tracks. 

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski said laws need to be changed to fix the country's broken immigration system, but in the process, immigrants should not be demonized.

The Panamanian archbishop helping to organize World Youth Day said the 2019 celebration in his country will invite youth of other faiths to join in.

The longest and most passionate discussion on the first day of the fall assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Nov. 13 focused on how to help immigrants.

Though the Catholic Church has responded to racism for many years, some leaders and church institutions have at times been part of the problem, said Bishop George Murray.

As the U.S. bishops were beginning their fall assembly in Baltimore, also marking their 100th anniversary as a conference, a couple of nonviolent protesters gathered nearby.

Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, told his fellow bishops Nov. 13 that more than 100 U.S. dioceses have participated in the "Share the Journey" campaign.

Calling racism the country's "national disease" and "our greatest injustice," Catholic speakers at an annual gathering of young adults asked the group to call out injustice.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence criticized the United Nations' efforts to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East in a speech Oct. 25.