George Cassidy Payne

George Cassidy Payne

George Cassidy Payne is a freelance journalist and poet based in Rochester, New York, specializing in politics, culture and faith.

By this Author

New book by feminist theologian takes on clericalism, racism and the work of repair

The Wounded Church develops what Annie Selak describes as a "feminist ecclesiology of injury," an approach that begins with lived experiences of harm rather than idealized visions of what the church ought to be.

Focus on a therapist's hand holding a pen over notes, with a client in the background (Dreamstime/Yuri Arcurs)

For Catholic therapists, accompanying clients in pain guides mental health care

For Mental Health Awareness Month in May, NCR spoke with Catholic clinicians who emphasized accompaniment, careful discernment around spiritual language, and a commitment to seeing clients as whole persons.

In its cafeteria and landscaping, Laudato Si' alive at NY's Canisius University

Students at the Jesuit-run school experience how environmental stewardship becomes spiritual practice — where caring for creation is seen as inseparable from caring for neighbors and the oneness in community. 

A drone view on Aug. 7, 2025, shows the ruins of residential buildings in the abandoned town of Marinka, Ukraine, which was destroyed in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Donetsk region, a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine. (OSV News/Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko)

Ukrainian Catholics in New York find hope in solidarity with their war-torn homeland

The people of the large Ukrainian Catholic community in Rochester, New York, embrace a mission to be spiritual and humanitarian bridges, connecting the suffering of Ukraine with the solidarity of their adopted America.

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