OSV News

Ahead of the United Nations' annual climate conference, two U.S. Catholic bishops and the leader of a top Catholic aid agency are calling for urgent, long-term action to safeguard both creation and humanity.

Nigeria's return to the U.S. list of countries of "particular concern" over Christian persecution has drawn mixed reactions from church leaders and triggered a heated debate in Africa's most populous nation. President Donald Trump announced the designation Oct. 31 and threatened to halt all aid to Nigeria and launch military action, upon the government's failure to stop the killings.

On Nov. 2, the feast of All Souls, Catholics in Chicago joined in commemorating the great Irish famine that left more than 1 million people dead and began the mass exodus of Irish refugees and migrants seeking a better life to the United States and other countries 180 years ago.

Bishop Timothy C. Senior of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, condemned a local Catholic school's use of a prominent Nazi symbol on a float in a community Halloween parade.

Attorneys for the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, have moved to voluntarily dismiss a lawsuit they had filed against the federal government regarding visas for religious workers — a case that highlights the perfect storm created by the nation's shifting immigration policies and the increased reliance on international clergy by the Catholic Church in the United States amid a downturn in domestic vocations to the priesthood.
 

The ruling "reaffirms a fundamental principle: no administration can use hunger as a political weapon," the coalition of plaintiffs in the case said in a statement. 

The Trump administration indicated it would restrict the number of refugees it admits annually into the country to 7,500, with most of that number to be white South Africans.

While portions of aid were delivered after the Oct. 13 visit by President Donald Trump to Israel and Egypt — a day marking the signing of the Israel-Hamas peace deal — the situation remains precarious in the enclave.

The president of the U.S. bishops' conference has urged lawmakers to fund federal food assistance before a looming deadline risks disrupting benefits for more than 40 million people.

A former Anglican bishop urges church leaders to prepare for a surge of Catholic conversions, as a historic Vatican visit by King Charles III coincided with a deepening division in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Archdiocese of San Antonio is speaking out after the GoFundMe company created donation pages on its behalf without the archdiocese's approval.

A coalition of Catholic organizations held prayer vigils across the country on Oct. 22 for what organizers called "a national day of public witness for our immigrant brothers and sisters."

Bolivia has elected Rodrigo Paz as president, picking a centrist politician with a history of amicable church ties.

Catholics across the nation are being invited to publicly pray for migrants, with two coast-to-coast days of witness planned amid the Trump administration's continuing crackdown on unauthorized immigration.

The 63-year-old Austrian priest, who has served as apostolic administrator for the Archdiocese of Vienna since January, will succeed Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who has led the archdiocese since 1995.

When pilgrims gather in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 19 to witness the canonization of Blessed Bartolo Longo, they will see not just the elevation of a new saint, but a story of a radical conversion.

He assured the faithful of the military archdiocese that he "will pursue all legal options to address this grave misstep."

Directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Yaroslav Lodygin, the documentary features on-the-ground, often intensely emotional interviews with Ukrainian Christians from a number of denominations who have been systematically persecuted by Russian occupiers.

Catholics across America have committed themselves to spiritual expeditions not on the well-worn pilgrimage routes of Europe, but in their own communities.