OSV News

The prelates urged "comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders while offering a just and merciful pathway for those who are already part of our communities."

The Holy See's diplomat to the United Nations has called for three key priorities in addressing the global crises of poverty, conflict and climate change.

Reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near St. Jerome Catholic Church in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood on Oct. 12 prompted warnings of caution from its pastor, although a spokesperson for ICE denied the church was targeted, NBC Chicago reported. The news outlet reported that neighbors have resorted to forming human chains to help Catholic migrants fearful of ICE go to and leave Sunday Mass so they could worship and receive the sacraments.

A 17th-century monastery in northern Italy where recently canonized St. Carlo Acutis received his first Communion was in ruins after a massive fire ravaged the historic building.

Asked how Catholics across the world can help, CNEWA regional director Joseph Hazboun said first of all, with prayers "that this truce, this ceasefire, will hold and move forward towards a permanent peace agreement where Gaza will have the opportunity to flourish."

The Vatican said that the five judges named to hear the Marko Rupnik case in a canonical court include women and priests who don't hold jobs in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Historic momentum is felt across the Middle East as thousands gathered Oct. 11 in Tel Aviv, Israel, for the last mass gathering before the hostage release expected to take place Oct. 13, and tens of thousands of Palestinians started to make their way back to their homes in northern Gaza Strip. But those Palestinians have returned to see only mostly rubble left, with Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, the pastor of Gaza City's Catholic parish, saying the entire enclave has experienced a "tsunami" of destruction.

Just remember the children that died there, almost 70,000 civilians died, and to this there is no solution," Cardinal Konrad Krajewski said.

Pope Leo XIV's apostolic exhortation on love for the poor, Dilexi Te ("I Have Loved You"), released by the Vatican Oct. 9, "puts forth the pope's strategic plan for the rolling out of his pontificate," Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami said.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem welcomed "with joy" the announcement of an initial agreement between Hamas and Israel in an Oct. 9 statement, but also stressed the "absolute urgency" for the "immediate" and "unconditional" entry of humanitarian relief and sufficient aid into Gaza.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, is an $8 billion program that operates on a smaller $150 million contingency fund, and could potentially run out in the event of a long shutdown. 

Pope Leo XIV's first apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te ("I have loved you"), was promulgated Oct. 9, the feast day of St. John Henry Newman. Here are nine things to know about the document.

The body of Fr. Bertoldo Pantaleón Estrada was discovered Oct. 6 in the municipality of Mezcal in Guerrero state, some 150 miles south of Mexico City, according to the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Oct. 6 that the bishops will vote for chairmen-elect for six standing committees during their upcoming 2025 plenary assembly in Baltimore in November.

As the Pontifical Commission for the Protection Minors concluded its Sept. 29-Oct. 3 assembly in Kraków, "following five days of intensive dialogue, reflection and strategic planning," it prepares to publish its second annual report Oct. 16.

At the Red Mass celebrated on the day before the Supreme Court's new term, Washington Cardinal Robert McElroy emphasized that "men and women of the law are architects of hope by reason of their vocation."

"Many questions remain unanswered, and much still needs to be defined. We must not delude ourselves, but we are pleased that something new and positive is on the horizon," Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said in an Oct. 5 statement.

Pope Leo XIV said prayers for victims of a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in the central part of the Philippines that killed at least 72 people late Sept. 30, according to Archbishop Alberto Uy of Cebu.

Pope Leo XIV expressed concern about rhetoric used by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shortly after their Sept. 30 meeting with top U.S. military officials.

Jadira Bonilla, a Catholic who teaches kindergarten at St. Mary School in Vineland, New Jersey, is "currently on paid administrative leave," said Principal Steven Hogan, in a statement provided to OSV News Oct. 1 by the Diocese of Camden, of which the school is a part.