News

Mexico is mopping up after Hurricane Patricia hit its Pacific Coast with Category 5 strength, but left surprising little damage and few deaths, given the severity of the storm.

An official with Caritas Mexico, the church's charitable arm, says the storm left a mess in parts of the dioceses serving the western states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit with flooding and property damage, but mostly impacted small settlements and rural areas—which were being provided with assistance from...

Accusations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by leaders of a Catholic movement founded here in the 1970s led the group to pledge an internal investigation.

The allegations were described in a new book, "Mitad Monjes, Mitad Soldados" ("Half Monks, Half Priests"), by Pedro Salinas, a former member of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, who interviewed about 30 other former members.

The interviewees, some of whom were minors when they joined the group and moved into one of...

Lawmakers and witnesses in a congressional committee hearing room Oct. 20 were not shown pictures of the vast number of refugees crossing East European borders each day.

But there is no shortage of images from daily news reports of the throngs of men, women and children walking along streets, open fields and train tracks escaping their homelands. The refugees, primarily from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have been crammed in boats and lined up behind barricades or barbed wire fences....

While all eyes are on the continuing drama of Syrian and Afghan migrants at the borders of Europe, a representative from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was in Washington on Oct. 21 reminding Congress members that the United States has a similar humanitarian crisis unfolding at its southern border. Though the flow of unaccompanied minors has diminished and headlines about their plight have faded, in Central America violent drug and gang crime remains a plague. The region’s young...

Police are stepping up patrols and trying to develop a profile of whomever has set six fires outside churches in predominantly black neighborhoods since Oct. 8, Police Chief Sam Dotson said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri and the Anti-Defamation League suggested a racial motive may be at play. In a prepared statement, the ACLU of Missouri’s executive director, Jeffrey Mittman, called the fires “domestic terrorism.”

“It is a sad truth that, throughout our...

Weary faces, fussy babies, little boys teasing little girls to the point of tears and repeated uses of the Arabic word, "inshallah" (God willing) reflect the uncertainty faced by refugees trying to reach northern Europe.

Thousands of people fleeing Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan pass through the makeshift transit center daily at Idomeni, a Greek village—population 120—on the border with Macedonia.

The crossings began as a trickle in the summer and by late October were...

Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami cut to the chase about halfway through his Oct. 8 keynote at a Respect Life celebration sponsored by the Diocese of Evansville.

"The story of the Holy Family is instructive," said Archbishop Wenski, who devoted his remarks to migration and immigration. "Joseph took the child and fled with Mary to Egypt.

"Jesus was a refugee. And you can be sure that Joseph did not waste any time trying to get a visa to go into Egypt. So Jesus was just as...

A steady increase in the percentage of people who live in countries that have serious restrictions on religious freedom and the escalation of violence in the name of religion perpetrated by non-state actors are the major trends explored in the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report for 2014 . During a press briefing after the report’s release on Oct. 14, David N. Saperstein, Ambassador-at-...

The president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said Oct. 13 that the organization's clinics will no longer accept reimbursement for fetal tissue procured in abortions and provided to researchers.

Cecile Richards said the decision was made "to completely debunk" a series of 11 videos released in recent weeks by the Center for Medical Progress showing physicians and others associated with Planned Parenthood describing the harvesting of fetal tissue and body parts during...

The scene in Foundation Hall of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum during Pope Francis' visit spoke volumes about the Catholic Church and interreligious relations.

On the platform with Pope Francis Sept. 25 were representatives of the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Muslim religions as well as Christian religions. All equal. All offering prayers for peace and words of inspiration from their sacred texts.

The event symbolized the strengthening relations and...

The Vatican opened the "Gift of Mercy," a shelter for homeless men, just a few hundred yards away from St. Peter's Square.

Housed in a Jesuit-owned building, the shelter was created by and is run with funds from the papal almoner, who has taken a variety of initiatives to assist the homeless people in the area surrounding the Vatican.

Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, Pope Francis' almoner, inaugurated the shelter Oct. 7 by celebrating Mass for the first guests. The shelter offers...

Two Syrian archbishops expressed approval for Russian airstrikes against rebel groups in their country. Melkite Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo said that the bombing of rebel positions by Russian jets was "a source of hope" for Syria.

He told Suisse Romande television Oct. 8 that the intervention into the Syrian civil war by Russia "serves the Christian cause" and generated "renewed confidence among Christians in Syria."

"(Vladimir) Putin is solving a...

A Rwandan government commission has criticized the dismissal of genocide charges against a Catholic priest who fled to France after the 1994 mass killing of the African country's Tutsi inhabitants. "This priest, [Father] Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, bears responsibility for having planned, instigated, committed and otherwise aided and abetted others in planning, preparing and executing the genocide," the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide said in an Oct. 7 statement.

"This...

Pope Francis’ first U.S. visit gave his already-high favorability ratings only a modest bounce with most Americans—and no bounce at all among Catholics.

Yet his three-city September tour—from Congress to the United Nations and from cathedrals to a prison—generated significant goodwill toward the Catholic Church, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.

Pew’s survey, conducted just days after the pope returned to Rome, was released on Oct. 7 and offers a snapshot...

Canadian Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher of Gatineau, Quebec, said the synod should reflect on the possibility of allowing for female deacons as it seeks ways to open up more opportunities for women in church life.

Where possible, qualified women should be given higher positions and decision-making authority within church structures and new opportunities in ministry, he told Catholic News Service Oct. 6.

Discussing a number of proposals he offered the synod fathers to think...

Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s “Right to Die” bill into law on Oct. 5, making California the fifth and largest U.S. state to establish procedures for legal physician-assisted suicide. In an unusually personal signing statement , the governor suggested that he had grappled with the ethics and morality of the bill, considering the reflections of the law’s proponents but also people with disabilities and religious...

Unrest flared in early October throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, which has experienced tensions during September, largely over the status of the contested holy site of the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif.

Four Israelis were killed in the Old City of Jerusalem: a couple driving near their West Bank settlement with their four children in the back of their car, and two men, one of whom was on his way to pray at the Western Wall at the end of the Jewish Sabbath; his wife and...

St. Joseph Parish in Roseburg hosted an emotional Mass the evening of Oct. 1 for 10 people who died in a shooting that morning at Umpqua Community College. Auxiliary Bishop Peter Smith traveled from Portland for the liturgy.

Authorities in Roseburg, in green rolling hills 180 miles south of Portland, identified the shooter Oct. 2 as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, but did not give details about him. The names of those he fatally shot had not yet been released. Nine others were...

Concerned that Puerto Rico's debt crisis is inflicting hardship on poor and middle-class households, Archbishop Robert Gonzalez Nieves of San Juan met with congressional leaders and the White House to push for a resolution.

The crisis has led to school closings, cuts in social services and health care and job layoffs and reductions in employee benefits as Puerto Rico struggles to make payments on the $72 billion in debt the U.S. territory holds.

"We want to create more...