News from United States & Canada covering parishes, dioceses, religious orders, community groups, homelessness, moral & political issues and pilgrims.
Franciscan Friar (OFM Conv.) Fr Timothy Dore is Pastor of St Michael, Annunciation, and St Clement, Baltimore, MD.
This morning I got a call from a young man, someone who I would call a friend, and who I knew from my days as the Pastor of St. Wenceslaus, a wonderful "inner-city" parish in East Baltimore. My friend begged me to come and see him in the city because he said he'd be...
Catholic bishops, men and women religious, and laypeople will come together next week for two Virtual Prayer Vigils hosted by Catholic Mobilizing Network surrounding the federal government's planned executions of William LeCroy (September 22) and Christopher Vialva (September 24).
If carried forward, the lethal injections will be the sixth and seventh conducted by the federal government s...
Pax Christi USA presents this statement of principles with urgency in the context of the 2020 US elections as a resource to inform the decisions that our members, partners, and all people of conscience will make. The leaders we choose will impact people in the United States and many others around the world. Therefore it is incumbent that we elect leaders with the values, character and integrity...
Washington DC - Yesterday, in Ramos v Wolf, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an existing preliminary injunction or pause of the Trump Administration's attempt to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 200,000 individuals living legally in the United States. Archbishop José H Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Mar...
National Catholic social justice leaders, scholars from nearly two dozen Catholic universities, and several retired officials from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, have endorsed a nationwide open letter to Catholic voters released this week warning that President Trump "flouts core values at the heart of Catholic social teaching."
"The same President who used a Bible as a political ...
Archbishop Paul S Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the US Bishops; Conference's Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, has called on lawmakers in Congress and the White House to reach a deal on the next Covid relief package that meets the urgent needs of the nation.
In his statement, Archbishop Coakley recalls that earlier this year, the leaders of the US government agr...
Most Reverend Paul S Coakley Archbishop of Oklahoma City and Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued the following statement for Labour Day.
"Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5) Rebuilding a Dignified Post-COVID World
This Labour Day is a somber o...
Archbishop José H Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has requested that bishops across the country consider taking up a voluntary special collection for the humanitarian, long-term recovery, and Church needs arising from the increasing number of natural disasters in the United States.
In his letter sent to bishops, Archbishop Gomez wrote: "...
Hurricane Laura destroyed six Catholic churches in the Diocese of Lake Charles, left a dozen others "highly compromised" and did heavy damage to chancery offices. The diocese, in a report posted on its website, said that only one of six Catholic schools (Our Lady Immaculate in Jennings) reopened on 31 August. The others need serious repairs before classes can resume.
The storm, which slam...
As racial unrest continue across many parts of the United States, the Archbishop of Milwaukee has appealed for peace and respect for the common good. The US Bishop Conference also urged people of faith to participate in a day of prayer and fasting against racism on August 28 or alternatively on September 9, the feast of St Peter Claver.
The invitation comes after days of protests after...
Last night, the US government executed Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on the federal death row, despite vocal opposition from the Navajo Nation.
"Like the Catholic Church, the Navajo Nation upholds a belief in the sanctity of human life. It is this belief which grounds both traditions' opposition to the execution of Lezmond Mitchell and the use of capital punishment more broad...
As dozens of massive wildfires blaze across the US state of California,Bishop Oscar Cantú in the Diocese of San Jose, calls for prayers for affected families, firefighters, and first responders.
Northern and Central California are suffering under the acrid smoke and threatening flames of over two dozen active wildfires. Two of those are the second and third largest wildfires eve...
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has published a Message for the National Day of Prayer in Solidarity with Indigenous People, marked each year on 12 December, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The Day, celebrated since 2002, is coordinated by the Canadian Catholic Indigenous Council, which also prepares the annual message. This year's observance is focused on the theme...
In unusually direct terms for an American church leader, Franciscan Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, President of Pax Christi USA, publicly criticised President Donald Trump during a webinar on 31 July, Lucy Grindon writes in the National Catholic Reporter.
"For this president to call himself pro-life, and for anybody to back him because of claims of being pro-life, is ...
