Catholic News Service

"Authentic healing and authentic reconciliation require a community to commit itself to the long, slow, painful work of justice," says Fr. Bryan Massingale of Fordham University. For Catholic colleges and universities, this means a thorough "curricula review and overhaul," he says. It also means faculty and board members should reflect diversity.

A priest accused of abusing a younger student at a minor seminary located at the Vatican cited jealousy as the main reason behind the allegations against him.

Prayer makes every day better, even the most difficult days, Pope Francis said Feb. 10 during his weekly general audience.

No one needed to tell the Catholic college and university leaders, attending their annual conference virtually this year, that these different times are affecting their day-to-day operations and what they might do going forward.

The Archdiocese of Vancouver has responded to a proposed class-action lawsuit involving allegations of sexual abuse at two Catholic high schools run by the Christian Brothers.

A new attitude and approach toward the elderly are needed in today's world, especially in the places and ways they are cared for when they become more fragile, said the Pontifical Academy for Life.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has shifted even worker organizing, typically a person-to-person staple, to the online world, according to Blanca Estela Delgado.

While COVID-19 was the "great equalizer because it really turned the world upside down," poor communities have lagged in gaining much attention from the world, said Anta Gueye-James, Catholic Relief Services' representative for Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau during the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering.

Denying any wrongdoing, Bishop John Brungardt of Dodge City has stepped away from his duties and pledged to cooperate with authorities investigating an allegation of abuse of a minor made against him.

Patrick Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, is the new leader of the Knights of Columbus.

In November, President-elect Joe Biden said that he would be heading in a dramatically different direction than the Trump administration on refugee admissions. On Feb. 4, Biden delivered.

Both the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate have now passed bills that would abolish the death penalty in the state. Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has stated his support, making it highly likely that Virginia will become the first Southern state to outlaw capital punishment.

While protocols to slow the COVID-19 pandemic have silenced many concert halls and restricted the use of congregational singing in many churches, Pope Francis prayed that musicians were using this time to listen.

Spain's supreme court has upheld the conviction of a former Salvadoran colonel for the slayings of five Spanish Jesuits during El Salvador's civil war.

The Supreme Court will not hear two scheduled arguments this term on immigration examining policies put in place by the Trump administration that Biden is likely to roll back.

A prominent Russian professor urged his nation's bishops to condemn police violence against protestors supporting opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but the Moscow archdiocesan chancellor refused.

Presidential executive orders related to environmental protection and climate change have gained the support of Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

Msgr. Thomas A. Kleissler, who launched a parish-renewal program that turned into an international movement, died Feb. 2 at St. Catherine Healthcare Center in Caldwell, New Jersey. He was 89.

John Sweeney, who led the AFL-CIO for 14 years from 1995 to 2009, and headed one of the nation's largest unions, the Service Employees International Union, for 15 years before that, died Feb. 1 at age 86 at his home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland. No cause was given.

In a Feb. 3 letter to legislators, the chairmen said relief measures are necessary to assist struggling families, businesses, charities, schools and hospitals and other entities.