Catholic News Service

Six Catholic organizations have joined with other religious groups and denominational bodies in endorsing a wide-ranging platform calling for urgent attention to the nation's democratic principles with the national election one year away.

In life, Christians face the choice of either being open to encountering God's generosity or closed in on their own interests, Pope Francis said.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in consultation with the members of the bishops' conference Administrative Committee, has taken the highly unusual step of disinviting a fellow bishop from the conference's fall general assembly.

Jesus invites everyone to always go to him, which, Pope Francis said, also means no longer making life revolve around oneself.

The Trump administration Nov. 1 announced a proposed rule to allow faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to follow their deeply held religious beliefs and not place children with same-sex couples.

At times of great crisis in the Catholic Church, God intervened to renew it through the example and witness of saints, said Archbishop Leonard P. Blair of Hartford, Connecticut.

In what he said was his first visit to the catacombs, Pope Francis celebrated Mass for the feast of All Souls with special words of remembrance for Catholics who still today must worship in secret.

Bishop Roger Morin, the third bishop of Biloxi, died Oct. 31 at age 78. He was returning to Biloxi after vacationing with his family in Massachusetts and died during his flight from Boston to Atlanta, according to a diocesan news release.

Catholic leaders joined more than 35 other groups that have filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Supreme Court to support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, known as DACA.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn has concluded an apostolic visitation of the Diocese of Buffalo.

Msgr. Gilfredo Marengo, a theologian who led important research on the drafting of St. Paul VI's "Humanae Vitae," has been appointed vice president of Rome's Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

"Some reporting has spoken of 'extending TPS.' That has important legal meaning, and that's not what happened (with) the agreements," Ken Cuccinelli.

The saints were flesh-and-blood people whose lives included real struggles and joys, and whose holiness reminds all the baptized that they, too, are called to be saints, Pope Francis said.

Bishop Mark E. Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston told Catholics in the statewide diocese he was working to have his predecessor "make amends for harm he caused during his tenure" as mandated by Pope Francis.

Military chaplains are called to educate the consciences of members of the armed forces so that even in war, the opposing side is not viewed merely as "an enemy to be destroyed," Pope Francis said.

The bishops of every diocese in the United States have prepared detailed reports on the life of the Catholic Church in their dioceses and have made or are making reservations to fly to Rome.

Governors from eight Amazonian states in Brazil and Peru meeting at the Vatican agreed that the Amazon is threatened and called for a "green economy" that would allow people to generate income without destroying the forest.

Nearly a month after private documents about a property deal involving the Vatican leaked to the press, a Vatican official rejected accusations that he "played and tampered with the money of the poor."

As demonstrations pitting pro-government groups against pro-democracy protesters continue, a bishop urged Catholics to pray for the realization that all are humans and not "cockroaches or dogs."

Bishop Richard Lennon, 72, whose time as the 10th bishop of Cleveland was marked by a commitment to evangelization with an emphasis on the Gospel, died Oct. 29 following a prolonged illness.