Catholic News Service

Colorado lawmakers are considering a bill to require all public schools and charter schools "to either use a comprehensive sex-ed curriculum that contradicts human nature and is inconsistent with Christian values, or to provide no instruction on sexuality at all," Denver's archbishop said in a letter read at all Masses Jan. 27.

As the Central African Republic's government and the 14 militia groups that control most of the country meet for peace talks, the country's bishops called on the United Nations to lift the arms embargo imposed on the nation.

The joyous harmony of people coming together from so many different nations for World Youth Day stands in sharp contrast to today's "sad" situation of confrontational nationalist feelings, Pope Francis said.

The break in the Feijao dam complex in Brumadinho is being called a social-environmental crime instead of an accident by some members of the Catholic Church in Brazil. According to the religious who work with populations near dams and mining exploration areas, both the human and environmental costs of this tragedy will affect the area for dozens of years.

The New York State Legislature passed the Child Victims Act into law Jan. 28. The Catholic Church in the state had removed its opposition to the Child Victims Act, or CVA, after the Legislature a week earlier expanded the retroactive window to include both private and public institutions, noting that the support for all victims – regardless of where the abuse occurred – had been a critical reason the bishops could not support past versions of the bill.

Msgr. Robert Fuller, an Arizona priest who was a national leader of the Renew movement in the early 1980s and a beloved pastor in the Tucson Diocese, died Jan. 23. He was 88.

A controversial China-funded dam project in Myanmar must be stopped, said Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, noting that the affected river is the country's most sacred symbol.

Since Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed New York's new expansive abortion measure into law Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, some Catholics have called for the governor, who is Catholic, to be excommunicated.

Catholic bishops in the Philippines broke what they described as their "collective silence" over "many disturbing issues" that have confronted the country in recent months.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, was joined by more than 100 other members of the House Jan. 24 in introducing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act of 2019, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. 

Church leaders condemned bomb explosions that killed at least 20 people and injured about 100 others inside a Catholic church in the southern Philippines Jan. 27, calling the attack a "heinous and evil" act of terrorism.

Reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan, the pope said Jesus calls on all people to "move from our fixed ways of doing things and our priorities" and take a moment to stop to care for one's neighbor.

Lisbon, Portugal, will open its doors to the world's young people in 2022 for the next World Youth Day.

"Are you willing to be an 'influencer' like Mary, who dared to say, 'Let it be done'?" Pope Francis asked. "Only love makes us more human and fulfilled; everything else is a pleasant but useless placebo."

A church wounded by sin can paralyze, confuse and tire the hearts of Catholic clergy and laypeople, causing them to doubt their mission in the modern world, Pope Francis said.

Life can produce moments of great pain, moments that can paralyze us with fear, Cardinal Blase Cupich told English-speaking World Youth Day pilgrims Jan. 25 during a catechetical session in Panama City.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of 75-year-old Peruvian Cardinal Juan Cipriani Thorne of Lima and has named a 68-year-old professor of theology to succeed him.

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other organizations have joined in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of the more than 10,000 children currently being held by the Trump administration in detention centers across the country.

Thousands of World Youth Day pilgrims stopped by the Jama Mosque Jan. 24 en route to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis.