Catholic News Service

In amicus brief declaration, Catholic Charities director says agency is responding to church teaching of upholding human dignity.

The U.S. bishops' migration chair said Aug. 12 that the Catholic leaders were pleased the $3.5 trillion spending plan passed by the Senate a day earlier would provide "lawful permanent status to qualified immigrants."

The Supreme Court announced Aug. 12 that it will not hear an appeal from a group of students at Indiana University who are opposed to the university's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

While the Holy See continues to dialogue with the Chinese government, the church is proud of Catholics who have held on to their faith in the country, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.

A native of Czechoslovakia who fled persecution by that country's communist regime and served in Minnesota for nearly 30 years before being appointed a bishop in the Czech Republic died Aug. 10 in California. Retired Bishop Peter Esterka was 85.

In Greece, nearly 600 fires have gutted hundreds of homes and scorched at least 200,000 acres of land.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago offered prayers for slain police officer Ella French and her family and friends "as they cope with the terrible reality that their loved one was taken from them in another act of senseless violence."

A federal judge sided with an Indianapolis archdiocesan high school and the Indianapolis Archdiocese in a lawsuit filed against them by a former guidance counselor whose contract was not renewed because of her same-sex marriage.

More than 100 people walked about 6 miles from the Onondaga Nation to Columbus Circle in downtown Syracuse to honor victims and survivors of residential schools for Indigenous children.

When U.S. service members were in a foreign land, unsure of the way and unable to speak the language, brave locals came to their assistance. Now, the Afghans who served as interpreters and guides for the U.S. military need help adjusting to a new country.

Prosecutors asked Vatican judges to revoke an order to give lawyers representing Cardinal Angelo Becciu video and audio depositions of their main witness.

Young people have a key role to play in bringing about transformations needed to slow global temperature rise, Catholic leaders say.

Three First Nations are working with the Archdiocese of Vancouver to look for remains of at least 12 students who attended the former St. Paul's Indian Residential School. The investigation is complicated because it is roughly where the parking lot sits at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School in North Vancouver.

Spanish Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo, the former "camerlengo" or chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church and former prefect of the Vatican congregation for religious, died Aug. 10 at his Vatican apartment. He was 94.

Archbishop Heiner Koch says he will appoint a pastoral minister as a contact person for gays, a pledge he made when he met with representatives of the Lesbian and Gay Association of Berlin-Brandenburg.

Jesus wants to nourish the souls of those who are spiritually famished from the loneliness and anguish that come from life's difficulties, Pope Francis told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square Aug. 8.

The Catholic bishops of Colorado in a joint letter Aug. 6 reiterated their previous statements affirming "the use of some COVID-19 vaccines is morally acceptable under certain circumstances," but said they objected to mandating that Coloradans get vaccinated against the coronavirus. 

A poll whose results were released Aug. 5 by the Public Religion Research Institute showed large differences between religious groups in their attitudes toward getting the COVID-19 vaccine for themselves or for their children.

Johnny Young, who overcame crushing poverty in his youth to serve as a U.S. ambassador in four countries under three presidents and later as director of the U.S. bishops' Migration and Refugee Services, died July 24 at age 81.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's ambassador to the U.S., told a gathering of some 10,000 young people asscoiated with the Neocatechumenal Way to realize that they have "something to do so that the church may become the church."