OSV News

The archbishop of Valencia presided over Mass celebrated by the Spanish bishops in the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid Nov. 19 to pray for all those affected by the tragic end-of-October floods in Valencia, Albacete and Cuenca, where over 200 people lost their lives.

Now the most decorated U.S. female Olympian in history, Katie Ledecky paid a visit Oct. 22 to her high school alma mater, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, along with her home parish, Church of the Little Flower.

Amid controversy over religious-themed tattoos sported by President-elect Trump's pick for defense secretary, a U.S. office of a Vatican lay institution for the church in the Holy Land has expressed concern regarding the misuse of its historic insignia.

Five years after the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church made national headlines in Poland, victims of abuse met with Polish bishops at the fringes of the plenary meeting of the bishops' conference. 

In the wake of recent high-profile cases of financial mismanagement at parishes, experts said transparency, accountability and greater involvement of finance councils in parish business operations can head off losses in money and trust.

As Russia's full-scale invasion reached the 1,000-day mark Nov. 19, Ukraine still stands as "a testament to the miraculous endurance of our people, to God's grace," said Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

Bishop W. Shawn Mc­Knight of Jefferson City called Russ Kremer a witness of how Catholic social teaching can be the foundation of a reform for "agribusiness" in the United States, moving back toward a food supply network that is based on the dignity of the human person.

Migrants in Mexico waiting for appointments via the CBP One smartphone app — operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection — face uncertain futures after the U.S. election. Trump has promised mass deportations, a reinforcement of border security and a reimplementation of the "Remain in Mexico" program, which kept migrants in Mexico as their asylum claims were heard in U.S. courts.

Roughly 130 people registered for an Oct. 5 event called "Toward Healing Minds and Hearts: Reflecting for Right Relationship and Conciliation." The gathering was held at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, and hosted by the Catholic Racial Justice Coalition and Gichitwaa Katera. 

"This war is really something that we have never seen," said Joseph Hazboun, the Palestine-Israel regional director for the Catholic Near East Welfare Agency-Pontifical Mission. "There is a systematic destruction of the infrastructure and what makes life possible in Gaza."

The ruling Sandinista regime expelled the president of the Nicaraguan bishops' conference, further decimating the country's Catholic leadership as clergy are forced into exile.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled the law violated court precedent and the First Amendment. 

The U.S. Catholic bishops voted Nov. 12 at their fall meeting to support the local advancement of the sainthood causes of two women: Benedictine Sister Annella Zervas and Gertrude Agnes Barber, a laywoman. The two women died 74 years apart —  Annella in 1926 after suffering horribly from a rare skin condition, and Barber in 2000, after becoming a national leader and advocate in her field. Postulators for both causes are currently gathering information locally about the two women with plans to prepare a "positio" for the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican. 

The 2024 hurricane season is nearly over. But many displaced families will continue to bounce from place to place as they grapple with rebuilding their lives after a busy storm season.

If approved by the court, the move — which follows the decision by the diocese in May 2023 to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — would create a survivors' trust totaling between "approximately $160 million and $198 million or more," the diocese said in a Nov. 8 news release.

The Dutch bishops' conference and Amsterdam's St. Nicholas Parish reacted with horror to the violence against Israeli soccer supporters in the city Nov. 7.

"Sadly, this court decision will likely end the program, as Trump will terminate it upon taking office," J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News.

The poor and vulnerable must be front and center when it comes to climate change policies, said two leading bishops of the Catholic Church in the U.S. and the head of the U.S. church's international humanitarian agency, in a statement issued ahead of the United Nations' annual gathering on climate concerns.

Just as Fernando Valenzuela tipped his eyes to heaven during his famous windup when he pitched, so did the hundreds of faithful who flocked to his funeral in Los Angeles at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Nov. 6.

Four days after 53-year-old Father Enrique Fabián Arcos went missing in Ecuador, the authorities found his body Nov. 3 in a dump about 18 miles north of Ambato, where he lived.