OSV News

Scott Kieffer, the director of discipleship for St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Community in Maple Grove, Minnesota, is 29 lakes away from completing his endeavor to pray a rosary in the 250 to 300 lakes in the Twin Cities urban metro area.

Bishop Stephen Nyodho Ador Majwok of Malakal, South Sudan, a diocese bordering Sudan, spoke with OSV News Aug. 14 amid a warning that the conflict that started in April 2023 had created the world's largest humanitarian crisis and triggered famine-like conditions across the country.

Jill Rauh, the executive director of a newly created secretariat at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pledged to support the work of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the USCCB's domestic anti-poverty initiative, after some expressed concern about the future of that project following some staff layoffs. Rauh oversees the work of the new Secretariat of Justice and Peace, announced Aug. 6. The new office will serve four bishops' committees to advance the social mission of the church through formation, policy analysis, advocacy and outreach.

Ernesto struck Puerto Rico late Aug. 13 as a tropical storm, then strengthened into a hurricane the following day as it moved toward Bermuda. Winds in excess of 70 mph battered the island, which in some places saw as much as 9 inches of rain. Archbishop Roberto O. Gonzalez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, issued an Aug. 13 message, posted to the archdiocese's Facebook page, recommending the temporary suspension of liturgies and parish events for that day and the following.

The Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, filed an appeal to the high court of a March 14 ruling by the Wisconsin court that Catholic Charities is not exempt from paying into the state's unemployment insurance system because its operations aren't primarily religious under the statute.

A small delegation of Chinese clergy who are registered with their government's Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association came to a conference in Chicago Aug. 2-4 to give insights into the life of the church in their country. The talks presented by both registered and unregistered clergy and religious underscored a deep concern for catechizing the youth, the need to support clergy and religious, and to keep the faith growing in a communist country that has no official diplomatic ties with the Holy See.

Nicaragua has revoked the legal status of the Caritas chapter in the Diocese of Matagalpa and continued arresting priests and laity there, delivering another blow to a diocese decimated by the detentions and expulsions of clergy and the exile of its bishop to the Vatican.

Jackie Young's ability to make her presence felt in virtually every basketball category symbolically reflected the 17 Notre Dame current or former athletes who represented the Olympics in six sports and six countries. Ultimately, eight of them collectively garnered a staggering 10 medals.

Catholic schools are still excluded from Maine’s tuition grant program, a federal judge ruled Aug. 8, but he added that he expected the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit to eventually provide "a more authoritative ruling."

On Aug. 11, a Russian rocket leveled the Church of the Holy Martyr Cyprian and the Martyr Justina in Antonivka, located in Ukraine's Kherson region. News of the strike, which took place on a Sunday, was reported by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on its information website that same day. The UGCC did not specify if there had been casualties.

The Aug. 9 passenger plane crash in the city of Vinhedo, Brazil killed all 62 on board, greatly touching different Catholic communities in the country.

"We are astonished — we never thought such a thing could happen," said Gerard Kieffer, press officer for the Luxembourg Archdiocese. "But Caritas is legally and juridically independent of the church, so while we can anticipate negative consequences, reflections are underway as to how these might be limited."

North Dakota's University of Mary's Summer Undergraduate Research Vocation Experience, or SURVE, is a 10-week annual program from late May through early August providing paid, science-research internships.

An Aug. 2-4 conference in Chicago on the life of the Catholic Church in China covered both the difficulties and strengths of being a church under a heavily regulatory communist government. The event included presentations from four clergy members registered with the Chinese government's Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, marking the first time this many officially registered Chinese clergy led talks at a conference hosted by the Berkeley, California-based US-China Catholic Association.

Around 87,000 Australians have been sexually abused in faith-based organizations during their childhood, with nearly three-quarters of those taking place in Catholic settings, according to new research. Yet the new study from the Australian Catholic University’s Institute of Child Protection Studies showed a significant decline in the prevalence of abuse in the last five decades, falling from 2.2% of men aged 65 and older, down to 0.2% of men now aged 16-24.

Venezuela's two most senior clergy warned that harassment of priests from pro-government politicians has the country following in the footsteps of Nicaragua, where democracy has disappeared and the church is persecuted.

"As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his. It's great to have him on the team," Harris wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The Indian government is leaving no stone unturned to trace people still missing following the massive landslide in southern Kerala state in the last days of July, while local priests decried a disastrous hygienic crisis in the landslide areas.

The square in front of Notre Dame Cathedral was bathed in sunshine Aug. 4 as representatives of the five major religions involved in the Paris Olympic Games met. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus came to talk about their experiences at the multifaith center in the Olympic Village and discuss the values of faith and sports.

Bishop Joy Alappatt of the St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Chicago is among more than 300 signatories of an open letter to the U.S. State Department, asking Secretary Antony Blinken to designate India as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, due to significant violations of religious freedoms against Christians, Muslims, Dalits and Indigenous peoples.