OSV News

Nicaragua has released more than 200 political prisoners, including Catholic priests, students, and opponents of the regime, who were taken from detention in deplorable conditions and sent to the United States.

A Catholic high school in Philadelphia is taking action after several of its students posted a racist social media video that has sparked community protests.

While Pope Francis has returned to Rome after his six-day apostolic trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, the words he left there will resonate across the continent for a long time, church leaders and experts say.

In response to the devastating earthquake that struck northern Syria Feb. 6, the patriarchs and heads of churches in the country demanded the lifting of "unjust sanctions" on the Syrian people, calling for "exceptional measures" to secure delivery of humanitarian aid.

The severe health care and hunger crisis affecting the Yanomami indigenous people in Brazil prompted church leaders to coordinate help and work with government agencies and indigenous organizations to provide food and medical attention to the sick.

St. Rita's unique contributions start with its founding in 1919 as the first designated Black Catholic parish in Indiana. "Nationally recognized architectural and artistic significance" can now be added to the list.

It seemed that 12 years of a bloody war should have been enough tragedy for the people of Aleppo and other Syrian cities. But in the early hours of Feb. 6, a devastating earthquake struck northwestern Syria, killing 1,500 as of 5 a.m. Eastern on Feb. 7.

Celebrating a Feb. 5 Mass in honor of Black History Month, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory urged "ordinary people of color" to "vastly improve our world with an understanding of the strength of character that resides within the souls of our people."

The Catholic Church in Germany has so far paid more than $43.5 million (40 million euros) to victims of sexual abuse, German Catholic KNA agency has reported.

The memories of Valentino Marcos Alvero brought a wide, warm smile to the face of Fr. Joseph Magdaong.

Wanting peace by working for justice "is a hard road to walk, my brothers and sisters," Sr. Patricia Chappell told attendees at the 2023 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington in the opening plenary session Jan. 28.

The church is called to address taboos associated with mental illness both within society and within its own ranks, advocates at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering said on Jan. 28.

Hailed as a victory by animal welfare groups, new federal legislation now eliminates a long-standing requirement that investigational drugs must be tested on animals before humans receive them in drug trials.

Dolores R. Leckey, who was founding director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for the Laity in 1977 and at the time one of the highest ranking women in the U.S. Catholic Church, died peacefully of natural causes Jan. 17 in her home in Arlington. She was 89.

Local Chinese Catholics celebrating the start of the Lunar New Year at Chinatown's Catholic parish also prayed for the victims of the mass shooting in nearby Monterey Park the night of Jan. 21.

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has warned against moves by President Volodymyr Zelensky's government to outlaw Orthodox communities linked to Moscow, and urged his countrymen to "give Russians a chance to repent."

Xavier University of Louisiana, which for decades has placed the most African American graduates into medical schools across the country each year, will open a College of Medicine in a partnership with Ochsner Health, executives of Xavier and Ochsner announced Jan. 17.

As Theodore McCarrick faces criminal charges for allegedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy, the disgraced former cardinal's legal defense team is now claiming he is in steep mental and physical decline and therefore not able to stand trial.

Aid organizations warn that increasing attacks by Russian missiles are preventing supply access to Ukraine, after strike in Dnipro killed 44 civilians and after a Catholic volunteer lost a leg delivering food in Bakhmut.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is best honored when people "recall to mind and heart that the issues Dr. King placed before our nation have not been adequately accomplished," and strive to continue his work, Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory said during a Jan. 15 Mass honoring the legacy of the late civil rights leader.