Rhina Guidos

It's a pastoral letter that pulls no punches, goes far into the past and continues up to the recent present of racism at the U.S.-Mexico border.  

During the summer of 2019, the bishop of El Paso, Texas, decided his diocese would open a fund to help a growing number of immigrants piling into shelters on the other side of the U.S. border in the sister city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.

The daily struggle here does not involve strife between the neighbor cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez on the Mexico side, but of keeping up with the policies, mandates and rules directed out of Washington causing chaos in their midst.

A group of U.S. Catholic bishops, along with a Vatican representative and other priests, celebrated Mass Sept. 26 next to a field of chili peppers with farmworkers and their families and other immigrants.

You could feel the hurt that remains in this border city by the tension and occasional tremble in the voices.

The University of Notre Dame Sept. 21 released a groundbreaking report that looked at sexual harassment in U.S. Catholic seminaries, revealing that just 6% of seminarians reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment or misconduct, while 90% reported none.

Four Massachusetts Catholic bishops warned of environmental red flags documented by scientists and urged a change in behaviors in a Sept. 16 statement calling for substantial changes to safeguard creation.

A large part of the exhibit at a Washington museum known as The Phillips Collection, focuses on the emotional toll as well as the dangers of such immigration journeys, and one experienced in modern times by a record 70.8 million around the world, fleeing war, persecution and conflict.

A retired bishop already facing a Vatican trial for allegations that he sexually abused minors years ago is facing three new accusations of abuse, said the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In 1990, Bessy Jovel traveled across three countries, sometimes on foot, sometimes in cargo trucks, sleeping in stuffy warehouses and banana fields, hungry and sweaty, en route to the border with her mother and almost 3-year-old sibling Johnny.

Authorities have arrested a 56-year-old priest from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who is facing accusations that he stole more than $98,000 from a parish and used some of it to finance what the archdiocese says were "personal expenses of an inappropriate nature."

The Trump administration has moved to cast aside an agreement that previously limited the amount of time the government could detain migrant children.

A church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh announced Aug. 13 it was canceling a popular summer event, its parish festival, after receiving what it called "a disturbing message."

The Trump administration announced Aug. 12 a plan to deny permanent legal immigration status for those who use public funds such as food stamps or public housing.

Bishops in Venezuela recently called out the government in a letter written by the bishops' conference after the group's July 2019 gathering. 

"Once again in our nation we see the face of evil," Bishop Mark Seitz said. "... We see the effects of the sinful and insipid conviction that some of us are better than others of us because of race, religion, language or nationality."

Pope Francis joined other Catholic Church leaders expressing sorrow after back-to-back mass shootings in the U.S. left at least 29 dead and dozens injured in Texas and Ohio Aug. 3-4.

In a letter, two Baltimore bishops said that the president's recent comments about their city were "horrible, demeaning and beneath the dignity of a political leader."

Bishops and friends remember the recently-deceased Cardinal Ortega of Cuba. 

A recent newspaper report details claims that senior church leaders in the United States knew as far back as 2012 about complaints against a West Virginia bishop.