The Associated Press' influential stylebook has become a flash point in the culture wars of President Donald Trump's dystopian America, in a dispute arising from a gimmicky cartographic executive order.
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that aims to expand access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a practice the Catholic Church warns is enormously destructive to embryonic human life.
The Department of Education is threatening the federal funding of any school, including Catholic ones, that considers race in any aspect of student life. Already, 185 students are losing scholarship money from a canceled $6.8 million grant that attempted to address teacher shortages in Minnesota.
As Trump's comments about taking over the Gaza Strip show, the words change but empire's logic of domination does not. But if we are to follow Jesus, our lives must bear witness to a different kingdom.
Listen: Co-host and NCR senior correspondent Heidi Schlumpf moderates a roundtable of four theologians as they react to President Trump's first month back in the Oval Office.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the administration, by withholding millions even for reimbursements of costs incurred before the sudden cut-off of funding, violates various laws as well as the constitutional provision giving the power of the purse to Congress, which already approved the funding.
Amid mixed signals, erroneous claims that have to be walked back, and bizarre initiatives, some decisions are irrevocable and the sideways shooting by the gang that can't shoot straight endangers the lives of real people.
More than 300 faith communities have lost access to grant funds that were intended to plant trees in disadvantaged urban communities, environmental faith leaders who managed the grants told RNS.
Vital humanitarian activities that Jesuit Refugee Service leads in nine countries remain in jeopardy, JRS says, even after a judge's order to temporarily lift the Trump administration's freeze on foreign aid.
Ongoing uncertainty about funding from the National Institutes of Health could imperil medical research at academic institutions all over the country, including Catholic institutions, multiple sources told OSV News.
The U.S. bishops' migration chair called recent comments by Vice President JD Vance about the church's work with migrants "a tremendous mischaracterization" while speaking at an event in the nation's capital Feb. 12. But he also invited Vance to sit down and talk with him to set the record straight.
When confronted with a perceived slight to his brand of Catholicism, Bishop Robert Barron is quick to post on social media. But when it comes to those on the margins, his alleged prophetic voice is conspicuously silent.
In order to navigate the legal challenges for immigrant communities and the churches trying to support them, National Catholic Reporter asked lawyers about what to expect in the upcoming days and how to best respond.
Faith groups have long received government grants to feed the hungry, respond to disasters and assist those in need, but recent comments from Trump administration officials have cast such grants in a bad light.
Christianity is by far the largest faith in America, and Christian conservatives have a strong grip on the levers of government. That dominance is leaving many to question why President Donald Trump's new task force on eradicating anti-Christian bias is needed.
It is not every day that the pope publicly scolds a group of bishops. Those unfamiliar with papal texts can be forgiven for thinking Pope Francis' letter to the U.S. bishops was one of encouragement. It wasn't.
More than a third of Trump's Cabinet nominees are Catholic. Three — Sean Duffy, Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe — have already been confirmed by the Senate. Here are brief profiles of all nine of Trump's Catholic picks.
Listen: Heidi, Daniel and David discuss how attacks on USAID affect charities and NGOs; they look at the vice president's theological comments; Heidi interviews Charlene Howard, the new executive director of Pax Christi USA.
The pope has closely followed the response of U.S. prelates to the president's attacks on migrants and he expects them to offer a united front in opposing mass deportation.
Days before an environmental justice conference at Loyola Marymount University, federal workers withdrew their participation, citing President Trump's orders against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Many legal challenges have stopped something unconstitutional President Trump wanted to do, while others have put his plans on pause, writes Michael Sean Winters. But you only get relief if you are party to the legal challenges.
"The massive scale of the suit will be hard for them to ignore," said Kelsi Corkran, a lawyer with the Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection who is lead counsel for the lawsuit.
Across the continent of Africa, the U.S. suspension of aid funding ordered by the Trump administration has left chaos, fear and looming devastation, Catholic clergy and social service agency officials told NCR.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued layoff notices to about a third of the staff in its Migration and Refugee Services Office on Feb. 7 after it stopped receiving reimbursements from the federal government for its work with refugees who qualify for federal assistance, per an internal memo.
Cardinal Robert McElroy decried the White House crackdown on undocumented immigrants as a "war of fear and terror," speaking at a prayer service on Sunday just days after federal cuts forced the U.S. bishops' conference to lay off 50 employees in its migrant resettlement office.
The international relief organization founded by U.S. bishops in 1943 is in crisis after sweeping foreign aid cuts by the Trump administration. The bishops' conference did not respond to a request to comment.
The speech came as the Trump administration, just 2 weeks old, is already facing lawsuits arguing that it violated the religious freedom of Christians in the U.S.
It is time to name the result of this chaos — unbounded cruelty. Complicit Catholics, in particular, must stop aiding and abetting cruelty by asserting that this administration is in any way pro-life. It is not. Yet we are not helpless in the face of the chaos.
The Trump administration's effort to shutter USAID "is getting in the way of us being an influence of good and showing Christ's love in a tangible and practical way," one person attending the rally told NCR.
An internal email says CRS is likely to be cut in half this year from Trump's freeze of U.S. foreign assistance. Cuts will "cost people's lives and livelihoods," a former bishops' conference official says.
More than 50 people meeting at St. John Neumann Church received briefings from experts from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., known as CLINIC, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Vice President Vance, and the policies he is defending, does not start with grace and gratitude. He is not just ethically wrong. He doesn't understand the Catholic faith to which he converted, and he is not alone.
Vice President JD Vance attacked the bishops for this resettlement program. Here's a success story: Leela Kuikel went from South Asian refugee to CEO of several U.S. companies.
The answer is twofold: We should take practical steps to protect migrants and we should creatively preach what the church teaches, says NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.
Vice President JD Vance has done what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have been incapable of doing: He has made their position on migrants and refugees national news.
Listen: Heidi, Daniel and David talk about the first week of the second Trump administration. Also, they look at the 2025 Academy Awards, and Heidi interviews Fr. Thomas Reese about his life in Catholic journalism.
As President Trump moves to expel migrants unauthorized to be in the U.S., a group of Salvadoran mothers warn that deportees could suffer the same fate as their sons and daughters: sent to prison without due process.
The decision to rescind the Office of Management and Budget's Monday directive came shortly before a federal judge in Rhode Island was set to consider a request by 22 mostly Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia for a temporary restraining order blocking a policy that they said could have a devastating effect on their budgets.
President Donald Trump Jan. 28 signed an executive order stating his administration would seek to prohibit certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender.
Anti-abortion advocates have expressed concern but not opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination as Health and Human Services secretary, despite his previous support for abortion rights.
The Catholic vice president managed to insult not only the hierarchy and Pope Francis, but agencies such as Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities; diocesan and parish organizations; and ordinary Catholics.
President Donald Trump's White House ordered a pause in all federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday, a sweeping decision that could disrupt education and health care programs, housing assistance, disaster relief and a host of other initiatives that depend on billions of federal dollars.
The LGBTQ community is built on the foundation of love, support and respect — Gospel values through and through. In this time of renewed threat to transgender people, we all have a part to play in standing up for one another, supporting the most vulnerable and speaking truth to power.
Praying for the president does not mean that you endorse everything he says and does. Prayer means that you are asking God to direct him to paths of justice and peace, to give him the wisdom necessary to do his job.
Catholic Climate Covenant and the North American chapter of the Laudato Si' Movement urged President Trump to reverse his plans to expand fossil fuels, roll back regulations and exit the Paris climate accord.
At the opening general session of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' 2025 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, had a message to share from Pope Francis, saying that "It is important that our pro-life focus encompass the whole spectrum of life."
The vice president, a practicing Catholic, suggested the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' criticism of Trump administration immigration policies was not rooted in pastoral concerns but instead motivated by protecting federal funding it receives.
Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde's plea to Trump gave a human face to those who, in the approach of a heartless administration, are a faceless group, shamefully maligned and made into a national scapegoat.
"The people who are in danger are the people who fear for their lives and their livelihoods," Budde said in an interview. "That’s where the focus should be."
Catholic advocacy groups, southern border dioceses and the U.S. bishops' conference are expressing deep concern after President Trump signed a series of executive orders targeting immigration on his first week in the Oval Office.
President Donald Trump attended the inaugural prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral Tuesday morning (Jan. 21), finishing off the festivities marking the beginning of his second term with an interfaith service filled with prayers and hymns — and a sermon that offered a religious challenge to his administration’s stated goals.
President Donald Trump came out swinging on the issue of immigration, writes Michael Sean Winters. The leaders of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy do not throw punches. But they are setting down some markers.
On the first day of his second administration, Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders, declaring national emergencies on energy and at the U.S. southern border.
Listen: Heidi, Daniel and David discuss how Catholics can prepare for the Trump administration; they talk about Cardinal McElroy's appointment as DC's new archbishop; and Heidi interviews Dylan Corbett of Hope Border Institute.
On Monday, the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and the multifaith community organizing group Faith in Action held a day of prayer and dialogue with immigrant families at St. Lucy’s Catholic Church.
In comments to New York's PIX11 Morning News on Christmas Eve, Dolan said he will join the opening prayer during the ceremony as he did for Trump's previous inauguration.
We are in a moment of unprecedented division and uncertainty in both the church and society. That's why Pope Francis could not have made a better choice to lead the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
Our vice president-elect hasn't been making headlines since the election, at least not when compared to some others President-elect Donald Trump has selected to help him run the executive branch.
Keeping in mind the need to care for and pace oneself for the long haul, columnist Dan Horan says there are three areas of resistance that seem worthwhile and constructive.
Cardinal McElroy did not shy from calling out Trump's environmental policies during his first administration. Now, the papal ally on ecological issues will move to D.C. not long after Trump returns to the White House.
The Catholic electorate intrigues, baffles, surprises, bemuses, confounds, and makes news. Because of this, the National Catholic Reporter staff determined that the Catholic voter was the NCR Newsmaker of the Year for 2024.
Given the importance the Catholic electorate has played in the discussion of the outcome of the 2024 national election, the National Catholic Reporter is naming the Catholic voter its Newsmaker of the Year.
The public dialogue, which was held Dec. 10, featured commentary focusing on how Catholic social principles such as solidarity, especially with marginalized immigrant communities, can chart a hopeful path forward in the coming months.
The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump plans to rescind a long-standing policy preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests at what are seen as sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals, according to a report by NBC News.
President-elect Donald Trump's plans to launch a mass deportation program could crash the economy by increasing inflation and unemployment and undermine trust in the U.S. military, some witnesses said at a Senate hearing Dec. 10.
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, activists on both sides of the abortion debate have been left to grapple with some lack of clarity from him on the issue.
With 40 inmates on federal death row and the clock ticking on President Joe Biden's term, Catholic Mobilizing Network is calling for decisive action. They want Biden to use his remaining time in office to commute these sentences.
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to office, it's worth considering what Vatican-U.S. relations might look like during the four years ahead, NCR's Christopher White writes.
How strongly will the U.S. bishops express their agreements and disagreements with the Trump administration? We can get some answers by looking at how the bishops dealt with the first Trump administration.
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.
It isn't easy trying to make sense of Trump's Cabinet selections. But a kind of logic emerges as soon as you realize two things: Trump is someone who hires down and he thinks of politics as essentially performative.
Conservative Christians have long celebrated what they see as the landmark successes of Trump’s first term, particularly his appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court and their overturning of Roe v. Wade to end nationwide abortion access. This time, however, evangelical advisers of Trump say they are hoping for more — although exactly what form those policies will take appears to be the subject of debate.
What kind of leadership will we get? Whatever it is, we must always remember that in a democracy, we put the leaders there ourselves and so we must save it ourselves, as well.
Trump's win was the culmination of a variety of factors, but the most obvious cause was his ability to present himself as the anti-politician in a country that hates politicians. He is a genius at exploiting populism.
In this episode of "The Francis Effect," Heidi, Dan and David welcome their guests, Fr. Bryan Massingale and Social Service Sr. Simone Campbell, to look at the 2024 election and consider: Where do we go from here?
Trump's supporters touted his victory over Harris as a triumph for a nation moving to the right, while opponents expressed fears his return to the White House opens a dark and uncertain period for American democracy.
