News - February 2020 RSS Feed

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that requires asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases make their way through U.S. immigration courts.

St. John Henry Newman holds a lesson for higher education today, said a speaker at a Georgetown conference: "A failure to educate people in the truth will have dire consequences for the future of humanity."

WASHINGTON -- During a Feb. 27 congressional hearing about the status of the nation's refugee program, Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington quoted someone who is not frequently mentioned on Capitol Hill: Pope Francis.

SEATTLE -- Washington state's Catholic bishops are calling on all Washingtonians "to engage respectfully with others to improve civil dialogue and our entire political system" during this political year.

"God doesn't put a spirit of fear in you. He puts a spirit of power, sound mind and love for your fellow man," recalled Gertrudejane Holliday Stone. "But enough was enough was enough. I said I was not moving."

WARSAW, Poland-- A Catholic archbishop has rejected a church instruction barring him from public appearances and vowed to go on denouncing "heresy and sectarianism."

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- While Northern Ireland has long faced religious disputes, an ecumenical celebration of Ash Wednesday was held at a Catholic church in Belfast this year, in which Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist ministers participated.

VATICAN CITY -- In a message Thursday, Pope Francis criticized placing so much importance on church programs that the essential teachings of the faith are lost. The pope also said a priest’s agreement with such initiatives should not be the measure of his ministry.  

Bitterness is "a subtle enemy" that hides and "robs us of the joy of the vocation we were called to," the pope said Feb. 27 in an address to clergy of the Diocese of Rome read by Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, papal vicar of the diocese.

VATICAN CITY -- On Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis called on Catholics to go to Confession during Lent to experience God’s healing love. 

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigeria's bishops called on the international community to help the West African country in its fight against ethnic insecurity and terrorist groups such as Boko Haram.

MANCHESTER, England -- A woman with Down syndrome will take the British government to court in an attempt to change a law that permits abortions up to birth of children considered to be "seriously handicapped."

ROME -- While Ash Wednesday Masses were canceled in several northern Italian dioceses to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, bishops composed special prayers for their people and offered alternative ways to begin the celebration of Lent.

PHILADELPHIA -- Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia asked for forgiveness from the faithful under his leadership and urged church members to forgive each other at the start of the Great Fast observed by the Eastern Catholic churches.

VATICAN CITY -- Lent is a time to remove all distractions and bitterness from one's life in order to better hear God and those who suffer silently and need help, Pope Francis said.

A new poll shows Catholic voters are sharply divided over politics and over issues of faith and morality.

Facing the threat of major cuts to federal HHS funds, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has said the state will not back down from its ban on health insurance plans that exclude abortion.

The Brazilian bishops' conference has established a commission to assist dioceses and prelatures in areas where mining operations are harming communities and the environment.

A series of rural roundtables in 2018 and 2019 show a series of economic, communication and social challenges that have confounded communities' ability to fight back.

The Chinese government has temporarily closed all of the country's places of worship in an effort to contain the COVID-19 respiratory coronavirus that has now killed almost 3,000 people, with more than 80,000 around the world verified with infections.