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It is my consistent experience and observation that, even aware of the faults and foibles of their priest, people find themselves loving and admiring their priest when they know he is there for them, when they know that his life is characterized by a self-giving love expressed in pastoral presence and attentiveness that is intense.

Father Kyle Faller, Father Ernesto Jandonero, and Father Michael Rocha were ordained Saturday, May 18 to the priesthood at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Solitary confinement is in widespread use in prisons across the United States and, in New York state alone, more than 3,000 inmates are isolated in 6-by-10 cells for over 23 hours a day. The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, which has not yet made its way to the floor of the New York state House or Senate, is looking to change that.

WASHINGTON - Few people think about it in these terms, even around Easter, but Jesus was tortured as a prisoner before his death on a cross. There's no other way to characterize the 39 lashes ordered by Pontius Pilate, or the crown of thorns. Or, for that matter, the lance in his side to see if he was really dead or just looked dead. It brings into sharp focus that, while the methods have changed over the past 2,000 years, torture remains part of prison life.

Rich was a heating and ventilation technician before a 15-foot fall put him out of work. Then, problems with his worker’s compensation coverage led to his becoming homeless.

“It all started when I was 5 years old,” she said. She and a friend would gather the neighborhood kids together and teach them about their Catholic faith.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has revised and clarified norms and procedures for holding bishops and religious superiors accountable in protecting minors as well as in protecting members of religious orders and seminarians from abuse.

St. Patrick’s Seminary & University will host its third annual Quo Vadis summer camp July 7-10. Jointly sponsored by the vocations offices of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Diocese of San Jose, the camp challenges young men in high school to grow in prayer and examine God’s plan for their lives.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin County has been a leader in transforming the county’s response to chronic homelessness with a person-centered approach that makes housing the top priority without such conditions as sobriety.

Catholic San Francisco spoke with Deacon Kyle J. Faller, Deacon Ernesto M. Jandonero and Deacon Michael P. Rocha, seminarians who will become the newest priests of the archdiocese when they are ordained May 18 at 10 a.m. at St. Mary's Cathedral. Archbishop Cordileone has issued the three men their first parish assignments: Deacon Faller, St. Pius Parish, Redwood City; Deacon Jandonero, St. Hilary Parish, Tiburon; Deacon Rocha, Church of the Epiphany, San Francisco.

Julio Lopez, a Honduran merchant, turned migrant overnight. Faced with death threats and extortion and all but ruined by the theft of all his merchandise, he left behind his home and what once was his business and made his way to the United States with his entire family to finally settle in a welcoming Catholic community in Half Moon Bay.

A Scalabrinian superior in the Far East discusses how missionaries are trained to put the Gospel command of meeting the stranger into action at a time of rising human mobility. "For an effective evangelical announcement, it is necessary to relate and continue to dialogue, in harmony with the feelings and aspirations" of people on the move.

MYTILENE, Greece - A Vatican delegation led by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski visited refugees living in a ragged collection of tents amid a hillside olive grove. The May 9 visit to the “unofficial” Moira camp, where more than 1,000 people live outside a government-established camp housing nearly 5,000, was part of a mission by Pope Francis to check on the status of refugees on the island of Lesbos three years after the pope visited and took 12 refugees home to Rome with him.

The Catholic Church has 1,437 fewer parishes than it had than in 1971, but the national picture is misleading: The church is experiencing strong growth in the South, while parish losses are concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. Hispanic Catholics account for most of the growth.

WASHINGTON - The new crop of priests being ordained this year had a wide variety of careers before discerning a call to priesthood, according to a report issued May 3 by the Center for Applied Research in the apostolate.

VATICAN CITY - Visiting the small Catholic communities in Bulgaria and North Macedonia offered an opportunity to encourage the faithful to remember God's miracle of being able to feed a multitude with just a few loaves and fishes, Pope Francis said.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM NORTH MACEDONIA - The commission Pope Francis appointed to study the history and identity of women deacons did not reach a unanimous conclusion about whether deaconesses in the early church were "ordained" or formally "blessed," the pope said.

PARIS – Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The report said nothing will change the trend short of a "fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors."

On Sunday April 28, 2019, the Samoan community at All Hallows Church in San Francisco celebrated the feast day of St. Peter Chanel (1803-April 28, 1841), a Marist father and the patron saint of the Samoan community.

Almost three months after taking her simple vows as a Dominican nun at Corpus Christi Monastery in Menlo Park, Sister Mary Francis of the Holy Cross sat with four of her fellow sisters behind a windowed partition and talked to Catholic San Francisco April 26 about the joys of her unexpected call to contemplative religious life.