A woman prays in front of a glass-encased reliquary containing a bone from the arm of St. Jude the Apostle at St. Jude Church in Mastic Beach, N.Y., Nov. 27, 2023. (OSV News/Gregory A. Shemitz)
Book Reviews

Catholicism's haunting strangeness warrants celebration, says author

Culture

"These things are not just sideshow attractions," said W. Tyler Allen, who wrote A Catechism of the Strange. "They're not just cool little things that make Catholicism creepy and fun. They all point back to the soul."

The Latest

Passing time with the saints: Who would you spend your day with?

The Life Panelists

On this All Saints' Day, we pray with people killed by ICE

Yunuen Trujillo

Vatican Museum exhibit celebrates almost a century of popemobiles

Claire Giangravé, Religion News Service

Editors' Choice

Pedestrians walk past street signage on the first day of early voting in New York, on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. (AP/Heather Khalifa)

In Focus

In lead-up to midterms, Catholic prayer vigils and novenas spread across US

As the November midterm elections approach, Catholics across the United States are preparing to pray and keep vigil, asking for peaceful polling places, honest vote-counting, and protection for voters.

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Most Read Stories

Marine One, carrying President Donald Trump, lifts off from the South Lawn at the White House Oct. 22, 2026, in Washington. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

#1
White House names 12 bishops who prayed with Trump, defends president's record

The White House identified the 12 Catholic bishops who met and prayed with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office less than two weeks before the midterm elections, while defending his record with Catholic Americans.

ByCamillo Barone
Archbishop Jeffrey Grob concelebrates Mass with the presbyterate during his installation as the 12th archbishop of the Milwaukee Archdiocese Jan. 14, 2025. (OSV News/Catholic Herald/Andy Gilicinski)

#2
Milwaukee archbishop who prayed with Trump apologizes, says bishops were 'manipulated'

Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob expressed "sincere regret" for participating in what he said was "a political photo opportunity" orchestrated by the White House.

ByJeromiah Taylor

#3
Priest in Ecuador, 53, struck and killed by falling crucifix during Mass

A priest in Ecuador was struck and killed by a falling crucifix while celebrating Mass, a tragedy captured during a livestream of the service on Oct. 17.

ByDavid Agren, OSV News

#4
Ahead of elections, White House shares video of Catholic bishops praying over Trump

#5
Editorial: Bishops' prayer for Trump may have been sincere. For Trump, it was pure politics.

#6
My encounter with JD Vance: Can being attentive to a graced moment create change?

Opinion

My encounter with JD Vance: Can being attentive to a graced moment create change?

Voices of Sisters

US bishops are at a crossroads as they head into their fall assembly

NCR Voices
Members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons participate in a procession during a vigil in New York City Aug. 9, 2025, marking the 80th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. (OSV News/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Podcast: 'Action is the antidote to a sense of helplessness,' says anti-nuclear leader

Guest Voices

On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," John Dear hosts Melissa Parke, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Bishop John Dolan: What it means to be human in the age of AI

Guest Voices

Your letters: Synodality in the seminary, Sheen relics, abortion and empathy

Letters to the Editor
SpaceX's Starship lifts off for its fifth integrated flight test Oct. 13, 2024. (Wikimedia Commons/Steve Jurvetson)

Leo's encyclical is a north star for new space race — and alien encounters, too

Guest Voices

Many today are looking to Pope Leo's Magnifica Humanitas for ethical guidance and hope in a world increasingly saturated with AI. That same document can offer guidance and hope for humanity's new ventures into space. 

Vatican

Pope Paul VI rides in a Mercedes-Benz 300 d Pullman Landaulet (W189) on his return to Rome from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Jordan in 1964. (RNS/©Mercedes-Benz AG)

Vatican Museum exhibit celebrates almost a century of popemobiles

"The exhibition offers an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable advances in automotive technology, as well as the deeper significance of the journeys undertaken by the Successors of Peter," Pope Leo said in a speech.

Pope Leo XIV smiles and waves from the popemobile while riding around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience Oct. 28, 2026. (CNS/Lola Gomez)

In a papal first, Leo votes in US midterms

Pope Leo XIV became the first pope to vote in a U.S. election by submitting a mail-in ballot in his native Chicago, the Vatican has confirmed. 

ByJustin McLellan
Villanova's Adrianna Hahn (31) competes for a rebound with Notre Dame's Kristina Nelson (21) during a second-round game in the NCAA women's college basketball tournament Sunday, March 18, 2018, in South Bend, Indiana. (AP photo/Robert Franklin)

Villanova and Notre Dame bring college basketball to Rome. Dinner is on the line.

The Nov. 1 matchup in Rome between Villanova and Notre Dame will open the NCAA men's and women's basketball seasons. The congregations that founded and run the two universities have placed a wager on the outcome.

ByJustin McLellan
Vatican News

Pope Leo XIV's Argentina visit brings renewed scrutiny of clergy abuse scandals

Pope Leo XIV's visit to Argentina comes amid allegations of sexual abuse and other crimes involving Catholic clergy and lay members, with survivors demanding stronger action from the Vatican against those accused or convicted.

ByAlmudena Calatrava , Associated Press

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Election cycle will influence when pope heads to US, top Vatican diplomat says

Pope Leo to offer 12 public Masses in November, including in a Rome cemetery

Ahead of Rome tipoff, basketball powerhouse Villanova embraces 'Pope Leo effect'

EarthBeat

The people who participated in the Sept. 26 walk in San Francisco Angulo, El Salvador, called for the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, ecology and the environment. (Lissette Lemus)

Religious orders in El Salvador seek to protect community from mega-prison’s pollution

At event tied to Season of Creation, Catholic sisters and Franciscan friars in El Salvador support a rural community fighting water contamination and a landfill near CECOT, which can hold up to 40,000 inmates. 

At Cadillac Mountain, a missing Wabanaki marker and the fight over what national parks should tell

Some of the signs removed from Acadia were developed over years of partnerships with organizations including Friends of Acadia, the Schoodic Institute and the Native Plant Trust — with consultation from citizens of the Wabanaki Nations.

ByJessie Wardarski, Associated Press
Carolina wren (Wikimedia Commons/Melissa McMasters)
Soul Seeing

In praise of a wild, unfettered God

There is beauty in the fact that we do not serve a God who grants us wishes like a genie, writes Alli Bobzien. Our God is wild and free.

ByAlli Bobzien
The Teton mountains reflect on Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park in Moran, Wyoming, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP photo/Amber Baesler, File)

In midterms, Catholic voters must keep national parks in mind

Attacks on the National Park Service are just tip of the iceberg of ecological sins, and a specifically Catholic issue.

ByStephanie J. Peddicord

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

NCR Voices

When it comes to creation, we need to be more pious

Sustainability award bearing Pope Leo's name spotlights his own environmental record

Guest Voices

President Trump is both attacking green energy and helping it

Culture

Vanessa Redgrave played Sr. Jeanne des Anges in Ken Russell's 1971 film "The Devils," now restored and rereleased. (Warner Bros.)

Mark Kermode on restoration of 'The Devils' and the director's Catholicism

The movie, based on a 1951 Aldous Huxley book, met intense controversy, and it was heavily edited and censored. Now the full version is in theaters, tackling topics of power and corruption between church and state. 

A woman prays in front of a glass-encased reliquary containing a bone from the arm of St. Jude the Apostle at St. Jude Church in Mastic Beach, N.Y., Nov. 27, 2023. (OSV News/Gregory A. Shemitz)
Book Reviews

Catholicism's haunting strangeness warrants celebration, says author

"These things are not just sideshow attractions," said W. Tyler Allen, who wrote A Catechism of the Strange. "They're not just cool little things that make Catholicism creepy and fun. They all point back to the soul."

ByEmma Cieslik

Descendants and Jesuits find a path toward healing through 'What We Inherit'

Bringing long-overlooked stories of enslavement to light, the traveling exhibit "What We Inherit: Truth, Repair, and a Promise to the Future" challenges visitors to reckon with history while embracing the possibility of healing, accountability, and a more hopeful future.

BySheila Hodges , Black Catholic Messenger
A panel on "Emergency" by Rebecca Solnit hangs on the book shelves of the English and American literature Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, in Paris, France, Nov. 05, 2020. (AP photo/Francois Mori)
Book Reviews

Rebecca Solnit says an old world is dying

Sonit's latest book, The Beginning Comes After the End, probes the scale of change through a trek into moral darkness that ends in a song of hope. 

ByJason Berry

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Catholic Universities Art Triennial exhibit brings imaginative empathy to Boston

Actor Chris Pratt joins Pope Leo in new documentary about St. Peter's long-lost remains

Rome reporter's new memoir sheds light on why Vatican reform remains tricky

An image of St. Toribio Romo González, center, with St. John Paul II above him, is seen among other images laid out on a table at the St. Toribio Romo Church May 6 in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. (CNS/David Maung)

Passing time with the saints: Who would you spend your day with?

The Life - For All Saints' Day, our panelists chose to spend a day with a saint. Who they chose and what they did yielded some delightful surprises. What saint would you choose?

Pilgrims heading to the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida pass a painting of Jesus along the Presidente Dutra Highway in São José dos Campos, Brazil, Oct. 9, 2026. (OSV News/Reuters/Roosevelt Cassio)
Voices of Sisters

Solemnity of All Saints: Taking Jesus' way of life seriously

Theologians' Corner - Today's Solemnity of All Saints interrupts the ordinary journey of the liturgy with an appeal to remind us that we are all called to holiness.

By
A painting of Our Lady of Sorrows is seen at the Benedictine Abbey in Staniatki, Poland, in an undated photo. The 13th-century monastery, home to one of the country's most important collections of religious and cultural treasures, is seeking support to complete a major heritage preservation project by Dec. 31, 2026. (OSV News/Courtesy of Benedictine Abbey in Staniatki)

For 800 years, they kept prayers going; now Benedictines face $1 million deadline

A community of Benedictine nuns in Poland hopes to raise $1 million to complete a preservation project at their 800-year-old abbey by Dec. 31, warning that failure could force it to repay millions in EU funding.

ByOSV News
An election worker puts up a sign at a polling station in McLean, Va. (OSV News/Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
Voices of Sisters

Who do you see? How will you vote?

"The life of Christ and the life of the prophets call me to take his spirit with me into my work and my political choices forever," writes Sr. Emily TeKolste.

By

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German Protestant sisters' decades-long health ministry continues in Pakistan

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