Participants in the Midwest March for Life walk past the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City on May 1, 2025. (AP/David A. Lieb)

Catholic bishops speak out on 4 abortion-related ballot measures

News

Abortion is on the ballot in Virginia, Nevada, Idaho and Missouri this November, and the Catholic bishops in those states have been speaking out in hopes of convincing voters to side with the pro-life campaigns.

The Latest

Oct. 25, 2026: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sr. Mary M. McGlone

Oct. 18, 2026: Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sr. Mary M. McGlone

Ahead of papal visit, archbishop warns of a 'wounded Argentina' at Our Lady of Luján shrine

David Agren, OSV News

Editors' Choice

Catholic pilgrims, including LGBTQ Catholics, clergy, religious, family members and others pray at the altar dedicated to victims of HIV/AIDS at St. Francis Xavier Church in New York City, Sept. 26. (NCR photo/Camillo Barone)

In Focus

In New York, LGBTQ Catholic pilgrims connect to a history of HIV/AIDS, perseverance

For three days, LGBTQ Catholics, clergy, religious, family members and others walked through New York City as pilgrims, tracing a history marked by suffering, ministry, exclusion and perseverance.

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Most Read Stories

Vatican News

#1
Pope Leo seeks status update of Francis' divisive opening to divorced and remarried Catholics

Church leaders will meet in Rome next week to understand how "The Joy of Love", Pope Francis' 2016 document on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, has been implemented.

ByNicole Winfield, The Associated Press
The tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy, is seen as it is accessible to pilgrims year-round. (OSV News/Courtesy of Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi)
Guest Voices

#2
St. Francis teaches us about death, 800 years after his own

Just as God loves us and sustains us in this earthly, bodily life, so too does God love us and sustain us as we transition from this state of life to the next. 

ByDaniel P. Horan
Pope Leo XIV greets young people during a prayer vigil at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, Sept. 25, 2026, as part of the pope's four-day apostolic journey to France. (OSV News photo/Vatican Media/Simone Risoluti)

#3
French Catholics believe they're having a moment. Pope Leo seems to agree.

For many young Catholics, the pope's visit was a validation of the current cultural shift around Catholicism in France. Leo told 80,000 young people at a vigil, "You are the saints of France!"

ByJustin McLellan

#4
How nuns are marking the Season of Creation and honoring 'our common home'

#5
Bishop Barron swings and misses, again

#6
Drawing huge crowds in Paris, Pope Leo urges France to embrace its Catholic heritage

Opinion

Podcast: 'Beatitudes should be part of our DNA,' says Pax Christi's Sr. Wamuyu Wachira

Guest Voices

Leo's emerging style of pastoral leadership

NCR Voices
Pope Leo XIV meets with members of the French bishops' conference in the Sainte-Bernadette auditorium at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France, Sept. 27, 2026. (CNS/Vatican Media)

Pope Leo synthesizes predecessors' style in speech to French bishops

NCR Voices

When Pope Leo XIV spoke to the French bishops who had gathered at Lourdes this week, his message had echoes of Popes Francis, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

Cyborgs, centaurs and LLeMmings: Why Pope Leo calls us to 'remain human'

Guest Voices

Podcast: 'Summon the courage to speak out,' says Dennis Kucinich

Guest Voices
A Venezuelan migrant family deported from the U.S. walks near the border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Jan. 22, 2026. (OSV News/Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

The children on the border are speaking. Are we listening?

Guest Voices

When Jesus says, "Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them," he attaches no condition. He does not add "unless their parents are undocumented," or "provided they were born to citizens."

Vatican

Ahead of papal visit, archbishop warns of a 'wounded Argentina' at Our Lady of Luján shrine

Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva of Buenos Aires pleaded for unity, describing the country as wounded and deeply divided ahead of a visit to Argentina by Pope Leo XIV.

Pope Leo XIV attends a presentation of his encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence" at the Synod Hall at the Vatican May 25, 2026. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Vatican News

Pope Leo joins tech, political leaders on Vanity Fair list of influential individuals

Leo was No. 18 on the magazine's "New Establishment list" which identifies "people who have defined the moment  — from the Information Age to the dot-com bubble, the financial crisis to the social media tidal wave."

ByJustin McLellan

Pope Francis' diaries to be published next month, revealing reflections on Vatican years

Image, an imprint of Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group, announced Monday that "The Private Diary of Pope Francis" will be released in English and four other languages on Nov. 24.

ByHillel Italie, Associated Press

Pope moves St. Peter's archpriest to Italian diocese without naming successor

Pope Leo XIV named Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, who has served for over five years as archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and the pope's vicar for Vatican City, as archbishop of the central Italian Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto.

ByJunno Arocho Esteves, OSV News

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Vatican News

Pope Leo seeks status update of Francis' divisive opening to divorced and remarried Catholics

White Sox receive letter from Pope Leo before winning playoff opener

Vatican News

Pope Leo says alarm over AI is not 'fake news,' but remains optimistic

EarthBeat

Jeffie Hardin teaches gardening and farming techniques at a North Carolina Title I school. She and her husband, Chris Hardin, moved from the suburbs to a farm that eventually became both a source of food and a kind of informal classroom. (Courtesy of Chris Hardin)

Farming, faith and 'real synodality': How this Catholic couple lives Laudato Si'

Chris and Jeffie Hardin, who live in North Carolina, will visit the Vatican's Borgo Laudato Si' to learn more about how to live and teach ways that honor creation. 

Sr. Fidelia Viban, mother general of the Dominican contemplative nuns at the Monastery of St. Dominic in Bambui, Cameroon, stands on the monastery farm. The sisters grow crops to support their community and help people in need, including families displaced by the Anglophone conflict. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)

For nuns in war-torn Cameroon, conflict threatens hard-won climate solutions

As COP31 approaches, Catholic sisters' struggling biogas initiatives at the Monastery of St. Dominic in Cameroon reveal the fragility of grassroots climate action in communities strained by war and poverty.

ByDoreen Ajiambo
A bronze sculpture of St. Francis of Assisi looks out over the medieval Italian town outside the Church of San Damiano on Oct. 4, 2025. (NCR photo/Brian Roewe)

In and around Assisi, pilgrims retrace St. Francis' footsteps to kinship with creation

Working with the Franciscans who steward the shrines marking the major events of St. Francis' life, Terra Laudato Si' aims to connect the saint's embrace of creation with modern-day calls for ecological conversion.

ByBrian Roewe
An aerial view shows an Amazon Web Services Data Center known as US East 1 in Ashburn, Virginia, Oct. 20, 2025. (OSV News/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

Data center boom puts water, power costs and Catholic concerns on the ballot

As the artificial intelligence boom drives a rapid expansion of data centers across the United States, server facilities are becoming an increasingly visible issue in the 2026 midterm elections.

ByCamillo Barone

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Celebrating the Season of Creation as a trans Catholic living on a farm

How nuns are marking the Season of Creation and honoring 'our common home'

Catholic nuns face ongoing loss, uncertainty after deadly Colombia earthquake

Culture

JoAnn Falletta, music director for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, will conduct "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes" Oct. 10 and 11. The oratorio brings together music composed by Richard Danielpour and a Fransiscan-inspired libretto by Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney. (Steve J. Sherman)

St. Francis' messages shared through music at oratorio debut

Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney wrote the libretto for "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes." Performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra are set for Oct. 10 and 11.

Brandi Carlile (right) performs with Monique Ross (far left) and Chauntee Ross of SistaStrings during the 55th annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in New York. (AP/Invision/Evan Agostini)

Finding communion at a Brandi Carlile concert

After a Brandi Carlile concert, and with her own son learning an instrument, one mother reflects on the holiness of sharing a collective experience with other human beings.

ByBritt Luby
A crowd gathers in the square in front of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris on Aug. 26, 1944, awaiting the arrival of Gen. Charles de Gaulle after Paris was liberated from the Germans. (Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain/Préfecture de Police)

As Pope Leo heads to Notre Dame, a brief history of the cathedral's cultural relevance

When the pope visits the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris this week, he'll see a church that has stood as a religious and cultural French landmark for nearly 900 years. 

ByVanessa R. Corcoran
Publications featuring the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen are displayed among other artifacts and memorabilia at the Sheen Museum on July 15, 2026, in Peoria, Ill. (AP/Jessie Wardarski)

How Fulton Sheen paved the way for American acceptance of Catholics

Without Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, would there have been a President John F. Kennedy? In a country historically skeptical of Catholicism, Sheen's TV homilies showed that Catholics were just as American as anyone else.

ByJoseph Connor

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Book Reviews

Stephanie Sy-Quia's debut novel paints forbidden love against Vatican II backdrop

'Sister Act' and the gift of Blackness in the church

With 19 Emmy nods, 'Widow's Bay' gets the link between terror and togetherness

LCWR president-elect Sr. Betsy Pawlicki, a Sinsinawa Dominican, is seen Aug. 14, 2026, at the group’s annual assembly in Orlando. (GSR photo/Dan Stockman)

Q&A with president-elect of LCWR Sr. Betsy Pawlicki on navigating change

"The days of building buildings and institutions is gone, but that only happened because it was responding to a need," said Sr. Betsy Pawlicki. "What is the need now?"

Voices of Sisters

The gardener's plea: What a barren fig tree taught me about second chances

Nearly half of Zimbabwe's youth are out of school. Behind that statistic are individuals, each one a fig tree someone was ready to give up on. But I keep working the soil even when the tree shows no obvious signs of life.

By
Sr. Gertrude Anozie trims a female resident's nails at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home for the Elderly in the Awkunanaw area of Enugu, southeastern Nigeria. (John Chukwu)

Sisters accompany Nigerian elders through final stage of life

At Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home for the Elderly, the Little Sisters of the Poor attempt to preserve dignity when illness, disability, poverty and separation from family can easily make people feel forgotten.

By
Sr. Catharina Ginah cares for children and adolescents with disabilities at Bhakti Luhur, a care home overseen by the sisters of the Association of Lay Missionary Institutions, while her lay partner assists in the background. (Jacobus Lato)

Finding strength in their calling, Indonesian sisters care for kids with disabilities

The sisters of the Association of Lay Missionary Institutions work alongside religious brothers and oversee 32 houses, collectively called Bhakti Luhur, caring for children of different ages, needs and abilities.

By

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Sr. Gail Grimes leaves lasting legacy of justice and community in Central Florida

For nuns in war-torn Cameroon, conflict threatens hard-won climate solutions

Pope Leo XIV urges contemplative nuns to resist a 'spirit of survival'