National Catholic Reporter | The Independent News Source

June 1, 2023

Vatican gives Texas bishop 'full governing powers' over Carmelite convent

OSV News

Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

June 1, 2023

New Vatican statistics note 'downward trend' in Catholic baptisms worldwide

June 1, 2023

Profit-at-all-costs is not a good business model, pope says

Catholic News Service

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Editors' Choice

Focus

Tennessee Bishops J. Mark Spalding of Nashville, Richard Stika of Knoxville and David Talley of Memphis are seen at St. Mary of the Seven Sorrows Church March 23, 2022, in downtown Nashville. An apostolic visitation is investigating concerns about Stika's leadership. (CNS/Tennessee Register/Katie Peterson)

In Focus

Editorial: Knoxville Catholics deserve an update on Vatican's investigation of Bishop Stika

As NCR reported in a recent investigation, many parishioners in the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, are feeling demoralized and unsure what power they have to effect change. They certainly deserve some answers.

NCR Editorial Staff

Most Read Stories

On the last day of class for seniors at St. Thomas Aquinas in Dover, New Hampshire, soon-to-be graduates carry a flag in support of the school's LGBTQ community and four teachers whose contracts were not renewed.

Removal of 4 teachers at New Hampshire Catholic school pushes community into LGBTQ culture war

Four Catholic school teachers' contracts were not renewed. Alumni, parents, students and teachers claim it's because the educators support or belong to the LGBTQ community. School and diocesan leaders refute the claim.

ByKatie Collins Scott

Pope Francis stands and raises his hand in front of a crowd that includes people dressed in the garb of cardinals, bishops and laypeople

BySimonMary Asese Aihiokhai

A church of the many: Pope addresses some synod questions, fears

While the release of the working document for the Synod of Bishops on synodality is expected sometime in early June, Pope Francis tried to respond to some of the questions and concerns about the synod process that have already been raised.

ByCindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

Paper cutout figures with speech bubbles saying their pronouns (Dreamstime/Faithiecannoise)

Guest Voices

Portland's gender policy shows a church uninterested in 'signs of the times'

Archbishop Alexander Sample's policy directing Portland Catholic institutions to interact with young people on the basis of their "biological sex identity" disregards the signs of the times, says one theologian.

The US bishops are meeting in June. Synodality is not on the agenda.

Pentecost Sunday: Pentecost is ongoing

My Sunday celebration of Eucharist begins on a Chicago bus

Opinion

Heidi Schlumpf

We at the National Catholic Reporter ask Catholic Republicans to please urge your party to do better than its current crop of presidential candidates.

Michael Sean Winters

The US bishops are meeting in June. Synodality is not on the agenda.

NCR Voices

Michael Sean Winters

Why Memorial Day civic gatherings are important for democracy

NCR Voices

NCR Staff

Letters to the editor on gun violence and gun control

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor: NCR readers respond to recent coverage of mass shootings and a gun buyback event in Chicago.

Vatican

Bishop Michael F. Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, delivers remarks at St. Sophia Ukrainian Catholic Church in The Colony, Texas, March 6, 2022, during a prayer service for peace in Ukraine. (CNS photo/Juan Guajardo, North Texas Catholic)

Vatican gives Texas bishop 'full governing powers' over Carmelite convent

The Holy See has declared Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth to be "pontifical commissary" of the Monastery of Saint Joseph of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns, according to a decree from the dicastery for religious life, dated May 31, 2023 and published on the website of the Diocese of Fort Worth. Olson "will assume his office upon communication" of the decree, it said.

OSV News

Pope Francis, wearing a white and gold mitre, pours water over a baby's head, as a well-dressed woman holds the baby and two men in suits observe

New Vatican statistics note 'downward trend' in Catholic baptisms worldwide

As first Communion season winds down and wedding fever rises, Catholic counters are busy.

ByCindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

The silhouette of a woman talking into a cellphone is visible in front of large glass office building windows with more buildings outside the windows

Profit-at-all-costs is not a good business model, pope says

Business leaders must fight the temptation to seek financial gain above all else and instead promote a "culture of encounter" that improves their balance sheet and the lives of their employees and communities at the same time, Pope Francis said.

ByCatholic News Service

Francis, the comic strip

Francis, the comic strip: Gabby and Brother Leo have a hood full of maple seeds to plant. Help is here!

ByPat Marrin

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Pope bets on Las Vegas, making city a Catholic archdiocese

Evangelizer's strength comes from practicing what one preaches, pope says

Vatican questions $17 million transfers by priest who now leads clergy abuse commission

In March in Puerto Francisco de Orellana, Ecuador, activists protest mining and oil exploitation in the rainforest. (Courtesy of Aguarico Vicariate)

Justice

Catholics lead protests against mining, oil drilling in Ecuadorian Amazon

Recently, the Ecuador army raided mining zones and removed dozens of machines, says Bishop Adelberto Jiménez. "But after a week or so, they were all back to the forest. We demand that more forceful measures are taken."

Eduardo Campos Lima

While Canada is fighting wildfires from western Alberta province to eastern Nova Scotia, Fr. Gerald Mendoza (third from left) is on the frontlines of the battle in firefighter uniform. (OSV News/Courtesy of Gerald Mendoza)

ByFletcher Harper, Eduardo Agosta Scarel

Priest joins tireless efforts to quell Canadian wildfires

As Canada copes with wildfires from western Alberta province to eastern Nova Scotia, among the more than 3,000 men and women combating the flames is Fr. Gerald Mendoza.

ByQuinton Amundson, OSV News

Molly Burhans delivers the 2023 commencement speech at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, on May 20. (Alonzo Fotography LLC)

Viewpoints

A reminder for 2023 grads: The bad is loud, but the good is pervasive

Molly Burhans, founder of Goodlands, is on a mission to make the church's land work for good. She talks about why that's important in her 2023 commencement speech at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana.

ByMolly Burhans

G7 world leaders attend a working session on the final day of the G7 Summit, May 21 in Hiroshima, Japan. From left: Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Council President Charles Michel, Gianluigi Benedetti, Italian ambassador to Japan, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Viewpoints

Faith groups to G7 leaders: Peace requires a fossil fuel treaty

For religious leaders, recognizing the link between climate change and violence is more relevant than ever.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Pope Francis ahead of COP28: Stop the 'madness' of the 'fossil fuel era'

Laudato Trees planting program enlists Catholic properties to help increase DC's canopy

Pope meets bishops from Italy's flood-hit Emilia-Romagna region

Culture

Bayard Rustin, left, is pictured in 1964; Dorothy Day is seen in a 1935 file photo. (Library of Congress/World Telegram & Sun photo/Ed Ford; CNS/Courtesy of Marquette University Archives)

'War by Other Means' highlights 4 pacifists who resisted World War II

A young Catholic Worker reviews the book War by Other Means in light of the ethic of nonviolence that has shaped her faith.

Allyson Winter-Polman

Amsterdam Jews await deportation to the Nazi transit camp in Westerbork, the Netherlands, on June 20, 1943. A member of the German Security Police can be seen at right. (Wikimedia Commons/Netwerk Oorlogsbronnen/Herman Heukels)

'The Diary Keepers' provides a glimpse into Dutch life under Nazi occupation

Book review: Nina Siegal's The Diary Keepers presents readers with translated excerpts from journals penned principally by seven Dutch diarists, tracking their lives as the five-year German occupation unfolded.

ByChris Herlinger

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, attends an organizational meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee as its chairman in Washington, D.C., Jan. 24, 1979. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division/U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection/Thomas J. O'Halloran)

Biography of Ted Kennedy captures a fair, unbiased legacy

Book review: In Ted Kennedy: A Life, author John Farrell avoids partisan extremes, instead striking a deliberate balance in his portrait of the youngest brother in America's most famous Catholic family.

ByClayton Trutor

From left: San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò; Leonard Leo; Steve Bannon; and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (credit TK)

'Playing God' traces the history of Catholic conservatism gone extreme

Money, not religion, is the motivating issue of the Catholic right, according to Mary Jo McConahay's new book. Former NCR editor Tom Roberts' review says the book does U.S. Catholicism a great service.

ByTom Roberts

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT