A local preacher on the roof of a building denounces the governor and a local judge for moving troops into Harlan County, Ky., in May 1939 during a coal miners strike. (AP)

From pulpit to picket line: Religion and labor rights long connected in coal country

News

For over a century, coal has transformed central Appalachia. All the while, religion has been transforming in the mountains, too. Labor and religion are deeply entangled here.

The Latest

From Fisk Jubilee Singers to megachurch hits, new museum celebrates Christian music

Bob Smietana, Religion News Service
Soul Seeing

Golf and God: How a game can take us on the path to Ultimate Mystery

Pierre Eau Claire
Book Reviews

New book demythologizes Mary, emphasizes her political and ecclesial role

Diane Scharper

Editors' Choice

Pope Leo XIV speaks on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. (OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters)

In Focus

Pope Leo blasts elitism, indifference toward poor in first major document

"I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the church and for society," the pope wrote in Dilexi Te.

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Most Read Stories

Vatican News

#1
One can't serve God and money, pope says on day he signs text on poverty

Pope Leo XIV on Oct. 4 signed his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te ("I Have Loved You"), which will be released Oct. 9.

ByCarol Glatz, Catholic News Service
Pope Leo XIV greets visitors and pilgrims from the popemobile before his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Oct. 1, 2025. (CNS/Pablo Esparza)

#2
Pope Leo's Francis-aligned take on Durbin controversy backfires on conservatives

Conservative Catholics had hoped that Pope Francis' reforms would follow him into the tomb, but they must reckon with the fact that it is they, not Pope Leo or Cardinal Cupich, who need a course correction.

ByMichael Sean Winters
Pope Leo XIV speaks on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. (OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters)

#3
Pope Leo blasts elitism, indifference toward poor in first major document

"I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the church and for society," the pope wrote in Dilexi Te.

ByJustin McLellan

#4
When Trump spoke to the generals, their silence spoke volumes

#5
In Chicago, clergy and faith-based protesters say ICE is threatening their religious freedom

#6
Pope Leo XIV starts to correct some of Francis' more problematic financial decisions

Opinion

Editorial: Pope Leo delivers breathtakingly bold salvo on wealth, elitism and poverty

Editorial

It's time to wake up: The Catholic Church needs women deacons now.

Agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detain a man after conducting a raid at the Cedar Run apartment complex in Denver Feb. 5, 2025. A new study released May 1, 2025, estimated that under a mass deportation scenario, 3.8% of all U.S. citizen children, about 2.7 million, are at risk of being left with no parents in their home. (OSV News/Reuters/Kevin Mohatt)

It's Latino Heritage Month. Where are the disappeared?

"Collective Heritage: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future" is the theme for this year's Latino Heritage Month. While our communities continue to be surveilled, detained and disappeared, we remember. 

Your letters: Movie nuns, Pope Leo's Durbin comments and Hamas

Letters to the Editor

Leo's exhortation enlists the old, and the new, in service to the poor

Faith communities have a critical role in defending our nation's libraries

The protection of libraries and the stories they hold should be understood as a wider commitment of our communities to religious freedom.

Vatican

9 things to know about 'Dilexi Te,' Pope Leo's first apostolic exhortation

Pope Leo XIV's first apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te ("I have loved you"), was promulgated Oct. 9, the feast day of St. John Henry Newman. Here are nine things to know about the document.

Pope Leo XIV speaks on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. (OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters)

Pope Leo blasts elitism, indifference toward poor in first major document

"I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the church and for society," the pope wrote in Dilexi Te.

ByJustin McLellan

El Paso bishop brings Pope Leo XIV desperate letters from migrants in crosshairs of US crackdown

The Texas bishop on the front lines of the U.S. immigration crackdown met Wednesday with Pope Leo XIV and brought him a packet of letters from immigrant families "terrorized" by fear that they and their loved ones will be rounded up and deported as the Trump administration's tactics grow increasingly combative.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press

President Maduro asks Pope Leo XIV to help maintain peace in Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday said he has asked Pope Leo XIV to help maintain peace in the South American country. Maduro's comments come as the United States military continues to strike alleged drug-carrying boats in the waters off Venezuela in what President Donald Trump has declared an " armed conflict " with cartels. 

ByAssociated Press

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors will focus its new report on reparations

Pope Leo XIV starts to correct some of Francis' more problematic financial decisions

Pope Leo's first international trip officially set for Turkey, Lebanon

EarthBeat

Sr. Flora Nyawira trains a group on leek onion farming. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd run Shalom Farm in Kitale, Kenya. (Mourine Achieng)

Sisters turning 25 acres in Kenya into a model for mixed farming

"We want to inspire small-scale farmers to maximize their farms' potential," Sr. Flora Nyawira of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd said. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor and former California governor, gestures during a Vatican news conference on “Raising Hope for Climate Justice” Sept. 30, 2025. He is joined on the panel by Brazilian Cardinal Jaime Spengler of Porto Alegre, Salesian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and others. (CNS/Lola Gomez)
Vatican News

Church, government leaders set sights on COP30 at Vatican climate meeting

The Belém, Brazil summit, scheduled for November, is expected to be one of the most consequential climate gatherings since COP21, which culminated in the 2015 Paris Agreement. 

ByJustin McLellan
Pope Leo XIV blesses a chunk of ice from a glacier in Greenland during the opening session of an international conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," at the Mariapolis Center in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Oct. 1. The ice block was fished out of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord in Greenland after becoming detached from the ice sheet. (CNS/Vatican Media)

At Laudato Si' conference, Catholics stress hope, heart to animate church on climate

"In the face of this deepening crisis, how do we dare raise hope? Our answer is this: We do it together," said Yeb Sano, board director for the Laudato Si' Movement.

ByBrian Roewe
Bare hands planting sprouted plants in a raised garden bed full of soil.

Laudato Si' continues to inspire Bangladesh communities to protect the Earth

The Catholic Church in Bangladesh is working actively in the environmental sector and spreading the message of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' to protect the environment — even among non-Catholics. 

ByStephan Uttom Rozario

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

NY grant helps Catholic sisters save the bees

Columns

'We have to do something!': Our faith calls us protect creation

Pope Leo calls for 'true ecological conversion' from words to action on environment

Culture

Jelly Roll performs during a concert in St. Peter's Square for the conclusion of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity at the Vatican, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025. (AP/Gregorio Borgia)

Jelly Roll's Vatican performance offers hope to those impacted by addiction

Jelly Roll's growing, worldwide fanbase is populated with people like me: ordinary, struggling people whose lives have been impacted by addiction. His returning to, and offering of, light is why we seek out his music.

(Unsplash/Qihai Weng)
Book Reviews

New book demythologizes Mary, emphasizes her political and ecclesial role

In The Lost Mary: Rediscovering the Mother of Jesus, James D. Tabor demythologizes the "passive, nonsexual, nonpolitical" Mary, inviting us to consider her through a historical, critical lens.

ByDiane Scharper
In this file photo, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., accuses Haldore Hanson, key State Department official, of "pro-Communist" activities dating back to 1938, during a Senate foreign relations subcommittee, March 13, 1950. Author Clay Risen explores Congress's investigation of Communism in the federal government and Hollywood in the 1950s in his book Red Scare. (AP photo/Herbert K. White, file)
Book Reviews

Q&A with 'Red Scare' author Clay Risen on McCarthyism and modern America

In Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America, author Clay Risen explores Congress's investigation of Communism in the 1950s. Risen spoke with NCR about parallels between that era and today. 

ByJason Berry

In 'The Promised Land,' Moses’ desert trek is reimagined as a workplace comedy

Envisioned as a "mockumentary" series shot in the style of "The Office" and "Abbott Elementary," the show's pilot was released last year. Its first season debuted Oct. 1, tackling the often tragic narrative of Moses and the Israelites with a wink and a nod.

ByKathryn Post, Religion News Service

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

New book calls for a politics that mirrors Jesus' Beatitudes

Kendrick Lamar and Thea Bowman: Mystics of resistance

Nonreligious Americans might not be as spiritual as we thought

Small red, pink and yellow patterns incorporated into Lourdes Munguia's weaving work done on a loom (Courtesy of Lourdes Munguia)
Columns

Learning to weave taught me how to rebuild my life, thread by thread

The backstrap loom is the perfect metaphor for our religious life. Weaving has taught me that remaining in challenging situations does not mean staying stuck — it is about living an embodied spirituality, a new creation.

Sr. Jannette Pruitt and Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky. Pruitt designed and created her dress, as well as Fabre's vestments. (Courtesy of Jannette Pruitt)

Q&A with Sr. Jannette Pruitt, sewing custom vestments that celebrate Afro heritage

A retired pastoral associate and master catechist, Pruitt honors her ancestors by using her sewing and design skills to craft custom Afrocentric vestments for priests, deacons and even one lucky bishop.

By
Students managed by the St. Joseph's of Tarbes nuns celebrate India's Independence Day on Aug. 15 in the presence of a Karnataka state government representative in the campus of Sumanahalli, a church center in Bengaluru. (Thomas Scaria)

Sister-led church-state collaboration brings leprosy-cured Indians dignity, support

Among India's 28 states, only Karnataka employs cured leprosy patients. Congregations have been working with the state government to treat, rehabilitate, educate and ensure jobs for them, giving them dignified lives.

ByThomas Scaria

Q&A with Sr. Rosily Kolencherry, supporting tribal families in eastern India

Holy Cross Sister finds spiritual growth in ministry working for social and economically disadvantaged families for 33 years.

By

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Monday Starter: Sisters, advocacy groups fear impact of US government shutdown

The promise of life begins with clean birth kits

Reporter's Notebook: Recognizing sisters' historic work with migrants