An overflow crowd packed the theater and lobby of Marquette University's Varsity Theatre for a memorial Mass for two college lacrosse players killed in a crash by alleged drunken driver Sept. 6. (Clay Ellis-Escobar)

Hundreds mourn 2 Marquette athletes killed by alleged drunken driver

News

"Noah and Scott's lives were taken too soon and we share in the heartbreak of their teammates, coaches and those who knew them personally," the university's president said in an email sent to students Sept. 6. 

The Latest

At NatCon, an effort to make Christian nationalism a more inclusive movement

Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service

Wisconsin diocese says 'no cover-up' of abuse following additional allegation

Gina Christian, OSV News
Vatican News

Holy See tells nations at UN to end threat of nuclear weapons, even as deterrence

Gina Christian

Editors' Choice

A photo illustration shows a hand outstretched toward a horizon. (Unsplash/Marc-Olivier Jodoin)

In Focus

They don't identify with a religion, but they often believe in God, afterlife

A Pew study finds many religiously unaffiliated people, so-called "nones," still have spiritual beliefs. Views run the gamut from agnostics to avowed atheists to agnostics. A 66-year-old atheist raised Methodist says the desert is his "dirt church."

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Most Read Stories

Badly divided US bishops' conference needs unifying leadership
NCR Voices

#1
Badly divided US bishops' conference needs unifying leadership

Some are campaigning for Coakley, but NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters hopes the U.S. bishops select a president in the center, someone as publicly committed to fighting abortion as he is to defending immigrants.

ByMichael Sean Winters
Pope Leo XIV welcomes Jesuit Father James Martin, an author and editor at large at America magazine, to the library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Sept. 1, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Vatican News

#2
Pope Leo embraces Francis' legacy on LGBTQ+ Catholics, Fr. James Martin says

Fr. James Martin met with Pope Leo for about a half-hour. The meeting was officially announced by the Vatican in a sign that Leo wanted it made public. The audience was significant because it showed a strong sign of continuity with Francis.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press

#3
Pope's prayer for September: Respecting, protecting God's creation

In the video released by the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, Leo recites his own prayer linking the 800th anniversary of the Canticle of Creation and the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."

ByCindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

#4
This 72-year-old vegan, weight-lifting nun is winning awards and turning heads

#5
Over centuries, Catholic confession has evolved from public confession to private penance

#6
The many faces of the movie nun

Opinion

'Nonviolence isn't passive,' world-renowned theologian Stanley Hauerwas says

Can Democrats learn to speak like normal people?

A priest listens to a pilgrim’s confession at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Juazeiro do Norte, Brazil, on Oct. 30, 2015. (The Conversation/AP/Leo Correa)

Over centuries, Catholic confession has evolved from public confession to private penance

"[C]onfession is hard," Dorothy Day once said. "You do not want to make too much of your constant imperfections and venial sins, but you want to drag them out to the light of day as the first step in getting rid of them."

Badly divided US bishops' conference needs unifying leadership

NCR Voices

Catholic thought leaders who are creating provocative content worth following

Person sits on couch, covering eyes.

USCCB wrong to defend conversion therapy in Supreme Court case

Guest Voices

Chris Damian finds the U.S. bishops' position in the lawsuit "a source of ecclesial scandal and personal pain." 

Vatican

Vatican News

Holy See tells nations at UN to end threat of nuclear weapons, even as deterrence

Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See's U.N. permanent observer, shared his thoughts in a statement he delivered Sept. 4 at U.N. headquarters in New York, during the General Assembly High-level Plenary Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, observed that same day.

Pope Leo XIV delivers the homily during the canonization Mass of St. Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian boy who became the first millennial to be made a Catholic saint, and St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sept. 7. (OSV News/Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane)

Pope Leo's homily for the canonization Mass for Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati

The new saints "are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces," the pope said.

ByOSV News
A flag featuring the image of Carlo Acutis is waved during the canonization Mass of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sept. 7. (AP/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo declares teen computer whiz Carlo Acutis the first millennial saint

Matthew Schmalz, professor of religious studies at Holy Cross college in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the canonization extends the church tradition of popular piety to the digital age.

ByNicole Winfield
Members of the LGBTQ+ community, with T-shirts reading "God does not reject anyone" in Spanish, arrive to attend a vigil prayer in the Church of the Gesu in central Rome Sept. 5. (AP/Andrew Medichini)

LGBTQ+ Catholics make Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome and celebrate a new sense of acceptance

"Brothers and sisters, I say this with emotion: It is time to restore dignity to everyone, especially to those who have been denied it," Bishop Franceseco Savino said at a Mass for the pilgrims.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Vatican News

'Semi-official' LGBTQ+ Jubilee marks watershed moment at Vatican for long-marginalized Catholics

Peace comes from dialogue, not 'walls and barbed wire,' pope says

Legacy of 'green' papal teaching takes root at Vatican ecology center

EarthBeat

Pope Leo XIV looks at a horse as he greets farm workers in the papal gardens in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sept. 5, 2025. The pope inaugurated Borgo Laudato Si' the same day, officially opening the historic papal residence as a center dedicated to the principles of care for creation and human dignity outlined in Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si'. (CNS/Lola Gomez)

Legacy of 'green' papal teaching takes root at Vatican ecology center

Pope Leo XIV on Friday, Sept. 5 will inaugurate a new center for integral ecology on Vatican-owned property south of Rome.

Pope Francis releases a dove outside the Basilica of St. Nicholas after meeting with the leaders of Christian churches in Bari, Italy, July 7, 2018, for an ecumenical day of prayer for peace in the Middle East. Daniel Horan writes that Pope Leo XIV is carrying the late Francis' message forward in his own teaching, urging all people of goodwill to address the war on creation in our hearts and world. (CNS/Paul Haring)

Considering war and peace during the Season of Creation

We might take the Season of Creation as an opportunity not only for an examination of conscience, but also a time to meditate on war and peace in the human community, the cosmic community of creation and even in our own hearts.

ByDaniel P. Horan

All creation gives praise: Seeking God — and wonder — in the cosmos

The fullness and intensity of the Lord of the cosmos — through whom, with whom, and in whom all that is, is — is made present to us under the appearance of simple bread and wine of the altar. Everything that exists serves as the backdrop for that which is most wonderful and surprising of all: God comes to us.

ByLeonard J. DeLorenzo, OSV News
An oak tree stands in the middle of the village green in Blarney, Ireland. (Teresa Malcolm)
Guest Voices

Take a treeish point of view on this year's Season of Creation

To learn how to be seeds of peace and hope, consider the trees, which take a long time to grow and mature. They are seeds of peace and hope, too, "pointing to," as Pope Leo says, "the promise of new beginnings."

ByTobias Winright

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Pope's prayer for September: Respecting, protecting God's creation

Minnesota family stewards God's land into a rustic retreat for Catholic renewal

This 72-year-old vegan, weight-lifting nun is winning awards and turning heads

Culture

Morgan Spector plays George Russell, an amalgam of Cornelius Vanderbilt and his grandson William in HBO's "The Gilded Age." (HBO/Karolina Wojtasik)

'The Gilded Age' asks us to sympathize with the class that's destroying us

HBO's popular costume drama series "The Gilded Age" asks us to sympathize with people much like those currently running our country into the ground, writes Jim McDermott.

In her new book, Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter, America magazine's Colleen Dulle opens up about her own disillusionment with the institutional church throughout her tenure as a reporter – and why and how she's stayed Catholic despite the often devastating disappointments. (Chris Geerdes)
Book Reviews

Q&A with Colleen Dulle on keeping the faith when the church disappoints

In her new book, Colleen Dulle opens up about her disillusionment with the institutional church throughout her tenure as a Vatican reporter — and why and how she has stayed Catholic despite devastating disappointments.

ByOlivia Bardo

In 2025, the 'immortal' Henrietta Lacks is still receiving her due

An October event in Maryland will help cement her remembrance in Maryland medicine—and begin a new chapter of family advocacy.

ByNate Tinner-Williams, Black Catholic Messenger
Mia Threapleton in Wes Anderson’s "The Phoenician Scheme." When her father lures Liesl out of the convent to prepare her to take over the family business, father and daughter must reckon with their wildly opposing views of life, relationships and morality. (Universal Pictures)

The many faces of the movie nun

Cinema tends to reduce female characters to stereotypes, and nuns are not exempt. While some recent films (and a TV show) have upended the stereotype, there are still nun stories we aren't telling.

ByRebecca Bratten Weiss

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Seth Worley on directing 'Sketch' and empowering kids to make art out of pain

Mary on a mushroom cloud? 'Atoms for Peace' propaganda on display in NYC

'KPop Demon Hunters' and St. Teresa of Avila have a lot in common

Shooting 1 Families and loved ones reunite following a shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis Aug. 27, 2025. A gunman opened fire with a rifle into the church during Mass for Annunciation School's first week of classes, killing two children and wounding 21 people, most of them children. (OSV News/Reuters/Ben Brewer)

Monday Starter: In the wake of shootings, US sisters say, 'We must act'

Plus, LCWR plans pilgrimage to El Salvador and Honduras; sisters named among Lumen Christi award finalists; and the International Union of Superiors General will hold theological forum and Laudato Si' livestream.

A row of girls sit together.
Columns

Feast of the Nativity of Mary celebrates dignity of the girl child in India

"Let us pray and commit to protecting the dignity of every girl," writes Sr. Robancy A. Helen. "Let's create a society where girls are not viewed as burdens but as blessings."

By
Sr. Maria Obiomachukwu Osuji walks through the farm as she inspects crops cultivated by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ, in Aba, Nigeria. (GSR photo/John Chukhu)

Nigerian Catholic nuns fight climate change with faith, farming and trees

In southeastern Nigeria, better known for its sprawling markets than for environmental activism, Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ, are quietly leading a grassroots movement.

By
Sr. Seby Thomas, a member of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate, edits at her studio in Sultan Bathery in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. (GSR photo/Lissy Maruthanakuzhy)

Q&A with Sr. Seby Thomas on expressing social challenges through short films

"My focus is on contemporary themes that touch lives," says Sr. Seby Thomas, a member of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate. "I keep observing films, news and issues that come up in society."

ByLissy Maruthanakuzhy

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Women weave networks of wisdom and hope

The typhoon took everything, but God with us in the Eucharist sustained us

Q&A with Sr. Blanca Meza: 'Why do we see so few Black people in religious life?'