Faith leaders join Democrats to decry health care cuts, expiring SNAP benefits

News

"We will not retreat, and we will use every nonviolent tool at our disposal, to call this nation, this Congress, to stop all of this partisan fighting and get down to the business of the people," said the Rev. William Barber II.

The Latest

Recognition of St. Newman is ecumenical celebration, leaders say

Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

Trump administration sets record-low refugee admission cap, with focus on white South Africans

Kate Scanlon, OSV News

With Gaza Strip situation fragile, Christian's ancient presence in Holy Land 'threatened'

OSV News

Editors' Choice

Socorro Cassaro holds up a picture of Augustinian Fr. Robert Prevost with a group of young people at Our Lady of Montserrat Parish in Trujillo, Peru. Prevost, the future Pope Leo XIV, served as parochial administrator of the parish from 1992 to 1999. (NCR photo/Justin McLellan)

In Focus

Prevost's Peru was a Vatican II laboratory of church renewal

In 1980s and 1990s Peru, amid post-Vatican II renewal and an Augustinian spirituality of communion, a young Fr. Robert Prevost learned how to construct the participatory church he now champions from Rome.

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Most Read Stories

Priests participate in the fifth annual Napa Institute-sponsored Eucharistic procession through the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City Oct. 14, 2025. (OSV News/Gregory A. Shemitz)
NCR Voices

#1
What a new survey of US Catholic priests does, and does not, tell us

The findings largely confirm the narrative that older clergy are far more liberal than younger. But there are still issues, less political and more theological, for further studies of U.S. priests to explore.

ByMichael Sean Winters
Sr. Marie Benedicte and Sr. Colomba, two Catholic nuns, harvest olives in their monastery's garden on the Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. (AP/Oded Balilty)

#2
On Mount of Olives where Jesus prayed, monks and nuns keep harvesting olives

The Gospel says Jesus spent the last night before being crucified at the Mount of Olives and the Gethsemane garden. Come October, monks and nuns are busy harvesting olives there as a form of prayer and reverence.

ByGiovanna Dell'orto, Associated Press
Pope Leo XIV and Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York, England, left, lead midday prayer with Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican Oct. 23, 2025. (CNS/Vatican Media)

#3
Former Anglican bishop predicts new wave of conversions to Catholic Church

A former Anglican bishop urges church leaders to prepare for a surge of Catholic conversions, as a historic Vatican visit by King Charles III coincided with a deepening division in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

ByJonathan Luxmoore, OSV News

#4
Pope urges Catholic teachers to focus less on professional outcomes, more on spiritual lives

#5
While out of sync with lay Catholics, conservative young priests are future of US church

#6
Five ancient and medieval saints who can speak to our modern world

Opinion

Celebrating our new doctor of the church: St. John Henry Newman

Your letters: Conservative priests and the future of the U.S. Church

Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor

Your letters: Conservative priests and the future of the U.S. Church

Letters to the Editor

NCR readers respond to analyses of the 2025 National Study of Catholic Priests. 

Editorial: As a nation grows sick and the rich grow richer, Catholics must act

Hope, real hope, is not naive expectation but moral defiance

A file photo shows migrant workers receiving lunch in San Diego, helped by parishioners from a local Catholic church that assists laborers in the area. (OSV News/David Maung)

To be authentically Christian still means to love your neighbor

NCR Voices

Too many people who hold political office today throw around words like "faith" and "Christianity" and "values," yet support dehumanizing practices that not only fail to love one's neighbor but also cause great harm.

Vatican

Pope condemns antisemitism and vows to fight it as tensions rise over Israel's war in Gaza

Pope Leo XIV acknowledged Wednesday that there had been misunderstandings and conflicts with Jews over Israel's war in Gaza. But he strongly confirmed the Catholic Church's condemnation of antisemitism and commitment to fighting it as part of Christians' Gospel-mandated friendship with the Jewish people.

Pope Leo XIV will pray at the site of the 2020 Beirut port blast in his first foreign trip

Pope Leo XIV will pray at the site of the 2020 port blast in Beirut that killed over 200 people and compounded Lebanon's economic and political crisis during his first foreign trip as pope next month that will also take him to Turkey to mark an important anniversary with Orthodox Christians.

ByNicole Winfield, Abby Sewell, Associated Press

Pope urges Catholic teachers to focus less on professional outcomes, more on spiritual lives

Pope Leo XIV urged Catholic teachers on Tuesday to focus less on pre-professional outcomes and more on educating students to have rich spiritual lives and use technology in ways that keep human dignity front and center.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass as part of the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Oct. 26, 2025. (CNS/Vatican Media)

Catholics must build a more humble church, seeking truth together, pope says

"We must dream of and build a more humble church," Pope Leo XIV said in his homily during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 26. The Mass marked the closing of the Oct. 24-26 Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies.

ByCarol Glatz, Catholic News Service

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

US Cardinal Burke celebrates old Latin Mass in St. Peter's in a sign of change

Pope: Opioid crisis, cruelty toward migrants are new social ills

Pope, British king share historic prayer in Sistine Chapel

EarthBeat

Roughly 150 people took part in a dialogue on labor and the environment in Appalachia Oct. 25 at the pastoral center of the Pittsburgh Diocese. The event marked the 50th anniversary of the Appalachian bishops' pastoral letter "This Land is Home to Me" and the 10-year anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." (Pinnacle Productions)

WV bishop urges boycotts for better pay at event marking Appalachia pastoral letter

At a dialogue on labor and the environment in Appalachia, Bishop Mark Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, lent his support to union-led boycotts to "foster a more just economy, more humane world."

This orange flower cloaks Mexico during Day of the Dead. Climate change is putting it at risk

The orange flower has become a symbol of the country’s celebrations that take place every Nov. 1 and 2. Also known as the "flower of the dead", the cempasuchil is believed to be a point of connection between the worlds of the dead and the living, with bright petals that light the path of dead souls to the altars set out by their family.

ByMEGAN JANETSKY , Claudia Rosel, Associated Press

Faith-based disaster relief groups mobilize to respond to Hurricane Melissa

Disaster relief groups have moved supplies into place, mobilized volunteers and started raising funds to respond to Hurricane Melissa, which has killed more than 20 people and flooded out thousands in the Caribbean.

ByBob Smietana, Religion News Service
A farmer in Turkana County, Kenya, shows crops grown on his land. Sisters of Mercy operate a skills training center and health center in the area, providing practical skills and hope for people affected by drought.(Gitonga Njeru)

Catholic nuns combat psychological toll of climate change on rural Kenyan communities

 The sisters' work had always been about care. But the climate crisis demanded a new approach. They were not just feeding bodies; they were nourishing souls. 

By

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

More than 230 pilgrimages across the US mark 10 years of Laudato Si'

Tackle ecological debt, protect biodiversity and change hearts, says Vatican diplomat

Vatican News

Vatican pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 28%

Culture

Bifolio from a "Choir Book," Spanish, 1400-1450. (Michael Centore)

New 'Painted Pages' exhibit at University of St. Joseph beautifies prayer

When does the artistic process cross over into prayer? This small, but well-curated exhibit featuring manuscripts from the "golden age" of handmade books obliterates distinctions between calligraphy and visual art.

A drone view shows the ruins of a church and buildings in the village of Marinka (Maryinka) in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region of Ukraine May 15, 2025. The village was destroyed during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. (OSV News/Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko)

Filmmakers tell story of Ukraine's persecuted Christians 'hunted' by Russia

Directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Yaroslav Lodygin, the documentary features on-the-ground, often intensely emotional interviews with Ukrainian Christians from a number of denominations who have been systematically persecuted by Russian occupiers.

ByGina Christian, OSV News
"Mr. Scorsese," Rebecca Miller's five-part documentary out now on Apple TV+, traces the famed director's career exploration of blasphemy and salvation, devotion and rejection, sin and grace. (Apple TV+)

For 'Mr. Scorsese,' faith — like cinema — is unfinished business

"Mr. Scorsese," Rebecca Miller's five-part documentary out now on Apple TV+, traces the famed director's career exploration of blasphemy and salvation, devotion and rejection, sin and grace.

ByJose Solís
(Unsplash/Aaron Burden)
Book Reviews

The Catholicity of Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way'

Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, first published in 1992, has sold over 5 million copies. Catholic creatives say the book and its spirituality have been transformative.

ByJean P. Kelly

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Book Reviews

New book demythologizes Mary, emphasizes her political and ecclesial role

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

Book Reviews

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

Two women sit at table drinking tea.
Columns

Ancestral connections and the love that shapes us

"When I connect with the ancestors now, I feel them at my back, holding me up, giving me strength, encouraging me onward," writes Sr. Corbin Hannah.

A woman dressed up as "La Catrina," a Mexican character also known as "The Elegant Death" watches the La Catrina parade in Mexico City Oct. 26.

Dia de los Muertos offers connection and a way to grieve together

In Mexico City, surrounded by strangers with costumes and painted faces in the midst of one of their most exuberant celebrations, I felt something I had missed in the United States: connection.

By
Sr. Brenda Hernández, of the Mexico-based Daughters of Mary Immaculate of Guadalupe, poses in front of a Day of the Dead altar built by students at the Catholic Colegio Tepeyac Mexicano run by her order in Mexico City.

Mexico's Day of the Dead celebrates life in 'another dimension'

"It's a feast. But for me, it's one illuminated by faith," Sr. María Celina Mota Campos said. "I believe we can call it the feast of life, of life after death."

ByRhina Guidos
A woman lights a candle on the grave of her mother at the Manila North Cemetery during All Saints' Day in Manila, Philippines, Nov. 1, 2022. (CNS/Reuters/Lisa Marie David)
Columns

Take time to re-member on All Saints' and All Souls' Days

When we re-member, we consciously recall those persons, places, or things that are needed if we, those living now, are to be whole. We are the ongoing integration of all we have experienced throughout our lives.

ByNancy Sylvester

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Zambian sisters address gender-based violence by focusing on healthy relationships

Q&A with Sr. Marie-Agnes Suwanna Buasap, award-winning anti-trafficking activist

The grace of coming together as Sisters of the Good Shepherd