Alejandra Molina

Congress approved the transfer of the land at Oak Flat to Resolution Copper in 2014 in exchange for 6,000 acres elsewhere, but the Western Apache claim that the site has unique spiritual meaning.

A window for filing new lawsuits under a 2019 California law for decades-old abuse will close Dec. 31.

"It's important that we unify, and we work together, and share the teachings to protect our sacred areas because once God, once our sacred and holy places are gone, we will no longer exist. Our religion will be gone forever," said one Native American activist.

'The government protects historical churches and other important religious landmarks, and our site deserves no less protection,' Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr. said.

A new NBC News/Telemundo poll focusing on the Latino electorate found that 41% of Latinos who do not currently claim Catholicism as their religion said they had previously been Catholic.

The process of converting bodies into soil is now legal in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 18 signed a bill that will allow human composting in the Golden State.

Members of Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit working to protect the Apache sacred site in Arizona known as Oak Flat, are requesting a rehearing in their case against the United States as they seek to stop a private venture from turning the land into an underground copper mine.

"What they're describing is total devastation. For a lot of people, everything has been wiped away," said a spokesperson with Catholic Relief Services.

The report, "Beyond Bad Apples," explores the links between clericalism — clergy's focus on its authority — and clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse. 

With Roe v. Wade overturned, new data from the Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute found that among Latino Catholics, 75% say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. That's a big jump from the 51% who said so in 2010.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the government can proceed with the transfer of Oak Flat to a private venture that's planning an underground copper mine. The Apache Stronghold coalition said they will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Burial, cremation and alkaline hydrolysis are the only death care choices currently available in California. The California Catholic Conference said the human composting process "reduces the human body to simply a disposable commodity."

"We want to expand what people think, when they think of who has a stake in reproductive justice, and how it relates to religion," said one of the film's directors.

Catholic bishops in California have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a case challenging a state law that expands the time survivors of childhood sexual assault have to file their claims.

"It's important for me as a trans person, as Latinx, to take place and to bear witness that even someone like me can follow the ways of Jesus and maybe imagine another possible world."

Four men were killed by death squads in El Salvador decades ago. Now, as the martyrs are closer to official sainthood, Salvadorans in the U.S. hope the designation could inspire the church to center the poor and marginalized.

Mientras que los cuatro mártires están un paso más cerca de la santidad, los salvadoreños en los Estados Unidos esperan que la designación pueda inspirar a la Iglesia Católica a centrarse en los pobres y marginados.

To learn his new role, Smith connected with the Catholic Labor Network, a nonprofit that promotes the cause of workers and Catholic social teaching in labor unions and parishes. 

A lay Catholic group in Baltimore is pushing the pope to canonize six Black candidates. They also seek to change the canonization process to recognize the hardships African Americans have endured.