Brian Roewe

As debate around the Green New Deal continues, count more and more Catholics and religious leaders among those taking a closer look at the ambitious blueprint to address climate change.

Bishops welcomed it. Clergy abuse survivors said it didn't go far enough. Other Catholics saw it as a necessary, but not final, step. Those were prevailing initial reactions to new norms issued Thursday by Pope Francis for addressing clergy sexual abuse. 

Several dioceses located near important maritime trade centers and ports are among the dozen latest Catholic institutions to commit to divest financial holdings from fossil fuels.

While hospitals play a pivotal role in treating patients and communities dealing with health issues developing from the fallout of rising temperatures, they also represent a major source of pollutants.

Similarities between Laudato Si' and the Green New Deal go beyond attacks calling them radical and socialist. The documents share an approach that takes on both environmental and social problems.

This October, a Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazonian region will mark the Catholic Church's most serious reentry into the ecological arena since 2015's environmental encyclical.

Pope Francis' Laudato Si' positioned the church to be a prominent voice on climate change. But despite that energy, there's still a feeling that Catholics have the potential to do more.

The announcement from the Episcopal Conference of Austria appears to be the most sweeping fossil fuel divestment to date made by Catholic bishops.

Kansas City, Missouri: The decision by the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas to deny admission of a kindergarten student with same-sex parents has stirred division within the parish and rekindled tensions between the Catholic Church and LGBT community.

On Ash Wednesday, Genesis Butler, who had challenged Francis to adopt a vegan lifestyle during Lent, shared a letter of thanks she received on behalf of the pope.

Just days after the Vatican abuse summit, Leadership Roundtable released proposals for reforming the clerical culture that permitted sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults to persist.

Organizers have said that if the pope accepts the challenge, a donation of $1 million would be made to a charity of his choice by the animal advocacy Blue Horizon International Foundation.

Four Catholic Workers were charged with property damage after they attempted earlier this week to shut off valves on a northern Minnesota pipeline as part of a non-violent action to curtail "the imminent and irreversible damage being done to the climate" by the fossil fuel industry.

The bipartisan bill, which aims to place a price on carbon emissions, is "a hopeful sign" that legislators are taking climate change seriously, says Bishop Frank Dewane.

The plight of refugees "requires our sympathy, our solidarity and our care, rather than any kind of strict legal treatment," Turkson told the audience at the Kansas City Jesuit university.

Begun in 2013 between two California schools and now including 20-plus nationwide, the Go Move Challenge seeks to do just what it says: get faculty and staff at Jesuit campuses moving each February, with the most active minutes of exercise crowned the champ.

KATOWICE, POLAND - Msgr. Bruno-Marie Duffé, head of the Holy See delegation at COP24, sees "a gap between the urgency" of needed decisions and the commitment of some delegates.

The annual U.N. climate change conference, COP24, began Dec. 2 in coal-dominant Katowice, Poland, amid sense of foreboding at the present pace of response to climate change.

When Hurricane Maria ripped through the Caribbean in September 2017, it transformed tropical paradises into disaster zones in mere days. It also cut off an economic life vein for many of the impacted islands: tourism.

The three-day public portion of the fall general assembly concluded with no final decisions, in part due to a Vatican request to delay votes on proposals until after a February meeting in Rome.