Camillo Barone

The medal recognizes what organizers described as the pontiff's lifelong advocacy for religious liberty and freedom of conscience — principles embedded in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey commuted the death sentence of Charles "Sonny" Burton, sparing the 75-year-old inmate from a scheduled execution on March 12.

As war spreads across the Middle East following the conflict that erupted Feb. 28 between the United States, Israel and Iran, a senior Iranian cleric has turned to Pope Leo XIV.

Bishop Paolo Martinelli, based in Abu Dhabi, finds himself guiding a church that must navigate pastoral life amid geopolitical shock waves. The church itself has had to adapt, he told NCR in a recent interview.

Catholic pilgrims visiting the Holy Land have been stranded in Israel and the West Bank after the rapid escalation of hostilities between the U.S., Israel and Iran triggered widespread airspace closures across the Middle East.

On Ash Wednesday, three religious crossed into the ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, the first time in months that Catholic leaders had been allowed inside to administer sacraments to detainees.

NCR interviews Fr. René Constanza, whose reelection as president of the Paulist Fathers comes at a moment of both continuity and challenge for one of the most distinctly American Catholic orders.

The bishops' conference issued a stark critique of plans to double federal immigration detention capacity: "The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American."

Behind gestures toward accountability lies a quieter crisis that New York Archbishop Hicks just inherited: uncertainty about long-term solvency, uneven communication with clergy, and increasing ideological polarization.

Cardinal Blase Cupich led a Mass in Chicago, which was attended by relatives of those who have been detained or deported. Cardinal Joseph Tobin celebrated Masses inside an ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey. 

A longtime associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a two-time presidential candidate, Jackson forged enduring alliances with Catholic priests, sisters and lay activists who marched, prayed and strategized alongside him in the struggle for racial and economic justice.

Bishop Robert J. Brennan issued a letter to clergy and parishioners Feb. 12 announcing that the Diocese of Brooklyn intends to pursue a settlement of approximately 1,100 lawsuits filed under the New York Child Victims Act.

Roots of Peace has a straightforward proposition: remove lethal land mines and replace them with agriculture. Clear contaminated land, then plant high-value crops that can support families and local economies.

At his installation Mass, Archbishop Ronald Hicks described a church that feeds the hungry, upholds human dignity, protects children, promotes healing for survivors, cares for creation and builds unity.

Archbishop-designate Ronald Hicks sketched a pastoral tone rooted in simplicity, shaped by evangelization, attentive to immigrants and the poor, and focused on building a missionary church that reaches outward.

The Jesuit and writer's new book, Work in Progress, is "a memoir, and also a social justice document, a vocational narrative, and an examination of how ordinary work quietly forms a conscience."

Catholic leaders at the national and local levels are calling for calm, prayer and renewed respect for human life following the Jan. 24 killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis.

In Nuuk, Greenland's capital, a Catholic community of about 300 people — many of them Filipino immigrants — is following international debate over the future of their home with concern, detachment and quiet attention.

"These have been tense days, lived in a tense calm and with mixed feelings," said Archbishop Jesús González de Zárate, the Venezuelan bishops' conference president, in an interview with NCR days after the attack on Caracas.

"Like most leaders of any large organization, it's the people's issues, the financial issues and the strategic issues that keep them awake at night," Matthew Manion said.