Mark Pattison

The commutation Dec. 13 of all condemned prisoners on Oregon's death row was one key in the Death Penalty Information Center's 2022 report on capital punishment in the United States.

The 90-minute documentary, "The Letter," a film on the pope's 2015 encyclical Laudato Si', is currently on YouTube and will air Dec. 21 on PBS. 

A provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law this summer by President Joe Biden, increases the size of the tax credit for conversions to renewable energy and makes nonprofit entities, like parishes, eligible to receive the tax benefits themselves.

In a year that had little good news for immigrants in a nation of immigrants, there were some wins.

Latinos may be changing American politics more than politics is changing Latinos.

Abortion-related questions -- and Americans' responses to them -- were front and center in the new American Values Survey issued Oct. 27 by the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute.

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the U.S. bishops' landmark pastoral letter "The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response."

The Federal Communications Commission has authorized that technology be made available to inmates with hearing disabilities so that they may be able to communicate with loved ones and lawyers.

The image of a white victim does not tell the complete story of clergy sexual abuse in the United States, according to a number of panelists during an Oct. 5 online forum titled "Neglected Voices in the Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis."

The current farm bill doesn't expire until 2023, yet already Catholic advocates are lining up their arguments to assemble the kind of farm bill they want to see next year.

If trends of the past 30 years continue for the next 50, Christianity will lose its majority status in the United States by 2070, according to a new demographic study by the Pew Research Center.

The number of Catholic institutions where at least some of its employees have union representation has grown to more than 600, according to the annual "Gaudium et Spes Labor Report" by the Catholic Labor Network.

This year's annual Labor Day statement from the U.S. bishops touts two bills awaiting action in Congress as being helpful to children, women and families: the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and an expansion of the federal child tax credit.

Only 18 of the 176 dioceses got a grade of 60% or better -- what the Voice of the Faithful considered a passing grade when it released the report July 13.

Despite their pro-life bona fides, a five-member panel at a July 14 Georgetown University forum voiced their hesitancies with the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned the court's landmark Roe v. Wade ruling 49 years earlier.

Political commentator Mark Shields, who died June 18 at age 85, often wore his Catholic faith on his sleeve in his columns, commentary and talks around the country.

Jesuit Fr. Sam Sawyer has been named the editor-in-chief of America magazine, a national weekly Jesuit publication based in New York. Currently a senior editor and the director of digital strategy at America Media, of which the magazine is a part, Sawyer will start in his new role Dec. 1

Labor advocates were urged to follow the legacy of Msgr. George Higgins, the foremost "labor priest" of the 20th century, during a May 2 forum celebrating the Chicago priest's efforts on behalf of workers.

A new study conducted for the bishops by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found that among seminarians slated for ordination this year the percentage who are white is 63%, down from 65% last year.

The cost of food in the United States has been going up as of late, but that's not the biggest problem as this year's growing season begins. What's a bigger problem than high prices? You name it: dry weather, climate change, war and spot food shortages around the world.