OSV News

Spain's Catholic bishops have adopted guidelines for tackling sexual abuse by clergy, while also urging the prohibition of surrogacy and restating the church's political independence in key upcoming elections.

President Joe Biden announced April 25 that he will seek a second term in the White House. Biden, a Democrat, is the nation's second Catholic president, but his reelection would make him the first Catholic to serve twice in the Oval Office.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill April 20 that will eliminate the state's requirement that juries in capital punishment cases agree unanimously to recommend death sentences, lowering the number of jurors needed to hand down a death sentence to the lowest threshold of any U.S. state.

Gusts of wind flapped the altar cloth and rippled the clergy's vestments during Mass on the farm and the blessing of the seeds in the Pieper family's cavernous hoop barn April 15.

On the very day Elon Musk launched SpaceX rocket Starship on its ill-fated maiden voyage toward space, that final frontier, Musk's company Twitter did boldly go purging blue verification check marks from users who had not signed up for its paid Twitter Blue service on April 20, including Pope Francis' Twitter accounts.

Many people in Central American countries are engaged in growing staple grains in an area vulnerable to extreme weather events. Twelve years ago, Catholic Relief Services began helping Central American farmers prepare for the toll climate has in their production cycles, working side by side with farmers to apply better and more efficient cultivation methods, soil management, and water resources.

Perhaps the strongest message to emerge from Villanova University's April 18 Second Annual Anti-Poverty Symposium — "Unitas in Action: Fighting Poverty and Living Sustainably" — is that the intersection between poverty and environmental destruction is no coincidence. In the global chain of pollution and profit, poor communities are almost always adversely and disproportionately impacted.

The three Catholic bishops of Tennessee and the Tennessee Catholic Conference have included their names on a letter to Gov. Bill Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly urging passage of gun safety measures.

An Oregon parish music minister has been arrested as part of an undercover child predator sting, according to the Washington County Sheriff's office.

The U.S. Supreme Court said April 14 it would temporarily keep in place federal regulations regarding the use of an abortion drug, giving the court additional time to consider a lower court's ruling to stay the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of the drug.

President Joe Biden said "the enemies of peace will not prevail" in Northern Ireland as he pledged the United States would continue to partner and support the region in building stability and future prosperity for its young people.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, D-La., called for an end to the death penalty in Louisiana during his final State of the State address, April 10, in an impassioned call for lawmakers to adopt legislative proposals reflecting its identity as a "pro-life state."

Catholics advocates and agencies in Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Flint, Michigan are responding to water pollution in their communities. All three cities have had or continue to experience clean water issues due to things like chemical and radiation contamination and aging infrastructure across the country.

The final document for the North American phase of the 2021-2024 Synod on Synodality was released April 12, capturing a process of dialogue and discernment that two participants described as 'messy,' 'joyful' and unifying -- like the synod itself.

At least 52,250 people have been killed over the last 14 years in Nigeria just for being Christian, a new report published April 10 revealed.

In their Easter messages, Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East encouraged the hope of the Resurrection to triumph over suffering in the region.

Amid calls for prayer and praise for first responders, officials confirmed that four people were killed in an April 10 mass shooting, Easter Monday morning, in a downtown bank in Louisville, Kentucky.

Catholic groups praised a United Nations' resolution adopted March 29 that calls on the International Court of Justice to outline countries' obligations for protecting the earth's climate, and the legal consequences they face if they don't carry these out.

It has been 10 months since a lone gunman with a high-powered weapon entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and took the lives of 19 children and two teachers, and things are far from normal.

A fire in a Mexican immigration detention center has claimed the lives of at least 38 migrants, who appeared to be abandoned by guards as flames engulfed their locked cells, according to a leaked video from the facility near the U.S. border in Ciudad Juárez.