OSV News

A former business manager at a suburban Philadelphia parish has been charged with stealing more than $1.1 million, allegedly diverting funds through his private companies while billing the parish as a subcontractor.

On the World Day of the Poor, Nov. 16,the bishops released "Our Daily Bread: Food Security and the Call to Solidarity," a 10-page pastoral letter issued through the conference's Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace.

A stakeholder — and next owner — of the Chicago White Sox baseball team said Pope Leo XIV told him that he'd "love to" throw a season opening first pitch in the future — "schedule permitting."

The Catholics of Dublin have a dedicated cathedral for the first time in 500 years following Pope Leo XIV's decision on Nov. 14 to designate St. Mary's Pro Cathedral as the Irish capital's official Catholic cathedral.

A high school student attending the event said it was "really cool" to see Leo on the livestream and he answered "questions that I'd been holding in my heart."

OSV News spoke with Bishop Daniel Garcia of Austin, Texas, moments after the Nov. 20 announcement of his appointment as the inaugural chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation.

Prominent Catholic philosophical and legal scholar Robert George has resigned from the board of the conservative Heritage Foundation, saying he "could not remain" without its president fully retracting a video defending a controversial interview, platforming a leading white supremacist, that has split conservatives over the issue of antisemitism.

When bishops from Poland and Germany gather to commemorate one of Europe's most famous acts of reconciliation, discussion will focus on its historic significance and continued meaning for the present.
 

In a joint statement released Nov. 13, the bishops pointed to church teachings related to immigrants and encouraged the state's Catholics to sign a pledge demonstrating their commitment to prayer and energy on behalf of migrants. The Cabrini Pledge, which is named after St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, was introduced by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in September.

" … I'm also saying this as a Catholic, I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church," the Trump administration official said.

Bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, religious and lay Catholics from across the country participated in the three-day event, including Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey.

On the feast of the patron saint of immigrants — and a day after the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a special pastoral message on immigration — a coalition of Catholic organizations held a second wave of prayer vigils across the country Nov. 13 for what organizers called "a national day of public witness for our immigrant brothers and sisters."

"From when he was a child until he became a priest and then left for Peru, he has always been somewhat the same person," said Vatican News journalist Salvatore Cernuzio.

Catholic bishops in the Caribbean are calling for dialogue, cooperation and calm amid rising geopolitical tensions that have seen a U.S. military buildup in the region. Such tensions compound a number of ongoing crises in several Caribbean nations, several of which are now also grappling with extensive damage from Hurricane Melissa.

More than 320 bishops from across the U.S. streamed into the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore Nov. 10 to celebrate Mass on the first day of their fall assembly.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Nov. 10 a case that asked it to revisit its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The 2015 ruling overturned state laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, a decision the head of the U.S. Catholic bishops at the time called a "tragic error."

The U.S. Supreme Court has moved to temporarily block full payments necessary to fund SNAP, a program providing food support to millions of Americans with low incomes, after the Trump administration asked the court to hear its request to issue only partial payments in November.

A former director of stewardship and development for the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese has been arrested and charged with theft. Federal prosecutors allege he stole more than $150,000 using his diocesan credit card.

"It does not matter whether some of our brothers and sisters have proper documentation or not," Archbishop Alexander Sample declared in a Nov. 8 statement. "They are our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ."

A federal appeals court will hear arguments in January about state laws in Texas and Louisiana requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms.