OSV News

Sixteen parishes in the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, will be reconfigured into seven parishes, with five churches closing, in order to optimize the diocese's resources for its future and evangelization, the diocese announced Jan. 25.

An upcoming webinar series hosted by a U.S. bishop will explore synodality through the prism of Jesus Christ's words at the Last Supper.

While trying to increase food production and yet reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment, the farmers are faced with rising costs, including soaring energy prices. They feel they are being unfairly accused of going against ecological concerns by the European Union.

Cardinal Gérald Lacroix of Québec has announced he will temporarily step aside from his duties, after he was named in court documents Jan. 25 in connection with a class-action sex abuse lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Québec in 2022.

The Supreme Court Jan. 24 rejected an appeal by death-row inmate Kenneth Smith, whose planned execution by the state of Alabama -- the first known execution by nitrogen gas -- was openly decried by more than 100 Alabama faith leaders just days earlier.

Cardinal Michael Czerny has warned that humanity is in danger of "losing its home" as the world continues to reel from the effects of climate change. The prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development made the comments Jan. 20 in Cotonou, Benin, during a roundtable on the Green Church Program, an initiative of the Archdioceses of Cotonou that was launched in March 2023.

The bishop of Covington has rescinded permission for two priests to minister in his diocese after they publicly dismissed the contemporary celebration of Mass in the Roman rite as "irrelevant."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 allowed Border Patrol agents to cut through or remove razor wire that Texas installed on a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the state's effort to prevent illegal border crossings.

After authorizing blessings for homosexual couples, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, is facing backlash from multiple national churches and certain clerics across the globe.

The situation in the Gaza Strip is "extremely catastrophic," and people are dying not only from violence but from preventable illnesses, said the CEO of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Shortly after New Year's Day, 32 kidnapped migrants appeared in the border city of Rio Bravo, Mexico, after a media storm over their disappearance -- having been forced off an intercity bus by a drug cartel convoy.

Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, passed away unexpectedly late Jan 19 due to complications from recent health problems, according to a post from the diocese. He was 63.

Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria has ended publication of The Catholic Post, the newspaper of the Diocese of Peoria founded nearly 90 years ago, and announced that "as we look to the future, we will develop new strategies in a wider communications plan."

Catholic Energies, an initiative of the Washington-based Catholic Climate Covenant, has converted three of the Passionist order's sites to solar energy, in New York, West Hartford, Connecticut, and — just since this past September — San Juan, Puerto Rico.

With a Wisconsin judge suspending his last remaining criminal trial for sexual abuse, former cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been granted a legal reprieve -- but clergy abuse survivors told OSV News the decision is a kind of "re-sentencing" for them and many fellow victims.

The Michigan Attorney General's Office Jan. 8 released its second of seven expected reports related to clergy sexual abuse in Michigan's seven dioceses and outlined its findings related to abuse allegations in the Diocese of Gaylord.

One of the most dangerous vices is gluttony, turning people who are meant to be custodians of creation into mere consumers and even exploiters and predators, Pope Francis said Jan. 10 at his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall.