OSV News

More than 66,000 people -- over half of the total population of 120,000 -- have fled Nagorno-Karabakh as of Sept. 27, abandoning the historic Armenian enclave (known in Armenian by its ancient name, Artsakh) located in southwestern Azerbaijan and internationally recognized as part of that nation.

Imprisoned Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez has been nominated for the European Parliament's top human rights award, reflecting the international attention the prelate has received for defending religious freedom and becoming the face of resistance in an increasingly totalitarian country.
 

At the beginning of the 10th month of 2023, Florida might execute its sixth death-row inmate of the year; a person whose lawyers and death penalty foes say has suffered from intellectual disabilities and carries a deep sense of remorse.

The 2023 Farm Bill should prioritize food security measures both in the United States and abroad, Catholic activists said.

A surge in migration through Mexico during the month of September has provoked a "migratory crisis," according to Catholics who are working with migrants, as shelters strain to handle increasing flows of people heading for the U.S. border -- with even more continuing to pour into the country from points south.

The Biden administration has made a bid to support both clean energy and jobs for young people with the creation of the American Climate Corps. The announcement was greeted with "excitement and hope" by Kayla Jacobs, program manager of youth mobilization at Catholic Climate Covenant. "Initiatives like this are one of many steps that are needed for a sustainable and just future," she said.

A U.S. Ukrainian Catholic archbishop was honored by Ukraine's president for his decades-long efforts to foster that nation's development.

The United Nations held its first-ever "Climate Ambition Summit" Sept. 20 — a conference that included 41 countries, but excluded both the United States and China because the U.N. invited only leaders from nations with concrete plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett discussed the importance of academic freedom and offered career advice in remarks to law students at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law in Washington Sept. 21.

Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Cardinal Louis Sako said he would like more Vatican support as he tries to regain formal recognition as the Chaldean patriarch in the country.

Grim developments on the southern U.S. border and the "frustrating" lack of immigration reform were on the minds of some 1,500 Southern California Catholics at the annual Mass in Recognition of All Immigrants Sept. 17 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

A religious order priest serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has been arrested and charged with possessing hundreds of images of child pornography.

In what is thought to have been the largest climate change rally since 2019, an estimated crowd of as many as 75,000 demonstrators from some 700 organizations and activist groups paraded through the streets of New York City Sept. 17 in the "March to End Fossil Fuels."

October's general assembly in Rome for the Catholic Church's Synod of Bishops on synodality aims to address human reality -- not abstractions -- in order to more effectively share Jesus Christ and his Gospel with others, said Bishop Daniel E. Flores, a U.S. member of the global assembly's preparatory commission.

Catholic activists called on Congress to ensure funding for migrant services is protected in upcoming appropriations bills at a Sept. 13 event near the U.S. Capitol.

A federal judge declared unlawful a revised version of a program that offers protection from deportation to certain immigrants brought to the country as children. The program has been in place for more than a decade and has nearly 600,000 recipients.

As authorities in Libya announced a three-day mourning period following a deadly flood disaster, Bishop George Bugeja, apostolic vicar of Tripoli, expressed the church's closeness to the people, many of whom are injured, missing or trapped by the storm waters.

A New Mexico archbishop said the state's temporary ban on openly carrying firearms in and around Albuquerque is not "a threat to the Constitution."

A Holy See delegation at a Sept. 11-14 meeting of nations that are parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions urged nations that have not yet done so to sign the treaty, which "prohibits under any circumstances the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions."

The Justice Department and the manufacturer of an abortion drug asked the U.S. Supreme Court Sept. 8 to overturn a lower-court ruling that would limit access to the drug, setting the stage for the high court to weigh in on the future of the drug's availability.