OSV News

An explosion at the St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church campus in Gaza has left the administration building in ruins, and at least 17 people dead, though numbers have not yet been officially confirmed.

The Vatican, especially Pope Francis, must double its efforts and urge the international community to end the massacre of Palestinians killed in Gaza in the Israel-Hamas war, Palestine's ambassador to Denmark said.

Retired Bishop Tod D. Brown, the third bishop of the Diocese of Orange, died early Oct. 15 at Providence St. Joseph Hospital after being hospitalized, according to the diocese. He was 86.

Bright green plants at Bishop Walsh School in Cumberland in western Maryland owe their existence to fish, drawing nutrients for their growth from the cold-blooded vertebrates' waste. There's no soil around — only fish, water, plants and a system of overhead lighting, all fastidiously tended by students at western Maryland's only pre-K-12 Catholic school.
 

Eight priests have been transferred to a prison notorious for torture and deplorable conditions as the Nicaraguan regime again ramps up its repression of the Catholic Church.

On the day the world celebrates efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity, a bishop in Ethiopia was warning that his people were still dying of hunger, a year after a ceasefire ended a deadly conflict in the northern region of Tigray.

The longtime president of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana will step down at the end of the current academic year to return to teaching and ministry at the school.

Catholic colleges and universities throughout the U.S. have condemned a devastating attack on Israel, while calling for prayers for peace.

The message of Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum echoed loudly across Africa, where millions of ordinary people are victims of the global climate crisis.  

A Jesuit priest who directs an ecumenical institute in Jerusalem told OSV News he feels "a deep sense of compassion for what Israelis and Palestinians" are experiencing amid a war that has so far killed at least 2,300.

Even though Hispanics account for more than 42% of U.S. Catholics, the number of U.S. born Hispanics serving the church -- as lay ministers, women and men religious, seminarians, priests and deacons -- has remained relatively low. Looking to increase the number of young Hispanic Catholics serving the church, diocesan offices, theologians and educators are exploring ways to invest in this population, with a renewed hope of revitalizing ministries and faithful engagement throughout the U.S. Catholic Church.

When the U.S. bishops gather for their fall plenary assembly Nov. 13-16 in Baltimore, they will elect a new secretary and chairmen for six standing committees for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The death toll in one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike Afghanistan in two decades has risen to 2,000, Taliban officials confirmed on Oct. 8.

Several U.S. bishops called for prayers for peace following Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem united in a call for peace and justice amid unfolding violence, following a surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel, which has left over 700 Israelis dead, among them civilians and dozens of soldiers and police who were killed battling the Hamas fighters. Over 2,000 people were injured. Israeli media said that more than 250 bodies had been recovered from the site of the music festival that was attacked by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

Birds whistled, grass rustled and many bumblebees buzzed at an Illinois parish Sept. 24 for the dedication of a prairie restoration project to St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology and animals. 

Homeland Security publicized a decision Oct. 5 to waive 26 federal laws to allow the building of 20 more miles of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, an expansion long opposed by the U.S. Catholic bishops.

Before he became Florida's sixth inmate to be executed in the state this year, convicted murderer Michael Duane Zack concluded his final statement Oct. 3 with a message: "To Governor DeSantis and the Clemency Board: I love you. I forgive you. I pray for you."

A Catholic priest and three Catholic teachers in Cameroon's troubled southwest region are recovering from bullet wounds after they were shot in what church authorities say was a targeted attack on a Catholic primary school Sept. 26.