Catholic News Service

There is no denying the fact "this is a pandemic of historic proportion," Dr. Anthony Fauci told students at Jesuit-run Georgetown University in a recent online webinar focused on young people's risks and responsibilities in mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

As the coronavirus pandemic commands global attention, for those working at organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, the health crisis is one in a long list of emergencies staff must tend to in its mission to help the world's poorest.

Former Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mkapa, a Catholic who led several regional peace mediation efforts, died July 24. He was 81.

As Ethiopia prepares to open the continent's largest hydroelectric dam, East African Catholic leaders emphasize water is a resource that must be shared equitably.

A firm that has filed previous legal complaints against former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick and church entities added another complainant July 21 against the defrocked prelate, leveling a new accusation that he allegedly abused its new client as a boy at a beach house in Sea Girt, New Jersey, in the early 1980s.

Never shy about her views, staunch pro-life advocate and radio program host Gloria Purvis considers racism as much a sin as abortion.

China has announced that Bishop Paul Ma Cunguo of Shuozhou, a Vatican-recognized bishop, has joined the official state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

Thousands of saints have been canonized after thorough investigations into their lives, while the causes of many other candidates have been suspended or closed when there is insufficient evidence of sanctity, or the lack of miracle. But there are also causes that have been closed or delayed due to proverbial "skeletons in the closet."

Bishop Broderick Pabillo, apostolic administrator of Manila, defended a recent pastoral letter issued by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines criticizing the Philippines' newly passed anti-terrorism law.

Pope Francis made a surprise visit to 100 children of Vatican employees attending a summer camp on July 20, walking there alone from his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Advocates had hoped finance officials from the world's wealthiest nations would have done more to help desperately poor nations further struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the virtual meeting left many debt-related issues unresolved.

The beheading of a statue of Christ at a Catholic church in the Miami Archdiocese has saddened the parish community of Good Shepherd Church and prompted Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski to call on law enforcement to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

Schools and a Catholic parish in New Jersey expressed pain but also offered prayers following the killing of 20-year-old Daniel Anderl, son of a federal judge, who was a student at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

Middle Tennessee's immigrant and refugee communities have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 virus. In response, parishes and Catholic Charities of Tennessee have been trying to provide the spiritual and material support they need to persevere through the pandemic.

Prior to the July 17 execution of Dustin Honken, a 52-year-old man from Iowa, Catholic leaders, including the bishops of Iowa, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and the Benedictine priest who had been Honken's spiritual adviser for 10 years, pleaded for a lesser sentence or at least a delay.

As finance ministers representing the world's wealthiest countries prepare to meet online, Caritas Internationalis echoed Pope Francis' call for debt relief to poor countries reeling from war, poverty and the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead of one simple message, the Bible is "a library produced over a millennium with multiple and often diverging responses to very difficult situations, said Jesuit Fr. Dominik Markl, a scholar at Rome's Pontifical Biblical Institute.

Catholic organizations and others who fear that proposed changes by the Trump administration will all but eliminate the asylum system rushed to meet a July 15 deadline to make their voices heard. 

Bishop Eugenio Scarpellini of El Alto, Bolivia, died July 15 after contracting COVID-19. He was remembered by colleagues as a tireless promoter of missions.

After the Supreme Court cleared the way for the second federal execution in a week, 68-year-old Wesley Purkey was killed by lethal injection at the penitentiary July 16 in Terre Haute, Indiana.