Catholic News Service

Pope Francis has appointed Msgr. Francis Malone, a pastor and the chancellor for ecclesial affairs in the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, to be the bishop of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen will be beatified Dec. 21, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria announced late Nov. 18.

During their two-hour group meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican Nov. 15, the Catholics bishops of the New York region experienced a "free and open discussion of many of the challenges and opportunities our church is facing," Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone said Nov. 18.

Bolivian bishops are organizing talks between political factions as protests against the nation's new government become increasingly deadly.

The Vatican's Christmas tree will be adorned with energy-saving lights, the governing office of Vatican City said.

Interreligious dialogue is an important way to counter fundamentalist groups as well as the unjust accusation that religions sow division, Pope Francis said.

Five days before his scheduled execution, death-row inmate Rodney Reed was granted an indefinite stay of his execution. 

The poor are the church's treasure because they give every Christian a chance to "speak the same language as Jesus, that of love," Pope Francis said, celebrating Mass for the World Day of the Poor.

When Pope Francis met with bishops from New York state, he expressed his gratitude, recognizing the difficulties many of them were facing, said Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany.

U.S. Catholics "have to be prepared for another wave of traumatic narrative" regarding the clergy sex abuse crisis, Archbishop Charles Scicluna said Nov. 13 at the University of Notre Dame.

Pope Francis' translator in Thailand will be Salesian Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, the pope's second cousin and a missionary in Thailand for more than 50 years. 

Following through on a proposal made at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, Pope Francis said there are plans to include a definition of ecological sins in the church's official teaching.

A new Pew Research Center survey issued Nov. 15 gauges the influence religion has on Americans' lives and the hold Catholicism and other Christian religions has on their adherents.

Chile's bishops called for national dialogue and an end to the violence that has wracked the country for the past month.

One year after the U.S. bishops approved their pastoral letter against racism, the document is hardly just sitting on a shelf but is the basis for listening sessions in dioceses around the country and is an educational tool for individuals, schools and parishes, the bishops were told Nov. 13.

The U.S. bishops, aware of the growing numbers of Catholics in the country who are of Hispanic origin, voted to write a new pastoral plan for Latino Catholics that would be produced sometime between 2021 and 2024.

A third-party reporting system to field sexual misconduct allegations against bishops could be in place by the end of February, an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told the bishops during their fall general assembly in Baltimore.

Pope Francis warned that violence against Jewish people, which reached a state of horror during World War II, is on the rise again.

In a wide-ranging report on immigration Nov. 12, U.S. bishops heard a grim landscape facing immigrants and refugees trying to find shelter in the United States. But they also heard of the wide network of Catholic organizations trying to help, even as they, too, face challenges.

The long nights and rain of November eventually lead to the expectation and joy of Advent and Christmas, which reminds people that Christian hope is the only way forward through difficult moments, said Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, New York.