Gina Christian

Hope in Christ and that God's truth will prevail amid Russia's war on Ukraine was the message that Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the patriarchal head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, shared time and again during his Feb. 15-21 Jubilee Year pastoral visit to the United States.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that aims to expand access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a practice the Catholic Church warns is enormously destructive to embryonic human life.

A diverted trip, a grounded flight and an unexpected stay in Canada showed that "Jesus ... is in charge, not us," said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York in a Feb. 15 homily.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey announced he has engaged a law firm to investigate whether the current president of Seton Hall University, Msgr. Joseph R. Reilly, "acted appropriately" regarding disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Sunday Mass attendance in person at Catholic churches in the U.S. is back to pre-pandemic levels — although just under one quarter of the nation's Catholics are in the pews on a regular weekly basis.

As deadly wildfires ravage Los Angeles, Catholics are mobilizing to help those impacted.

A lawyer for abuse survivors has accused San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of "endangering kids" by allegedly refusing to release the names of credibly accused priests — charges the archdiocese strongly denies, citing its compliance with the church's norms for handling clerical abuse.

Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia has announced a new initiative to open hearts, rather than shutter parishes, in countering declining numbers both of faithful and of active priests in an archdiocese he has long called home.

Several Catholic high schools are mourning former students among the victims of a Jan. 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans.

The Catholic University of America is facing a "structural deficit of $30 million" that the school "must address through both budget cuts and revenue growth," said president Peter Kilpatrick in a Dec. 6 email to alumni. Kilpatrick pointed to a number of challenges in the nation's higher education landscape, citing "rising costs and increased competition for students."

In a Dec. 11 column for the archdiocesan newspaper, the Chicago cardinal wrote that "receiving the Eucharist is not a private action but rather a communal one, as the very word 'communion' implies."

Gayle Benson — owner and CEO of the NFL's New Orleans Saints, and owner and governor of the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans — was presented with the Catholic Near East Welfare Association's Faith & Culture Award at a Dec. 9 gala in New York.

The apostolic nuncio to Syria says he hopes the war-torn nation will "move toward reconciliation" and at least "some prosperity" under democratic rule, following former Syrian President Bashar Assad's ouster in a lightning offensive by rebel groups.
 

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner — the founder and director of the Institute of Anthropology at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — joined several safeguarding experts in releasing a joint proposal in Rome Nov. 18 advocating a change in church law on the handling of sexual abuse cases.

The Catholic Health Association of the United States said the national organization, along with the Catholic health community, is "shocked and grieved" by the public killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson at the hands of a masked gunman.

Amid controversy over religious-themed tattoos sported by President-elect Trump's pick for defense secretary, a U.S. office of a Vatican lay institution for the church in the Holy Land has expressed concern regarding the misuse of its historic insignia.

In the wake of recent high-profile cases of financial mismanagement at parishes, experts said transparency, accountability and greater involvement of finance councils in parish business operations can head off losses in money and trust.

As Russia's full-scale invasion reached the 1,000-day mark Nov. 19, Ukraine still stands as "a testament to the miraculous endurance of our people, to God's grace," said Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

"This war is really something that we have never seen," said Joseph Hazboun, the Palestine-Israel regional director for the Catholic Near East Welfare Agency-Pontifical Mission. "There is a systematic destruction of the infrastructure and what makes life possible in Gaza."