OSV News

"You have become the light of our Church in the entire world," Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa told Gaza Christians Dec. 22 during a pre-Christmas visit aiming to bring the joy of the season to the suffering Christian community in the Gaza Strip.

Indiana Rep. Bob Morris, R-Fort Wayne, recently filed legislation to repeal the death penalty in Indiana and had asked Gov. Eric Holcomb in a letter to delay the execution of Joseph Corcoran at least until the state General Assembly could consider his bill.

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 the nine days before Christmas, the predominantly Catholic Philippines begins its traditional novena of daily dawn Masses in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary prior to the birth of her son Jesus Christ.  Filipino-Americans have brought the tradition to their adopted homeland and added some multicultural flair to their celebrations.

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."

Police in Madison, Wisconsin, said they are investigating a mass shooting at that city's Abundant Life Christian School Dec. 16 that left at least two killed and six injured, authorities said. The gunman is also dead, they said.

On Pope Francis' 88th birthday, two major newspapers published two different excerpts from his new book on hope. The New York Times published the pope's words on the importance of humor, while Italy's Corriere della Sera ran the pope's recollection of his March 2021 trip to Iraq, revealing that two suicide bombers had been planning to attack him, but were intercepted and killed by police.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 13 agreed to hear a case from the Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, in which the agency argued a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court denying its religious exemption from paying into the state's unemployment insurance system.

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.

His efforts resulted in a retreat that ended with Pope Francis kissing the feet of warring South Sudan leaders — a gesture that shocked the world in 2019. Now the Jesuit priest has received a prestigious peace award for his groundbreaking work.
 

The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump plans to rescind a long-standing policy preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests at what are seen as sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals, according to a report by NBC News.

President-elect Donald Trump's plans to launch a mass deportation program could crash the economy by increasing inflation and unemployment and undermine trust in the U.S. military, some witnesses said at a Senate hearing Dec. 10.

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, activists on both sides of the abortion debate have been left to grapple with some lack of clarity from him on the issue.

The U.S. bishops' conference was among the groups that urged President Joe Biden on Dec. 9 to commute existing federal death sentences before President-elect Donald Trump, who has sought to expand the use of capital punishment, returns to the White House.

"I invite you to join me in prayer for the Church and people of Nicaragua, who celebrate the Purísima" — as the Nicaraguan celebration of the Immaculate Conception is known — "as Mother and Patroness," and lift to her "a cry of faith and hope," Francis said during his Angelus prayer on Dec. 8.

"Do not only remain dazzled by the beauty of the stones found, but let yourselves be led to the greatest joys, to the most beautiful gift that God gives you and gives us of his loving presence, of his closeness to the poorest, of his transforming power in the sacraments," preached Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich. 

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.

Sudanese Catholic Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali of El Obeid Dec. 2 described narrowly escaping execution in his country, where he has remained with the faithful amid a deadly war between the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.