OSV News

As Spain mourns the death of over 200 victims of the biggest peacetime disaster in decades, volunteers poured into the country's Valencia region to give a helping hand in cleaning up and to offer support to the devastated community.

Father Patrick Carrion, director of Cemetery Management for the Baltimore Archdiocese noted that burying without embalming has been done for centuries. Natural decomposition also respects the body, which in Catholic teaching is "made in the image and likeness of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit."

Pope Francis, the king of Spain, bishops and politicians decried the devastation and loss of life in southeast Spain amid horrendous floods that left thousands of people homeless and city streets unrecognizable.

The Oct. 20 presentation of "Groomed" gave its writer-performer, its audience and those who brought the project to life an opportunity to share intense, personal reflections about sexual abuse of children.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has announced it will discontinue its partnership with the Girl Scouts of the USA due to the organization's "impoverished worldview regarding gender and sexuality," which conflicts with Catholic teaching.

The countdown has begun for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral throughout the weekend of Dec. 7-8. As the last pieces of scaffolding are being removed on the outside, Culture Minister Rachida Dati has proposed introducing an entrance fee to visit Notre Dame, which has caused a stir.

The pontiff's message, which was recorded amid the final days of the Synod on Synodality in Rome, was posted on the YouTube channel of the Archdioceses of Lima Oct. 24. Francis said Gutiérrez was a man who "knew how to stay silent when he needed to be silent, who knew how to suffer when he had to suffer, and who managed to bring forward so much apostolic fruit and such rich theology."

Both prelates will be directing their respective followers to take part in the rivalry by making donations to baseballunites.com, a site that will direct funds to both the New York-based John Cardinal O'Connor School and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' Catholic Education Foundation. Whichever team wins the World Series will earn their region's educational institution 60 percent of what's raised; the losing region will get 40 percent.

A number of U.S. Catholic dioceses and their bishops have issued statements disavowing fake Catholic newspapers that have resurfaced in swing states ahead of the presidential election to target Catholic voters on key issues.

Daniel Hernández Rabanales, along with his wife, Cristina Robledo, never tire of helping migrants — whether feeding caravans or providing meals from a small soup kitchen named for Mother Teresa or taking care packages to the local prison for migrants being held behind bars.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told OSV News that the late Father Gustavo Gutiérrez's theological work will leave a lasting contribution to the Catholic Church in seeing "signs and the peculiarities of the time" and to view them through "the light of the Gospel" that leads not only to change in pastoral practice but "to change society, the conditions of life and to make it better according to (everyone's) dignity."

"Climate and environment policies are one issue that we need to bring to the voting booth — there are lots of others," said Catholic Climate Covenant executive director and founder Dan Misleh. "I would encourage people to understand Catholic social doctrine, and our Gospels — and bring that to the voting booth."

In a letter dated Oct. 21 and posted on the Peruvian bishops' conference website, the apostolic nunciature in Peru announced that the decision was made after the pope evaluated allegations revealed during a Vatican investigation last year.
 

Russia's latest blockage of Western religious websites and social media accounts tightens the Kremlin's chokehold on Russian residents' information access, the editor of a Ukrainian religious news outlet told OSV News.

The U.S. bishops are gathering in Baltimore Nov. 11-14 for their 2024 fall plenary assembly, which takes place just weeks after the conclusion of the second session of the Catholic Church's synod on synodality in Rome.

A diverse group of religious organizations weighed in to ask the Supreme Court to protect an Apache sacred site from destruction by a copper mining giant, including Catholic ones: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Columbus, and Notre Dame Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, all filed friend of the court briefs, also known as amicus briefs, in support.

"My ministry in a nutshell is to be kind, compassionate, and forgiving because that's what Jesus would want us to do," Deacon Anthony Liguori Jr. said. "Most of all, we should love one another like he loved us. That's how I operate my life."

Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico — who in January 2022 released the pastoral letter "Living in the Light of Christ's Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament" — said in his Oct. 14 statement that the "well-deserved recognition" of Nihon Hidankyo by the Nobel committee was a wake-up call to humanity.

Two federal civil lawsuits, each seeking $75 million, accuse the Missouri dioceses of Springfield-Cape Girardeau and Jefferson City of covering up clergy sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s and also of enabling the priests who allegedly committed the abuse.

Speaking about poverty at Catholic Charities of Baltimore's "Journey to Social Justice" symposium, the Pulitzer-winning author and Sociology Professor, Mathew Desmond, said "We don't need to outsmart this problem. We just need to hate it more."