OSV News

The Polish bishops' conference expressed sympathy and prayers and appeals for funds after weekend flooding wreaked havoc across Central and Eastern Europe.

Father Peter Sanen Nguyen Van Hieu, head of Caritas in Hai Phong Diocese, said fishermen, farmers, those who have lost their homes and people with HIV will face significant challenges in the coming months.

As the superior general of the Sacred Heart order appealed to Polish authorities to ensure an arrested Polish priest's "dignity" is "respected," defenders have accused the country's government of using Father Michal Olszewski as a political prisoner and urged the Catholic Church to speak up on his behalf.

Amid an unprecedented U.S. presidential election cycle, Catholic voters should reflect on fostering key principles of Catholic social teaching — such as respect for human life, solidarity and the common good — through dialogue and civic engagement, panelists said at a discussion event Sept. 11 hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

Perseverance, fortitude, grit and calm in the face of a storm often accompany the description of prominent athletes. At the funeral Mass of deceased brothers Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau Sept. 9 at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Media, however, it was their wives who emulated the aforementioned attributes as they took turns giving words of remembrance for their fallen husbands.

A coalition of Western Apache people, along with other Native American and non-Indigenous supporters, under the banner of the non-profit Apache Stronghold, asked the U.S. Supreme Court Sept. 11 to protect their sacred site at Oak Flat, Arizona, from destruction by a copper mining giant after a federal appeals court rejected their request.
 

Through a quarter-century as a Catholic maritime minister, Father Bill Reynolds, 73, has conducted three burials at sea, presided at countless Masses aboard ship, accompanied families dealing with a medical crisis, and provided a spiritual presence for passengers and crew members alike.

The first two days of presentations of the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress in Quito, Ecuador, contrasted the hardships currently faced by many people in different parts of the world with the prophetic responses that the church can provide in times of crisis.

"Today we repeat to all those in charge the words of Jesus from today's Gospel: 'Ephphatha,' open your eyes and see the reality, see how children, the elderly, the sick in hospitals, and people living in the countryside are suffering from the smoke of the fires, from the smoke that covers the purest sky in America," Auxiliary Bishop Stanislaw Dowlaszewicz of Santa Cruz de la Sierra said.

The United Nations Annual Prayer Service was held at the Church of the Holy Family on East 47th Street, just across First Avenue from United Nations headquarters. The yearly service is offered by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.

As Kenya mourned the 21 young boys killed in a school dormitory fire Sept. 6 in Kieni, Archbishop Anthony Muheria of Nyeri said the church was heartbroken and urged Christians to stay close to the affected families. The tragedy at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in the central Kenyan county of Nyeri has drawn anger and shock, as Kenyans recall similar tragedies and a promise for government action on safety in schools. As of Sept. 9, 17 children remained missing.

The passage of 23 years has only strengthened Frank Siller's resolve that first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the soldiers lost in the war that followed will never be forgotten. Siller is founder, chairman and CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, established by his family to honor the sacrifice of their youngest sibling, Stephen.

As volunteers from a rural parish and farmworkers mostly hailing from Mexico set up for an outdoor dinner next to a tobacco field in Colerain, they put a cake on the long table with food that said, "Dios Camina con su Pueblo." Those words, "God walks with his people," encapsulate what many volunteers try to show farmworkers in the Diocese of Raleigh through their visits.
 

The Irish government is to set up an official commission of investigation into sexual abuse at schools run by Catholic religious orders after a preliminary inquiry highlighted widespread complaints over decades.
 

James Earl Jones, a distinguished actor known for his resonant voice and a Black Catholic, died Sept. 9 in Dutchess County, New York, at age 93. Jones' passing coincided with the feast of St. Peter Claver, a patron saint of Black Catholics.

River flooding forced the temporary closure of the famous grotto at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France. The shrine complex remained open to visitors. A morning Mass, however, was canceled Sept. 7 at the major Catholic pilgrimage site, which has experienced several major floods in recent years.

"I could really use my prayers right now. My school is getting shot up." The text message arrived at 10:39 a.m. Sept. 4 on youth minister Tania Martinez's phone.
 

Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe said the plaque "stands as a permanent and painful reminder of the suffering endured by victims of clergy sexual abuse within our archdiocese."

More than two months after 5-year-old Loan Peña went missing in the northeastern Argentina town of Nueve de Julio, the church continues to promote marches to demand his captors release him.

The results of local elections in eastern Germany's regions of Thuringia and Saxony prompted German bishops to call for "responsible" formation of a government, even under "difficult" circumstances as the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won over 30% of the vote.