The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration will travel to Nogales, Ariz., from March 30 to April 1 to tour the U.S.-Mexico border and celebrate Mass to remember 6,000 migrants who have died in the U.S. desert since 1998. • Vatican medical experts reported on March 6 that there is no natural

Cardinal Peter Turkson on March 3 highlighted the importance of religious freedom because it concerns “each person’s freedom to live according to their own deeper understanding of the truth.” Cardinal Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, was speaking

A questionnaire to gather feedback for next year’s Synod of Bishops on the family has been the source of some confusion since it was delivered to bishops’ conferences around the world in October. In preparation for the international meeting, the synod’s secretary general, Archbisho

Hunger, not religion, is the root cause of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, said Charles Steinmetz of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. “A hungry man is an angry man. If there is no job and you cannot feed your family or kids, it leads to extremism,” said Steinmetz, a visiting assistant

Several U.S. bishops wrote short reports giving a general sense of the responses to a survey for the Vatican in preparation for the upcoming synod on the family. Common among the comments was that Catholics admit to a poor understanding of the church’s teachings on the family. The Rev. Dennis

Pope Francis has done it again, generating a global media frenzy with just a few words that referred to the church and its relationship with gay and lesbian people. In a recorded interview with Italian media published on March 5, Pope Francis said that while the church believes “matrimony is b

Jean Bethke Elshtain, an ethicist, scholar and author, died on Aug. 11 in Nashville at age 72. • Calling the program “deeply needed” by many, U.S. Agriculture Department undersecretary Kevin Concannon expressed his gratitude on Aug. 19 to Catholic leaders for championing the Supplem

“The church in the United States has a moral and ethical imperative to protect human dignity and must address the problem of mass incarceration in our nation,” the leaders of Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A. said in a statement issued on Feb. 7 in Newark, N.J. The coalition incl

In a speech to the Congregation for Bishops, Pope Francis said bishops should act not like ambitious corporate executives but as humble evangelists and men of prayer, willing to sacrifice everything for their flocks. “We don’t need a manager, the C.E.O. of a business, nor someone who sha

Nigeria is in a state of shock after the killing of 59 students at a government-run college by Boko Haram Islamic militants in the northeastern state of Yobe during the night of Feb. 25. Two days later another attack on a village claimed 12 more lives. During the school attack, the militants spared