Faith, News

Bishops call for comprehensive gun reform

by Catholic News Service March 6, 2018

The voices of the Parkland shooting survivors “should ring in our ears,” the bishops said.

03.05.2018 Pope Francis greets people during an audience with Italian nurses in Paul VI hall at the Vatican March 3. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Dispatches, Faith

Five years in, Americans’ love of Pope Francis remains strong

by Michael J. O’Loughlin March 6, 2018

According to a new Pew Research Center poll, 84 percent of U.S. Catholics hold a “favorable” view of Pope Francis.

20180228T1216-1389-CNS-GRAHAM-CAPITOL-HONOR

Faith, Features

Who will be the next Billy Graham?

by Jon M. Sweeney March 5, 2018

People have been asking this question for decades.

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The last government shutdown -- well, threatened shutdown, anyway -- seems so long ago. The nine-hour "funding lapse" of Feb. 9, like the three-day shutdown that began Jan. 20, hinged on how Congress was going to address the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Donald Trump said he would end March 5. He also called on Congress to pass a measure to save the program, created in 2012 by President Barack Obama via executive order. In the January shutdown, Democrati

News, Politics & Society

Update: Immigrants, advocates navigating post-DACA-deadline landscape

by Mark Pattison - Catholic News Service March 5, 2018

In the January shutdown, Democratic lawmakers backed down on their threat to keep the government closed until a DACA deal was reached. ment funded through March 23 was overshadowed by the $1 trillion spending package of which it was a part.

Mark Gomez, a lay leader of Encuentros Juveniles in the Miami Archdiocese, listens during the Encuentro gathering on Feb. 23 in that city. (CNS photo/Tom Tracy)

Dispatches, Faith

Why do Hispanics leave the church? The Encuentro project aims to find out.

by J.D. Long García March 1, 2018

The fifth version of a project started by the U.S. bishops in 1972 goes to the peripheries of the church to welcome back Hispanics.

Betty Shadrick, of Albany, N.Y., center, with the United University Professions union, rallies in support of unions outside of the Supreme Court on Feb. 26 in Washington. The court is considering a challenge to an Illinois law that allows unions representing government employees to collect fees from workers who choose not to join. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Dispatches, Politics & Society

Union fees: where the U.S. bishops and the Becket Fund disagree

by Ellen K. Boegel February 28, 2018

U.S. bishops are defending an Illinois law that permits government employees to join together in bargaining units and, by majority vote, designate a union to collectively represent them in contract negotiations and employment disputes.

Dispatches, Politics & Society

Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich: Listen to young people about guns

by Michael J. O’Loughlin February 28, 2018

“The youth of our nation are shaming the adult world into action.”

Activists and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, march up Broadway in New York City on Feb. 15 during the start of their "Walk to Stay Home," a five-day 250-mile walk from New York to Washington to demand that Congress pass a clean DREAM Act to save the program. (CNS photo/Shannon Stapleton, Reuters)

Dispatches, Politics & Society

‘Lives in the balance’: U.S. bishops’ call-in urges action for Dreamers

by J.D. Long García February 26, 2018

“Now is the time to pass legislation that enables the Dreamers to become citizens and full contributing members of our society,” said Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles.

Arts & Culture, Dispatches

Reaching the unchurched: Paulist Productions brings good news from Hollywood

by Jim McDermott February 21, 2018January 11, 2026

“For the Paulists part of the mission is supposed to be reaching out to the unchurched.” The best ways to do that are constantly shifting. These contemporary leaders of Paulist Productions look on that fluid landscape with optimism.