“For those who attend Mass, visit chapel offices, or participate in faith formation on a U.S. Army installation, you likely noticed, that beginning on Sunday, 5 October 2025, contract services and contractor offices were dark and music was absent during Mass,” the archbishop said in a letter addressed to members of the military archdiocese, which he said will also be sent to all members of Congress.
US Politics
Posted inFaith and Reason
Catholics and conversion therapy bans: The problem with free speech objections
Therapy is a professional practice with standards of care. To reframe it as a matter of “free speech” is to miss the point entirely.
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
Catholic Relief Services is on the ground in Gaza as humanitarian surge begins
Winter shelters and clean water will be top priorities for Catholic Relief Services as massive humanitarian effort begins in Gaza.
Posted inDispatches
Can canonizations in Rome help free political prisoners in Venezuela?
Will the upcoming canonizations of José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros and Mother María Carmen Rendiles Martínez, the first saints born in Venezuela, encourage a renewed effort toward the common good in the South American nation?
Posted inShort Take
Pope Leo praised ‘healthy secularism.’ What might that mean for U.S. Catholics?
Catholics, Leo suggests, should neither attempt to dominate the political sphere nor separate themselves from it.
Posted inDispatches
Eucharistic procession turned back by feds at Broadview ICE detention facility
Jesuits and other Catholic and Christian clergy were turned back by ICE when they tried to bring the Eucharist to detained immigrants in Broadview, Ill.
Posted inNews
Amid historic deal, Gaza pastor says little is left after ‘tsunami’ of destruction
Palestinians have returned to see only mostly rubble in Gaza City as hundreds of aid trucks slowly made their way out of a gigantic Rafah crossing queue on Oct. 12.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo pleads for a just peace as cease-fire in Gaza holds
As ceasefire in Gaza holds, Pope Leo XIV urges a just and lasting peace in the Holy Land and the ’disarming’ of our hearts.
Posted inYour Take
Your take: Charlie Kirk’s assassination and its aftermath
In an online piece titled “Who is being served by making Charlie Kirk a saint: God or Caesar?,” Father Sawyer wrestled with the political and spiritual remembrances of Mr. Kirk in the wake of his assassination. He questioned the evangelical effectiveness of attempting to convert people to Christ through politics and wrote: “I fear that whatever the best intentions of Mr. Kirk or his pastor or others connected to his Turning Point USA organization, the approach they take to politics results in treating the Gospel more as a means than an end.” Our readers had much to say in response.
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
After the government shutdown ends, will the U.S. be heading back to the future on health care?
Sister Mary Haddad, head of the Catholic Health Association, on the precarious state of U.S. health care—before and after the shutdown