More than two dozen undocumented students at Catholic colleges sent a letter on Feb. 5 to 79 members of Congress who graduated from Catholic schools, urging them not to cut off funding for the president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. • Church leaders criticized the arre

Assisted suicide is legal in only four states currently, but several other jurisdictions are considering legislation on the practice. A California bill resembles the Oregon law approved by voters there in 1994, but it has some significant differences. The California proposal does not include a consc

Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador will be beatified in San Salvador “certainly within the year and not later, but possibly within a few months,” said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator, or chief promoter of the archbishop’s sainthood cause. Speaking to reporters on Feb

The challenge to find new ways for women to be “full participants in the various areas of social and ecclesial life…can no longer be postponed,” said Pope Francis, speaking on Feb. 7 with members of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The pope said a “more widespread and inc

$330 million of financing will go to aid Ebola-impacted countries.

When the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on the constitutionality of the executions by lethal injection in Oklahoma, its ruling will probably not be a tipping point toward the elimination of capital punishment in the United States, but some experts say it could be the beginning of the end of this pract

Violence against women, cultural pressures regarding women’s physical appearance, attitudes that subjugate women or that ignore male-female differences and the growing alienation of women from the church in some parts of the world are themes the Pontifical Council for Culture is set to explore

The world’s first Jesuit community college—Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago—is scheduled to open at the university’s Water Tower Campus on Aug. 17. The college, named for the late Pedro Arrupe, S.J., a former Jesuit superior general, aims to provide prospective stu

If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down federal subsidies that have helped millions of people obtain health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, it will be “an incredible cruelty,” said Carol Keehan, D.C., the president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Associatio

The cause for the beatification of Chiara Lubich, founder of the international Focolare Movement, was opened on Jan. 27 in a celebration in the Cathedral of Frascati, near Rome. • Shower facilities for homeless people in Rome will open in St. Peter’s Square on Feb. 15, but the service wil