Trafficking is known as modern-day slavery because human beings are essentially bought and sold in a highly profitable industry. The International Labor Organization reported in 2014 that traffickers earn $150 billion annually.

The Adorers of the Blood of Christ have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether their religious freedom rights were violated by the construction and pending use of a natural gas pipeline through its land.

The firestorm surrounding the clergy sex abuse crisis and the way some bishops handled allegations of abuse against priests will be an important part of the agenda of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' fall general assembly.

The good news from the U.S. Census Bureau Sept. 12 was that the poverty rate dropped for the third straight year in 2017 and median family incomes ticked up 1.8 percent to nearly $61,400.

A Pennsylvania religious congregation planned to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether their religious freedom rights are being violated by the construction and pending use of a natural gas pipeline on its land.

The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference and Caritas India are among 19 Catholic institutions that have decided to divest from the fossil fuel industry.

Fifty years ago in an act of civil disobedience, Bob Graf and 13 of his friends broke into nine neighboring draft boards in a Milwaukee office building, grabbed thousands of 1-A records of men about to be called up, doused them in homemade napalm in a nearby park and set them afire.

An independent lay-run board that would hold bishops accountable for their actions, a national day for Mass or prayers of reparation, and encouragement to parishioners to become more involved in their diocese are among steps suggested by prominent lay Catholics to right the U.S. church as it deals with a new clergy sexual abuse scandal.

In a July 25 ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit agreed with the lower court that the Adorers of the Blood of Christ had not made their religious objections known during the federal administrative process that led to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline.

50 years ago, black priests wanted to feel accepted for who they were: African-American clergy who could share a rich cultural heritage but were feeling suppressed by white-dominated church leadership.