Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso and Bishop Edward J. Burns of Dallas write: Texas officials are poised to shutter several religious ministries, which would leave foster children without homes and immigrant children in mass facilities. Unless something changes, this will happen on Aug. 31, in violation of state laws protecting religious freedom. Across… Read More Texas Bishops: Don’t Shut Down Our Assistance to Vulnerable Migrant Children

Brian Roewe reports: A bolder embrace of Laudato Si’ in the U.S. requires rejecting individualism, indifference and the “false idol of economic growth” that permits reckless exploitation of the environment, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said at the start of a conference seeking to bolster the response of the nation’s Catholics to climate change and the… Read More Cardinal Cupich: Flawed Understanding of Freedom Has Led to Environmental Crisis

Franciscan Action Network hosted their third panel discussion on Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Focusing on its approach to economics, Millennial writer Meghan Clark and Anthony Annett discussed the encyclical’s central parable of the Good Samaritan and how each person takes on a different role in the story in their various stages of life. They… Read More What Fratelli Tutti Teaches Us About Economics

via Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin,  Archbishop of Newark: I am deeply concerned that the proposed federal budget would eliminate the Hyde Amendment, which, for 45 years, has prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion. The Hyde Amendment is credited with saving the lives of millions of children. Now, the powerful pro-abortion lobby and members… Read More Pope Francis Ally Cardinal Tobin on the Importance of the Hyde Amendment

via Philip Pullella: Pope Francis…put 20th century statesman Robert Schuman, one of the founders of modern Europe, on the path to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church…. Schuman, who served as French prime minister and foreign minister in the immediate post-World War II period, also played a role in the founding of NATO. In 1950… Read More Robert Schuman, a Father of Europe, Declared Venerable

Franciscan Action Network hosted the second in a series of four panel discussions on Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, with panelists Olga Segura of NCR and Ralph McCloud of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. They discussed the encyclical and offered their thoughts on systemic racism and anti-racist efforts.