OSV News

The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee called on Congress May 28 to preserve the Hyde Amendment in any federal budget proposal and “to work toward a budget that truly builds up the common good of all.”

San Jose Bishop Oscar Cantú urged prayers for the victims and their families after a gunman opened fired the morning of May 26 at a rail yard operated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, or VTA, north of downtown San Jose.

Prayer is not a magic wand or a way to ask God to be at one’s service, Pope Francis said. Prayer is a humble dialogue with God to grow spiritually and discover his will for the world, the pope said May 26 during his weekly general audience.

George Floyd’s death left “a hole in the hearts of his family and friends” and “a hole in the fabric of our society,” said the director of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd May 25, the first anniversary of Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

The Syriac Catholic patriarch said the situation in Syria “continues to be humanly unbearable and devastating” and risks emptying the war-torn country of its Christian community for good.

The chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace invited Catholics in the United States to offer prayers for the people of China and the well-being of the Catholic Church in that country May 23-30.