News & Commentary

Bishop Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, Calif., the main celebrant, distributes Communion to a detainee during a Mass on the grounds of the ICE Processing Center near Adelanto, Calif., Dec. 10, 2025. Attendees said the Mass, which took place in the Mojave Desert, was deeply emotional for both the bishops and the roughly 300 detainees present.

California bishops celebrate ‘very powerful’ Mass for detainees in ICE facility

OSV News December 19, 2025

A group of seven California bishops celebrated Mass at the ICE Processing Center outside the town of Adelanto in the Mojave Desert on December 10, providing communion to the roughly 300 detainees present.

Arms trade is a ‘plague,’ pope says on flight back from Africa

OSV News February 6, 2023

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM AFRICA (CNS) — At the end of six days in African countries bloodied by war and conflict, Pope Francis said that “the biggest plague” afflicting the world today is the weapons trade. Tribalism with its ...

Protesters stand with a sign reading "Racism Is Our Longest Plague" in Washington Aug. 28, 2020, during the "Get Your Knee Off Our Necks" Commitment March on Washington 2020 in support of racial justice. (CNS photo/Tom Brenner, Reuters)

Racism leaves mark on U.S. housing, wealth creation, say panelists

OSV News February 3, 2023

When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued its stark appraisal of the endurance of racism in U.S. society with the pastoral letter "Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love" in November 2018, the national reckoning with race ...

Pope Francis caresses the cheek of a woman whose hand was amputated in the violence that continues to plague the eastern part of Congo. The pope met victims of violence Feb. 1, 2023, at the apostolic nunciature in Kinshasa. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Victims of violence in Congo share their grief with pope

OSV News February 2, 2023

Pope Francis had planned to go to Goma in the violence-torn North Kivu province, but increased fighting forced him to cancel the trip to the East to protect the crowds that would gather to see him.

Mothers are pictured in a file photo at a home in Silver Spring, Md. Activists at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering Jan. 30, 2023 discussed how to be pro-woman, pro-worker and pro-family. (OSV News photo/CNS file, Bob Roller)

Affordable child care key component of post-Roe response, advocates say

OSV News February 1, 2023

Affordable child care must be a core component of a post-Roe response from the Church, advocates at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering said on Jan. 30.

People who fled fighting in South Sudan are seen in a file photo walking at sunset on arrival at Bidi Bidi refugee camp near the border with South Sudan, in Yumbe, Uganda. (OSV News photo/James Akena, Reuters)

‘He is the only hope we have,’ say refugees in South Sudan about pope’s visit

OSV News January 31, 2023

Pope Francis is taking off for the African continent Jan. 31 for a historic and long-awaited apostolic trip to Congo and South Sudan, countries longing for peace and stability.

Israeli security personnel work at a scene where a suspected incident of shooting attack took place, police spokesman said, just outside Jerusalem's Old City Jan. 28, 2023. Jerusalem spiraled into a weekend of violence as seven Israelis were killed Jan. 27 at a synagogue after prayers and another shooting the next day left two Israelis injured just outside of the Old City in the Palestinian village of Silwan where Jewish settlers have established themselves and an archaeological site. (OSV News photo/Ammar Awad, Reuters)

Christian quarter targeted as Jerusalem spirals into weekend of violence

OSV News January 30, 2023

Following a rampage of a radical Jewish gang in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City on the evening of Jan. 26, the Assembly of the Catholic Ordinaries in the Holy Land called on political and religious authorities to bring ...