Franciscan Media

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

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.
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A boy kneels in prayer before an image of Blessed Carlo Acutis during eucharistic adoration April 7, 2022, at St. Rita of Cascia Church in the South Bronx, N.Y. (OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz, CNS)

Pope Recognizes Miracle Needed for Church’s First ‘Millennial’ Saint

May 24, 2024
Pope Francis formally recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old Italian teenager whose birth in 1991 will make him the first “millennial” to become a saint.
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Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio, Southern Sudan, delivers the homily during Mass at Old Mission Santa Barbara in California Oct. 13, 2019. Since the May 19, 2024, disappearance of Father Luke Yugue, who ministers in the diocese, and his driver Michael Gbeko, government authorities have not given concrete information about the condition of the men, according to Bishop Kussala. (OSV News photo/Octavio Duran)

South Sudan bishop urges government to find missing priest, driver dead or alive

May 23, 2024
As a South Sudanese bishop planned a memorial Mass for a priest and driver who went missing in late April, he demanded the authorities find the men dead or alive.
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Kansas City Chiefs' Harrison Butker celebrates winning Super Bowl LVII with his children in Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 12, 2023. In a May 11 commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., Butker told graduates, "There is nothing good about playing God with having children -- whether that be your ideal number or the perfect time to conceive. No matter how you spin it, there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control." (OSV News photo/Caitlin O'Hara, Reuters)

Catholic women push back at Butker graduation speech

May 22, 2024
Several Catholic professional women, as well as an order of women religious, have challenged a controversial graduation speech by NFL player Harrison Butker.
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During a prayer service and candlelit procession at Sacred Heart of Jesus/Sagrado Corazón de Jesús in Baltimore April 8, 2024, Manuel Alonso wears a custom shirt with the flags of national origin for the six crewmen who perished in the March 26 collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. (OSV News photo/Kevin J. Parks, Catholic Review)

Mass remembers workers killed in bridge collapse, sailors, seafarers

May 21, 2024
The annual "Mass for the Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Mariners and People of the Sea" celebrated at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington honored the memory of six Hispanic workers who lost their lives in the ...
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Mexican migrant workers pick blueberries during a harvest at a farm in Lake Wales, Florida, U.S., March 31, 2020. (OSV News photo/Marco Bello, Reuters)

Fatal bus crash in Florida a reminder of how farmworkers are largely forgotten

May 20, 2024
Victims of a fatal bus accident that claimed the lives of eight migrant farmworkers were remembered at a prayer vigil.
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A general view shows the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris March 30, 2024, with a new spire topped by the rooster and the cross, as restoration works continued following a devastating fire in 2019. (OSV News photo/Gonzalo Fuentes, Reuters)

As cross and tower bells return to Notre Dame, firefighters’ chaplain recalls battle to save icon

May 17, 2024
The cross over Notre Dame's choir and the eight bronze bells in the north tower can now be reinstalled in their rightful place in the iconic Paris cathedral.
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