When President Joe Biden delivered his inauguration speech on Jan. 20, 2021, he used the word “unity” eight times. The first time he used it was to say it’s required “to restore the soul and to secure the future of America.” The last time he used it to say that “together, we shall write an American story … of unity, not division.”
Each year at Easter, thousands of people across the country are welcomed into the Catholic Church. They are drawn by a number of reasons, but one that particularly stands out — as the Church is in the middle of a three-year Eucharistic Revival — is the Church’s teaching and emphasis on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Catholics and other faith groups held a prayer vigil on the steps of California’s state Capitol in Sacramento June 5 while state senators honored a member of the anti-Catholic drag group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
When a van dropped off 16 migrants at the Diocese of Sacramento’s pastoral center on Friday, June 2, staff responded as the Church routinely does in emergency situations — help first, ask questions later. The migrants were brought to a parish and eventually given a hotel room.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation June 3 banning certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures in Texas for minors who identify as transgender.
Catholic bishops in Florida urged Gov. Ron DeSantis to stay the execution of a death-row prisoner as the governor embarks on a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
A state school board in Oklahoma voted June 5 to approve the nation’s first publicly funded religious school.
In one sense, priests are no different from other people. They feel the need to step away from the typical routine for a few days to refresh and recharge. There’s always the beach, the woods, the big city.
Labor experts and Catholic organizations have voiced concern over legislative developments in Ohio that could impact the right to strike for unionized employees at the state’s public colleges and universities — while the Catholic sponsor of that same legislation says it’s designed to protect the students those employees serve.
The Catholic Church has a role to both promote racial healing and help dispel the fears that many people have of those who are unlike them, said Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry, who was recently named chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism.
