Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas designated Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) on March 3. In response to this designation and the growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration, Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington, praised the move.
As Ukrainians turn to their faith amid the ongoing tragedy of Russia’s invasion of their nation, many who follow both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions will look to an unusual icon of Mary as a symbol of the solace they seek.
Representatives from the business sector, faith groups and grassroots organizations that support immigration reform sent Congress a letter March 2, a day after President Biden’s first State of the Union address, urging lawmakers to act on immigration because “simply put, the system is broken.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 prompted many commentators to focus on critiquing strategies and predicting side-effects like higher U.S. gas prices. Catholics were among the global voices providing broader viewpoints — such as Christ’s call for peacemaking, compassion, and justice — to help understand the evolving crisis.
As Pope Francis and Catholics throughout the world did on Ash Wednesday, March 2, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory prayed and expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they are enduring a brutal Russian military invasion of their country.
Lent, the spiritual season of prayer and sacrifice, has an extra pull to it this year because once again — and now for the third time — it will be under the cloud of the coronavirus pandemic.
The a four-person delegation from the Diocese of Brooklyn joined an “immersion” trip to tour the collaborative work shared by Sister Norma Pimentel and Catholic Extension to help thousands of asylum seekers stuck at the U.S./Mexico border.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed a friend-of-the-court brief on March 2 in support of a former high school football coach who sued a school district after he lost his job in 2015 for refusing to stop kneeling and praying on the fifty-yard line after games.
In response to a lawsuit filed by the conservative political advocacy group CatholicVote to access communications between the Biden administration and Catholic humanitarian entities at the southern Texas-Mexico border, Sister Norma Pimentel encouraged the organization to come and see the work at the border for themselves.
In his first State of the Union address March 1, President Joe Biden emphasized the crucial need to come together as a nation while facing challenges of the continuing pandemic, rising inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
