Days after Pope Francis issued his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” calling for people of goodwill to care for one another as brothers and sisters and not to erect new borders between people and nations, Catholic Extension announced a 2,000-mile act of prayer along the U.S.-Mexico border.
As the world awaits a COVID-19 vaccine, lessons learned in emergency rooms and intensive care units have spurred adjustments in treatments, such as oxygen therapy and some therapeutic drugs and steroids. None of these are actual cures for coronavirus infections, but they are credited for helping people survive the disease.
The Catholic voter “bears responsibility for connecting the dots between what our faith teaches and which candidates will best serve the common good,” Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City said in a recent column for The Catholic Missourian, the diocesan newspaper.
Annie Burford smiles when she sees the pinwheels twirling in the afternoon breeze, forming a multicolor celebration of life. As a respiratory clinical specialist for Franciscan Health, Burford delights in knowing that each of the 466 pinwheels represents a COVID-19 patient who has been discharged from the health care system’s Indianapolis and Mooresville hospitals to date.
Every week since March, an army of volunteers and Father Evelio Menjivar, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the Washington suburb of Landover Hills, Maryland, gather in the parish’s parking lot to give away boxes of food to local families in need.
On Oct. 10, three scenes from the new opera “This Little Light of Mine” were privately workshopped and filmed outdoors on the historic oil tanker Mary A. Whalen. The work, commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, is part of the Opera for All Voices program and portrays key events in the life of voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who rose to national prominence at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Pope Francis has appointed Father William D. Byrne, a pastor in the Archdiocese of Washington, to head the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts.
John DeBerry is running for re-election for his seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives, but not as a Democrat, which has been his party since the 1960s. Instead, he is campaigning as an independent after the Tennessee Democrat executive committee voted to take him off the ballot for the primary election in August.
Committee members cited DeBerry’s support of school vouchers and his pro-life votes as reasons for the ouster.
The Oct. 12 start of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett had two distinct focuses. Democratic senators homed in on concern that Barrett’s confirmation would lead to a vote to potentially overturn the Affordable Care Act when the legislation comes before the nation’s high court in November.
As Catholics around the country prepare to cast their votes for president, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced that it will be holding a virtual “Elections Novena” from Oct. 26 – Nov. 4.
