In light of recent incidents in which attackers have used semi-automatic rifles to kill people, Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago and Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas, Texas, have called for a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, saying they have no place in the hands of civilians.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared, contrary to the plain meaning of current federal law, that the California Dept. of Managed Health Care can continue to force all health plans under its jurisdiction to cover elective abortions. The USCCB is calling for an immediate federal legislative remedy.
Members of St. Patrick parish in Elkhorn prayed June 16 for Lane Graves, a two-year-old boy killed in an alligator attack in Florida, his father and mother, Matthew and Melissa, and sister, four-year-old Ella, during a regularly scheduled morning Mass and special rosary.
Songs blared June 18 while a white horse-drawn hearse and a weeping crowd departed Barriada Esperanza sector of Guanica with the body of Angel Candelario Padro.
Akyra Murray, who just recently graduated from West Catholic Preparatory High School, was the youngest victim of the Orlando nightclub shooting June 12.
The board of trustees of Philadelphia’s St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., has called for scrapping the planned consolidation of seminary operations on one 30-acre section of the campus and instead moving its operations off-campus.
“Witnesses to Freedom” is the theme of the U.S. bishops’ fifth annual Fortnight for Freedom, which opens June 21, the vigil of the feast of SS. Thomas More and John Fisher, and closes on Independence Day, July 4.
New Orleans-born Harry Connick Jr. gave a graduation speech at at Loyola University New Orleans. It didn’t start out as a Father’s Day present, but now the tables were turned.
Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis will close its Seton Prenatal Clinic and cease its adoption program. Citing declining numbers, and changes in health care regulations and industry trends, the agency’s president and CEO said the clinic, which provides health care to low-income or uninsured women, will close in August.
Orlando Bishop John G. Noonan urged people of faith “to turn their hearts and souls” to God and pray for the victims, the families and first responders following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history June 12. “A sword has pierced the heart of our city,” he said in a statement.
