As Congress negotiates the fiscal year 2024 budget, dozens of Catholic organizations have signed joint letters to the Senate and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas opposing immigration proposals in the Biden administration’s supplemental budget request, and questioning the efficacy the measures would have.
A federal judge ruled Jan. 10 that Alabama can execute a death row inmate with nitrogen gas in late January, which would make it the country’s first execution using this method that has been described by the inmate’s attorneys and a United Nations report as cruel and experimental.
A Wisconsin judge on Jan. 10 suspended a sexual assault case against Theodore McCarrick after a court-appointed psychologist found the ex-cardinal not competent to stand trial, possibly ending efforts to secure a criminal prosecution.
On Jan. 19, tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in the annual March for Life in Washington marking the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion.
A new report on clergy sexual abuse in the Diocese of Gaylord, Michigan, found that there are no priests or deacons in active ministry in the diocese facing substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, and that total allegations have plummeted since the U.S. bishops’ conference implemented the Dallas Charter in 2002.
Catholics across the country are encouraged to pray “9 Days for Life,” an annual Respect Life novena starting Jan. 16.
Pope Francis told diplomats Jan. 8 that he finds surrogacy “deplorable” and would like to see the practice universally banned.
A campaign to encourage Congress to redirect military spending toward helping the nation’s poor and marginalized has gotten support from 17 American bishops, a number those leading the campaign hope to see continue to grow.
A Mobile, Alabama, priest who left the United States with a teenage woman last summer under murky circumstances, and who returned last fall, has been officially laicized effective immediately, the archdiocese announced on Jan. 5.
The Supreme Court said it would temporarily allow Idaho to continue to enforce its abortion ban in emergency rooms in medical emergencies and it also agreed to hear an appeal of the case this spring.
