The suspect in the case, Carlos Medina, the husband of Bishop O’Connell’s housekeeper, has since admitted to murder, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. He has been charged with one count of murder and a “special allegation” that he personally used a firearm.
As the nation awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s most significant abortion ruling in decades, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the chairmen of eight USCCB committees joined together “in prayer and expectant hope that states will again be able to protect women and children from the injustice of abortion.”
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez said Nov. 5 he was “deeply disappointed” by Loyola Marymount University’s decision to allow a student group’s fundraiser for Planned Parenthood to go forward later the same day despite thousands of protests against the event.
A motion to give individual bishops unlimited time to speak on a U.S. Bishops Conference doctrinal committee proposal to draft a document on the Eucharist was ultimately denied on Day One of their spring meeting, but not before a spirited, near hour-long, debate on the timing of the proposal.
After receiving an unprecedented letter from 67 bishops appealing for a delay in a discussion during the bishops’ upcoming spring general assembly on whether to prepare a teaching document on the reception of Communion, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president explained in a memo the procedure followed in bringing the question to a vote during the June 16-18 virtual meeting.
Two weeks after Election Day, President Donald Trump had not eased up on challenging the voting results. Reconciliation of the citizenry seemed elusive. But leaders of the Catholic clergy in Brooklyn and across the nation reminded the Church of its unique role in helping the nation heal.
A new virtual format left little room for dialogue at day one of the U.S. Bishops annual fall meeting, but for one 45-minute stretch more than a dozen bishops gave their takes on laicized ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
Archbishop Gomez said he believes “at this moment in American history, Catholics have a special duty to be peacemakers, to promote fraternity and mutual trust, and to pray for a renewed spirit of true patriotism in our country.”
Following the untimely death on Sunday of Los Angeles basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, the city’s Catholic archbishop offered prayers and condolences to his family.
