It took place only a couple of days after I was ordained auxiliary bishop of my home archdiocese of St. Louis, back in 2001. De Smet Jesuit High School had invited me to offer the opening Mass of the school year, and I was very much looking forward to it.
From Ukraine to Nigeria, and from Nicaragua to the Holy Land, 2023 was full of tragic situations that deeply affected the church and faithful. OSV News revisited four places clinging to hope that the new year will bring an improvement in the lives of people living in societies torn by conflict and persecution.
Data shows that Christian persecution is on the rise globally -- but that repression remains largely overlooked in the news cycle, one expert told OSV News.
The Vatican's affirmation that a priest can give an informal blessing to a gay couple who asks for one is not a first step toward the Catholic Church recognizing same-sex marriages, said Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Unauthorized border crossings increased in 2023, fueled in part by shifts in U.S. policy and global migration trends. The year saw increasingly heated anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions that also put Catholic Charities agencies -- and the Church's religious freedom to minister to migrants -- in the crosshairs.
Efforts continued throughout 2023 to tackle clerical sex crimes in the Catholic Church, with church or state reports being published in several European countries and the case of Father Marko Rupnik making numerous waves of headlines.
In the past 12 months, an extraordinary level of nationwide activity -- organizing, strikes, negotiations and new contracts -- has signaled increased influence for American labor unions, which once counted 21 million U.S. workers among their ranks.
Christmas in Bethlehem was celebratory but not as festive as usual this year, given the outbreak of war in the Holy Land two-and-a-half months ago. Visiting for Christmas, the papal envoy, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, assisted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in the wartime celebration amid the "helplessness" of not being able to ease suffering Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Cardinal Krajewski is in the Holy Land as part of a "journey of closeness" with Christians in the region.