National News

Fundraising starts to aid victims of Southern California fires

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has started a fund for victims of the wildfires that have raced through the archdiocese and were threatening to spread to locations in the nearby Orange and San Diego dioceses.

Fewer Americans see Christmas as religious holiday, study says

The percentage of Americans who keep Christmas continues to erode -- in a Pew Research Center survey, 55 percent of respondents said they mark Christmas as a religious holiday, down from 59 percent in 2013.

Catholics urged to lay all fears, hopes ‘at feet’ of Virgin of Guadalupe

The words Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke to St. Juan Diego when she appeared to him in 1531 on Tepeyac Hill are the words "she speaks to us," said Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez.

Washington Archdiocese appeals court decision on transit ad

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson Dec. 8 denied the archdiocese's request that WMATA be required to post an ad promoting its annual "Find the Perfect Gift" initiative for the Advent season.

Italian mosaic artist’s dream realized with completion of Trinity Dome

Giovanni Travisanutto's mosaic career began when he was an 11-year-old boy standing on a step stool to reach the workbench at the mosaic school in Spilimbergo, Italy.

New York Archdiocese pays $40 million to clergy sexual abuse victims

The report, which detailed settlement of claims by 189 victims, is part of the archdiocese's effort to renew its contrition to those who suffered sexual abuse as a minor by a priest or deacon and to bring a sense of healing to victim-survivors.

In Puerto Rico, much work to do and much suffering remains, says cardinal

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (CNS) — What Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich learned in visiting and talking to the people of Puerto Rico Dec. 3-6 is that “there’s a lot of work to do, a lot of people suffering” nearly three months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. In a pastoral visit made on behalf […]

With new U.S. administration, USCCB enters policy debates more often in ’17

Hardly a week passed without at least one reaction, statement or commentary, all based on traditional Catholic social teaching, on a public policy matter from a USCCB committee chairman or other conference officers.

Iowa priest honored posthumously for heroism as chaplain at Pearl Harbor

Father Aloysius Schmitt died during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 while helping others escape his ship, the USS Oklahoma. Seventy-six years later, Father Schmitt was awarded the Silver Star posthumously during a ceremony Dec. 7 at his alma mater, Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.

‘Crowning jewel’ of national shrine, Trinity Dome Mosaic, dedicated

The dome mosaic is composed of more than 14 million pieces of Venetian glass covering more than 18,300 square feet of the dome's surface. Its completion marks the final step in finishing the work of the Upper Church that began in 1955.