In a sign of the growing Catholic community of southern Nevada and the Western United States, the Archdiocese of Las Vegas has become the newest archdiocese in America.
Nation
Two U.S. bishops have launched the National Catholic Mental Health Campaign, amid a global crisis in mental health and a decline in mental health resources in the U.S.
Grim developments on the southern U.S. border and the “frustrating” lack of immigration reform were on the minds of some 1,500 Southern California Catholics at the annual Mass in Recognition of All Immigrants Sept. 17 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York told OSV News the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which is marked with solemn ceremonies across the U.S., should be observed with memories of lives lost and impacted by the day’s events. But he added it also is worth remembering the spirit of the following day, Sept. 12, 2001, when Americans came together as a nation.
On a day when history was made 60 years earlier with the March on Washington, Father Robert Boxie III, the Catholic chaplain at Howard University in the nation’s capital, noted that the campus ministry program there was making history of its own, with the blessing and dedication of its new Sister Thea Bowman Catholic Student Center.
“The church doesn’t have a mission; the mission has a church,” said Bishop Joseph J. Tyson of the Diocese of Yakima, not quite pounding the table. Later, he told the group, “Our migrant ministry is the model for all of our ministries — the parish is bigger than the building.”
A group of 24 modern apostles were able to witness a glimpse of this during an Aug. 28-29 pastoral visit organized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees and Travelers. Participants from the USCCB, the Catholic Migrant Farmworker Network and related ministries met in Yakima to witness, support, and learn from the migrant ministry carried out by the diocese.
“For us, it’s like a miracle,” Msgr. Terrence Watanabe, the Honolulu Diocese’s vicar of Maui and Lanai, said about Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in the town of Lahaina being seemingly untouched by the fierce Maui wildfires Aug. 8-9.
Joyful, singing crowds were walking through Lisbon long after the opening Mass of World Youth Day 2023 was over Aug. 1. The atmosphere surprised even those that lived in the Portuguese capital throughout their lives.
In response to recent reports of inhumane actions along the Texas-Mexico border, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops have issued a statement asking all “people of goodwill to join us in this work, and to join us in praying for our brothers and sisters experiencing the harsh realities of this journey, and for all who encounter them.”
Sheila and David Porter left their home in Newport News, Virginia, at 5 a.m. to celebrate the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington June 24. Together, the couple attended the 2023 National Celebrate Life Day rally held by national pro-life groups on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The event commemorated the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, and freed states to decide abortion policy.