The U.S. Catholic bishops issued a nationwide call to prayer and action July 27 over the rising abortion rate and the increased availability of an abortion-inducing drug.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
When the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops first considered holding an annual educational campaign on natural family planning, there was some debate over the best timing for it. Ultimately, the bishops settled on July 25, the anniversary of the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, in which St. Paul VI articulated Catholic teaching on artificial contraception, human sexuality, marital love, and parenthood.
Ahead of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual observance of Religious Freedom Week, OSV News spoke with Emily Schumacher-Novak, associate director of education and outreach for the USCCB’s Secretariat of Justice and Peace.
The Catholic imagination needs to be reawakened in academic life to nurture leaders who can become “voices for the Catholic Church,” a Catholic scientist advised the nation’s bishops.
The nation’s Catholic bishops have a full agenda for their annual spring meeting, with topics including safe environment protocols, sainthood causes, the Synod on Synodality, and the consecration of the U.S. to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Consecrated men and women “reveal God’s invitation to love him with one’s whole life” on earth, in hope of doing so eternally in heaven, said Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations.
As the nation’s Catholics are set to remember unborn children in prayer, a U.S. bishop is stressing that amid several positive developments in safeguarding human life, “many challenges remain” in making abortion “unthinkable.”
As the U.S. marks its 250th anniversary next year, the U.S. bishops will consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
As Hurricane Melissa continued its devastating course through the Caribbean, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged Catholics to pray for and support the people and communities impacted by one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.
Five years after the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on fraternal love, and amid a rise in political violence, the leader of the U.S. Catholic bishops is pleading for a rediscovery of — and respect for — a common humanity.