The nation’s Catholic permanent deacons were estimated to number more than 20,000 in 2024 — but “as is the case with priests in the United States, there are not enough new permanent deacons being ordained to make up for the numbers who are retiring from active ministry and dying each year,” according to a new report.

In a little over a month since his election to the papacy, Pope Leo XIV has appeared to embrace his role as a head of state to promote Catholic principles about peacebuilding, an analyst told OSV News. His actions as a head of state could also impact U.S. diplomacy.

As conflict in the Middle East escalated with Israeli airstrikes on nuclear sites in Iran and retaliatory drone attacks on Israel, Pope Leo XIV appealed for restraint and renewed the church’s calls for nuclear disarmament and peaceful dialogue.

Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman, who once taught Sunday school at St. Timothy in Blaine, Minn., and was a speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their home early June 14 in what Gov. Tim Walz said “appears to be a politically motivated assassination.”

he June 14 celebration, organized by the Archdiocese of Chicago, included a series of short video clips and first-ever airing of Pope Leo XIV’s video message to the world’s youth at Rate Field on Chicago’s Southside.

Sport, with its demands for self-giving, collaboration and perseverance, reflects the beauty and dynamic love of God, Pope Leo XIV said.

While much was done during Pope Francis’ pontificate to tackle the global abuse crisis — a crisis moving at differing speeds in the church, depending on the country — one significant element is still pending and left for Pope Leo XIV to implement. That element is transparency.

The Vatican can take three key steps to provide greater assistance than it already has in securing the return of Ukrainian children forcibly taken by Russia, a Ukrainian child advocate and former government official told OSV News.

An expansive garden sitting on a third of an acre of parish property at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Frankford, the mission church of St. Ann Parish in Bethany Beach, serves neighbors in need within the boundaries of both churches and is the only one of its kind in the Wilmington Diocese.

Pope Leo XIV will canonize Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati together Sept. 7, the Vatican announced.