As Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine — which continues attacks launched in 2014 — nears its fifth year, OSV News sat down Aug. 12 with Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, papal nuncio to Ukraine, for a reflection on faith and prayer amid relentless conflict.

The social and ecological devastation wrought by war represents not just a political failure, but a moral crisis rooted in a divided heart in need of conversion, Pope Leo XIV said.

Dozens of clergy from the Archdiocese of Bogotá embarked on a five-day pastoral mission to cities in Colombia devastated by the Aug. 10 earthquake.

Since its beginnings more than a decade ago, the Fête-Dieu du Teche — a Eucharistic procession of boats organized by Father Michael Champagne and the Community of Jesus Crucified in the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana — has become one of Louisiana’s most vibrant annual festivals.

For almost two decades, behind Archbishop Sheen’s extraordinary reach stood a largely unknown group of women who opened thousands of letters, recorded donations, thanked contributors, and helped transform his words into material support for missionaries and young churches around the world.

Last year, the parochial school stopped providing digital devices to students, instead offering occasional computer time through shared computer carts. “We’ve found kids have actually learned more, they are retaining more,” he said. “I think we learn better from human beings than we do from machines.”

Singing and playing music during the liturgy is an integral and necessary part of the celebration, which means it is much more than something “decorative,” Pope Leo XIV said.

For the past three months, Israeli settlers have been bringing their sheep herd up to the Kaabnah family compound just outside Taybeh village twice a day like clockwork, in the morning and in the evening.

The Catholic bishops of Florida issued a staunch defense of their ability to determine policies for Catholic schools after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent them a letter demanding that Catholic schools in the Sunshine State adopt religious exemptions to vaccine requirements or risk their ability to participate in the state’s school voucher program.

With a new school year on the horizon, OSV News asked John DeJak, director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Catholic Education, to provide an overview of Catholic education in America. As a former teacher and administrator who has served in both diocesan and independent schools since the late 1990s, DeJak is uniquely positioned to assess the state of the nation’s approximately 5,800 Catholic schools, which educate nearly 1.7 million students. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.