The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted Nov. 13 in Baltimore to approve a new “mission directive” for 2025-28, a new way that the conference is presenting its strategic vision for the next four years.

The Catholic Church needs decisive leadership in creating a safe, caring and welcoming environment for everyone, and it needs constant vigilance against complacency, said several speakers at a Vatican-sponsored safeguarding conference.

Republicans secured a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to a Nov. 12 projection by data provider Decision Desk HQ, giving President-elect Donald Trump GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress as he begins his second term in January.

The discussion on the floor in Baltimore followed reflections on the recent Synod of Bishops on synodality held in Rome offered by Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, and Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, two of the bishop-delegates from the United States.

The Mass according to the 1962 Missal will no longer be celebrated at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Tyler, Texas, after Nov. 30, but it will continue at a nearby parish in care of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.

The Catholic Church “always insists on the dignity of the human person from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, and we continue to insist on that,” Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services said Nov. 12.

Mary is a model of the kind of openness to the Holy Spirit that all Christians should have, an openness that allowed her to say “yes” to God’s plan for the salvation of the world, Pope Francis said.

During their fall plenary assembly in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops voted 206 to 7, with 11 abstentions, to support the local advancement of Sister Annella’s cause, and 205 to 6, with 19 abstentions, to support the same for Gertrude Barber’s cause.

Louisiana’s law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Nov. 12.

As the United Nations’ annual climate conference kicks off, two Catholic humanitarian agency executives told OSV News that the world’s poorest nations must be given the tools to adapt to climate change — without becoming enslaved by international debt.