Kerry Alys Robinson has been named as the next president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, the organization representing the interests of its 167 member organizations dedicated to carrying out the domestic humanitarian work of the Catholic Church in the United States.

The forthcoming 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops — otherwise known as the Synod on Synodality, which Pope Francis convenes in Rome this October — will examine ways to accompany divorced and remarried Catholics.

A recent analysis shows 25 percent of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married — a record high — and may indicate “the closing of the American heart,” according to W. Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project.

The Catholic Church is not a “club” for the elderly; it needs the participation of young people to keep it alive and ensure it does not “grow old,” Pope Francis said.

In a federal suit, the public interest firm Alliance Defending Freedom is suing the state of Vermont over a law, signed in May, that restricts advertising by the centers, considered an alternative to abortion clinics, and prohibits non-licensed health care professionals from working there.

The July 26 death of acclaimed Irish singer and songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, who was 56, has seen an outpouring of tributes from all walks of Irish life.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican seeking his party’s presidential nomination in 2024, faced criticism after defending a controversial portion of Florida’s 2023 Social Studies curriculum suggesting “slaves developed skills” that could be used for their “personal benefit.”

Catholic immigration groups and the U.S. bishops have objected to the asylum ban, arguing it violates existing U.S. immigration law, and exposes those who may otherwise be eligible for asylum to additional danger.

The Justice Department on July 24 sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over a floating barrier recently installed on the Rio Grande, part of the Republican governor’s latest attempts to stop migrants from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico as part of his “Operation Lone Star” program.

Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, the Catholic Church’s first African American cardinal, reacted to President Joe Biden establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois July 25, saying it was important to remember that youth’s brutal, tragic murder and his mother’s heroic quest for justice as the work for civil rights continues.