The dark clouds of a weather system of historic proportions added to the heaviness already felt by the thousands at the 2023 LA Religious Education Congress Feb. 23-26 in Anaheim, a week after the death of beloved Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell.

Healing the wounds of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine requires decades of effort — and a willingness to face human suffering at a staggering scale, said experts at a Feb. 23 panel discussion hosted by the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago.

Everyone must engage in politics, which is simply what it means to take part constructively in the life of a nation or society, Pope Francis said in a new book of interviews.

The recently formed Institute on the Catechism will carry out the U.S. bishops’ vision of the importance of “connecting evangelization and catechesis,” according to Father Daniel J. Mahan, an Indianapolis archdiocesan priest just named as the institute’s director.

Pope Francis will travel to Hungary April 28-30 where he will meet with government officials, refugees, academic scholars and young people in Budapest, the Vatican announced Feb. 27.

After praying the Angelus with an estimated 20,000 visitors in St. Peter’s Square Feb. 26, the pope prayed in a special way for those in the Holy Land to “find the way of brotherhood and peace with the aid of the international community.”

If the goal of a “synodal” church is to have all the baptized recognize their responsibility for the life and mission of the Catholic community, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet said that necessarily means taking a new look at priesthood.

Restoration efforts testify to the enduring importance of parishes formed by Black Catholic traditions and the richness they bring to the church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In its third year, the De Sales Invitational basketball tournament brought together 150 seminarians for three days in late February.

Catholics throughout the U.S. are standing in solidarity with Ukraine, as that nation marks the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.