Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, said diocesan celebrations coinciding with the World Meeting of Families 2022 will allow Catholic families to be in “spiritual communion” with Pope Francis and delegates in Rome.

Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington ordained 21 men from the Pontifical North American College to the diaconate Sept. 30 in St. Peter’s Basilica.

CHICAGO (CNS) — Father Stan Jaszek, a missionary priest from Poland who is serving Native Alaskans in the Diocese of Fairbanks, has been named the recipient of Catholic Extension’s 2021-2022 Lumen Christi Award.

Death row inmates in Florida’s prisons refer to their 6-foot-by-9-foot cell as their “house,” with some having lived in their “house” for 40 years — longer than one Catholic lay chaplain said he has lived in his family home in Tallahassee.

God put the desire to be a priest in Father Emil J. Kapaun’s heart at an early age, Bishop Carl A. Kemme of Wichita, Kansas, said during a homily Sept. 26 in Pilsen, the hometown of the war-hero priest and sainthood candidate.

Pope Francis said the Second Vatican Council so shaped his theological and pastoral vision that perhaps he has not been as explicit as he should have been in highlighting those ties, especially when it comes to his contributions to Catholic social teaching.

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he is continuing steady progress in his recovery from COVID-19, but explained that it is slow going in a letter to supporters and friends.

Canada’s Catholic bishops have “unequivocally” apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system and have raised the possibility of a visit by the pope to Canada as part of the “healing journey” between Canada’s Indigenous peoples and the church.

Hawaii bid aloha to Father Emil J. Kapaun, a U.S. Army Korean War chaplain and candidate for sainthood Sept. 23.

While denouncing as an “abuse of power” coercive measures to promote vaccination against COVID-19, a leader of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X said getting vaccinated “may sometimes be an eminently prudent act in the moral sense of the term.”