Pope Leo XIV has named Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia as the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, selecting a seasoned diplomat to serve as a crucial liaison between Rome and the pope’s home country.

When Deacon Ernie Martinez took on his role as director of deacons for the Archdiocese of Denver three years ago, he brought with him an insight few clergy possess: 40 years of experience with the Denver Police Department, where he witnessed firsthand how peer support could save lives.

Experts in Jewish-Catholic relations told OSV News that some current public debates about Zionism, including among Catholics, are at odds with the Catholic understanding of the term — which itself has an array of meanings, as does the word “Israel” itself.

The explosion of massive data centers to handle the increasing generative demands of artificial intelligence have placed high demands on both power and the water used in cooling systems — millions of gallons per day — and low-income communities have typically endured the brunt of the air pollution they create. This was the topic of a March 5 webinar, “The Growing Impacts of Data Centers on Our Neighbors and God’s Creation,” hosted by the Washington-based Catholic Climate Covenant.

More than 50 years before the first Paralympic Games were held in 1960 in Rome, the Vatican had already hosted what might have been the very first international sporting and gymnastics event with athletes living with disabilities.

When President Donald Trump on March 2 posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis during a White House ceremony, the recognition did more than honor a battlefield hero.

Amid the escalating chaos of another war in the Middle East, Benedictine Father Nikodemus Schnabel said the abbey where he resides has become an “island of hope in an ocean of suffering” where even people of different faiths have found refuge.

Days after a meeting among several Catholic bishops serving along both sides of the Texas-Mexico border — a regular gathering for the “Tex-Mex” bishops — OSV News spoke with Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio to explore his thoughts on the impact of the Trump administration’s sustained crackdown on migration.

Katie Holler, a social worker from Steubenville, Ohio, launched the Dorothea Project, a women’s action and advocacy group dedicated to educating the public about Catholic social teaching, with the mission of empowering communities “to speak truth and act in defense of vulnerable people whenever human rights and human dignity are violated.”

The Vatican Museums announced that restoration work has begun on Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” in the Sistine Chapel, a fresco an art historian describes as “a clarion call to the cardinals of what it means to be Catholic.”