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Scott Peyton and his wife Letitia are pictured in July 2020. Peyton is a Catholic deacon who in May 2024 appealed his excommunication after leaving the church in the aftermath of his son's abuse case. (Courtesy of Scott Peyton)

Louisiana deacon awaits Vatican decision on his excommunication

In 2024 a Catholic deacon appealed his excommunication after leaving the church in the aftermath of his son's abuse case. He has spent about two years waiting for a ruling from Rome.

Camillo Barone

A combination picture shows Pope Leo XIV speaking in at the cultural center of the Great Mosque of Algiers in April 13, 2026, and U.S. President Donald Trump after disembarking Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland April 12, 2026. (OSV News/Guglielmo Mangiapane; Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

Opinion

Will the fight with the pope cost the Republicans in the midterms?

Michael Sean Winters

Pope Leo XIV swings a censer over the altar as he celebrates Mass at Saurimo esplanade in northeastern Angola April 20, 2026. (OSV News/Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane)

Vatican

Pope Leo's trip targets major obstacle to Catholicism's spread in Africa: Sorcery

Justin McLellan

The Latest

April 23, 2026

At a Spanish convent, nuns fight to preserve rare giant rabbit species

April 22, 2026

Pope tells inmates 'you are not alone' during Equatorial Guinea prison visit at end of Africa tour

Nicole Winfield, Associated Press

April 22, 2026

Mass at Basilica of St. Mary Major marks first anniversary of Pope Francis' death

Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News

Editors' Choice

Franciscan Sr. Consuelo Peset Laudeña shows one of the Spanish Giant rabbits the cloistered community breeds at the Convent of St. Anthony of Padua in Central Spain. The rabbits are at risk of extinction. (Lissette Lemus)

News

At a Spanish convent, nuns fight to preserve rare giant rabbit species

Staff members from 19 U.S. dioceses take part in a workshop on developing Laudato Si' action plans at the headquarters of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington D.C. in January 2026. (Joshua van Cleef)

News

New ecological program trains US diocesan leaders to build Laudato Si' momentum

Brian Roewe

Vatican

Pope tells inmates 'you are not alone' during Equatorial Guinea prison visit at end of Africa tour

News

2 Catholic congressmen, 2 tales of El Salvador and US policy

Rainbow speech bubble (Dreamstime/221308678)

Guest Voices

Opinion

In conversation, US bishops are learning new insights on LGBTQ+ Catholics

Francis DeBernardo

Pope Francis receives drawings from the children of Vatican News journalist Salvatore Cernuzio at Casa Santa Marta, Vatican City, June 2022. (Courtesy of Salvatore Cernuzio)

In Focus

Pope Francis revealed: His final days, intimate friends and a legacy to keep

Vatican journalist Salvatore Cernuzio's new book, Padre: An Untold Portrait of Pope Francis, is a narrative built from proximity, trust and the unusual, intimate relationship between its author and the late pope.

Camillo Barone

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Most Read Stories

A composite image features the book "He Leadeth Me" by Jesuit Fr. Walter Ciszek and a photo of Ciszek. The Polish American priest ministered for years in Soviet captivity. (OSV News photo/Megan Marley/A.D. Times)

#1
Vatican ends canonization cause for Jesuit Fr. Walter Ciszek

The decision about the Polish American priest who ministered for years in Soviet captivity "does not diminish the enduring spiritual value of his life, witness, and legacy," the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, said.

ByGina Christian, OSV News

Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero of Rabat, Morocco, speaks during a briefing about the assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican Oct. 17, 2023. (CNS/Lola Gomez)

Vatican News

#2
During Leo's Algeria visit, North African cardinal says Christians must 'learn how to be a minority'

"It is a good fortune to be a small church in service of the kingdom of God," said Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero of Rabat, Morocco.

ByJustin McLellan

In a joint interview with CBS's Norah O'Donnell on "60 Minutes" April 12, 2026, Cardinals Joseph Tobin of Newark, N.J., Robert McElroy of Washington, and Blase Cupich of Chicago, began by giving their impressions of the first U.S. pope, Pope Leo XIV. (OSV News screenshot/Facebook)

NCR Voices

#3
Three cardinals stand with Pope Leo XIV in unprecedented interview

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, Washington, D.C. Cardinal Robert McElroy and Newark, New Jersey, Cardinal Joseph Tobin forcefully echoed Pope Leo XIV's calls for peace and repeated his, and their own, distress about the Trump administration's anti-immigrant policies.

ByMichael Sean Winters

#4
Trump attacks Pope Leo in incendiary social media post

#5
Pope Leo named one of Time magazine's '100 Most Influential People of 2026'

#6
Vance questions the pope on just war theory hours after Leo honored its founder

Opinion

Francis DeBernardo

President Donald Trump is tossing around the idea of pulling the United States out of NATO. It comes as no surprise that a narcissist like Trump fails to grasp how an alliance works.

Michael J. O'Loughlin

Truth, mission and a vision toward the future of NCR

NCR Voices

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

In reversal of nation's anti-Catholic past, Pope Leo defends US ideals against Trump

Guest Voices

Bishops from around the country gather at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore Nov. 10, 2025, for the opening Mass of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' fall plenary assembly. (OSV News/Catholic Review/Kevin J. Parks)

Richard Torrenzano

US bishops can't be judged by political timing

Guest Voices

Catholic bishops' authority is moral and doctrinal, grounded in continuity of teaching. To judge that authority by political timing is to substitute immediacy for principle and alignment for independence.

Vatican

Pope tells inmates 'you are not alone' during Equatorial Guinea prison visit at end of Africa tour

Pope Leo XIV told inmates at one of Equatorial Guinea's notorious prisons on Wednesday that they are not alone, as he delivered a message of hope during a visit that drew attention to prison conditions, human rights abuses and injustices that campaigners have denounced for years here.

Pope Leo's trip targets major obstacle to Catholicism's spread in Africa: Sorcery

Occult practices are common in Angola's far-flung villages and throughout rural sub-Saharan Africa and weigh heavily in the everyday lives of many Africans throughout most of the continent, presenting a significant obstacle to church outreach in the region.

ByJustin McLellan

Mass at Basilica of St. Mary Major marks first anniversary of Pope Francis' death

On the first anniversary of Pope Francis' death, Pope Leo XIV praised his predecessor's "courageous witness" as "a significant heritage for the Church."

ByJunno Arocho Esteves, OSV News

Pope Leo XIV greets an elderly woman during his visit to a nursing home in Saurimo, Angola, on April 20, 2026. (OSV News/Vatican Media/Simone Risoluti)

Vatican News

In Equatorial Guinea and across Africa, Pope Leo sharpens the church's social message

His pivot from theological reflection to a moral diagnosis of concrete political realities is emblematic of the bridge he has sought to build between Catholic teaching and lived experience.

ByJustin McLellan

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Vatican News

One year ago today: The pope from the peripheries died on Easter Monday

Pope Leo remembers predecessor's legacy of mercy on first anniversary of death

Pope Francis revealed: His final days, intimate friends and a legacy to keep

EarthBeat

At a Spanish convent, nuns fight to preserve rare giant rabbit species

"We have to protect creation," Sr. Consuelo Peset Laudeñashe said. "We are Franciscans. St. Francis is the patron saint of veterinarians, and that is the source of the love we feel for the Spanish giant rabbit."

Stefani Danes stands on the Rachel Carson EcoVillage's construction site. The building with a high tower in the background is the Sisters of Divine Providence's 100-year-old convent, now part of La Roche University. (Jennifer Szweda Jordan)

EcoVillage sustainable housing finds a place to build with Pittsburgh sisters

The Rachel Carson Ecovillage needed land, and the Sisters of Divine Providence near Pittsburgh were trying to sell 8 acres. As the sustainable housing project got underway, the two groups became partners in mission.

ByJennifer Szweda Jordan

Guwahati, Assam, India (Unsplash/Bhargav Keot)

Columns

Nature teaches me to celebrate Earth Day as my birthday

Mother Earth is creative, and just as she evolves, every human body and spirit also requires growth — this is part of the very nature of nature.

New ecological program trains US diocesan leaders to build Laudato Si' momentum

With the inaugural Laudato Si' Leadership Training, a collaboration between the U.S. bishops' conference and the Lexington Diocese, 19 dioceses aim to develop action plans inspired by Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical.

ByBrian Roewe

Pope Leo donates $100K to CRS clean water project in El Salvador

As drought reshapes pastoral life, Maasai communities in Kenya find new resilience

Vietnam's coastal Catholics hold the scars of Formosa disaster 10 years later

Culture

A blue laundry basket filled with clothes (Unsplash/Annie Spratt)

Book Reviews

New book offers fresh perspective on work through a Catholic social teaching lens

NCR Book Club: Kate Ward's Making a Life expands commonly held understandings of work and reevaluates worker justice, looking at the whole person, not merely person-as-employee.

Ken Homan

Adi Madden Cabrera, left, and McKenna Tuckett play Catholic school outcasts who start a punk band in "Edie Arnold is a Loser." (Katrina Wan PR)

Punk rock meets Catholicism in 'Edie Arnold Is a Loser'

Visually inventive and pulsating with youthful, vivacious energy, the film "Edie Arnold Is a Loser" might just be the first Catholic coming-of-age punk rock story.

ByZachary Lee