The Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff's Office and Detention Center serves as an ICE detention center. The Archdiocese of St. Louis filed a federal lawsuit Oct. 5, 2026, over a no-contact policy that prohibits priests from distributing holy Communion and hearing confessions there. (OSV News/St. Louis Review/Jacob Wiegand)

St. Louis first Catholic diocese to sue ICE over access to sacraments

News

"These detainees and the priests who serve them have been denied their religious liberties," Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski said. 

The Latest

Former Australian Catholic bishop sentenced for abusing Indigenous men

Associated Press

Church leaders call for dialogue over confrontation amid turbulent protests in France

OSV News

Supreme Court hears key climate change lawsuit, but procedural question remains

Kate Scanlon, OSV News

Editors' Choice

Emergency vehicles arrive at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution of Christa Pike was halted Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP/George Walker IV)

In Focus

For Catholics, Christa Pike's guilt does not erase her dignity

Long before the Catholic Church officially rejected capital punishment, Catholic stories and saints imagined divine mercy accompanying the guilty all the way to the gallows.

Support journalism that matters. 

Your donation to NCR keeps independent Vatican news accessible to all. 

Donate Now

Most Read Stories

Vatican News

#1
Pope Leo seeks status update of Francis' divisive opening to divorced and remarried Catholics

Church leaders will meet in Rome next week to understand how "The Joy of Love", Pope Francis' 2016 document on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, has been implemented.

ByNicole Winfield, The Associated Press
The tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy, is seen as it is accessible to pilgrims year-round. (OSV News/Courtesy of Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi)
Guest Voices

#2
St. Francis teaches us about death, 800 years after his own

Just as God loves us and sustains us in this earthly, bodily life, so too does God love us and sustain us as we transition from this state of life to the next. 

ByDaniel P. Horan
Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, gives the keynote address during the USA National Jubilee Pilgrim Gathering at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, July 30, 2025. (CNS/Lola Gomez)
NCR Voices

#3
Bishop Barron swings and misses, again

"Barron is correct to insist he is not a 'member of the Trump administration' but his selective treatment of the church's teachings convicts him as an apologist for the president," Michael Sean Winters writes.

ByMichael Sean Winters

#4
Opening boxes of the soul with Jesus in prayer

#5
Bishop Mariann Budde to resign, will remain in post during lengthy replacement process

#6
Hegseth announces 'Office of Religious Affairs' in speech on Pentagon policy

Opinion

Blue wave is rising in Senate races

NCR Voices

Podcast: 'Beatitudes should be part of our DNA,' says Pax Christi's Sr. Wamuyu Wachira

Guest Voices
The tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy, is seen as it is accessible to pilgrims year-round. (OSV News/Courtesy of Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi)

St. Francis teaches us about death, 800 years after his own

Guest Voices

Just as God loves us and sustains us in this earthly, bodily life, so too does God love us and sustain us as we transition from this state of life to the next. 

Pope Leo synthesizes predecessors' style in speech to French bishops

NCR Voices

Cyborgs, centaurs and LLeMmings: Why Pope Leo calls us to 'remain human'

Guest Voices
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich speaks at the 2013 International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. (Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)

Podcast: 'Summon the courage to speak out,' says Dennis Kucinich

Guest Voices

On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," John Dear hosts Dennis Kucinich, former congressman from Ohio who has been an outspoken voice against war.

Vatican

Pope Leo XIV greets a newlywed couple in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican after his weekly general audience Sept. 9, 2026. (CNS/Vatican Media)

Pope Leo urges frank reckoning with Catholic teaching on sex and marriage

The pontiff has convened 152 church leaders and theological experts to assess the reception of Pope Francis' Amoris Laetitia ("The Joy of Love") 10 years after its publication.
 

Ahead of papal visit, archbishop warns of a 'wounded Argentina' at Our Lady of Luján shrine

Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva of Buenos Aires pleaded for unity, describing the country as wounded and deeply divided ahead of a visit to Argentina by Pope Leo XIV.

ByDavid Agren, OSV News
Pope Leo XIV attends a presentation of his encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence" at the Synod Hall at the Vatican May 25, 2026. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Vatican News

Pope Leo joins tech, political leaders on Vanity Fair list of influential individuals

Leo was No. 18 on the magazine's "New Establishment list" which identifies "people who have defined the moment  — from the Information Age to the dot-com bubble, the financial crisis to the social media tidal wave."

ByJustin McLellan

Pope Francis' diaries to be published next month, revealing reflections on Vatican years

Image, an imprint of Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group, announced Monday that "The Private Diary of Pope Francis" will be released in English and four other languages on Nov. 24.

ByHillel Italie, Associated Press

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Pope moves St. Peter's archpriest to Italian diocese without naming successor

Vatican News

Pope Leo seeks status update of Francis' divisive opening to divorced and remarried Catholics

White Sox receive letter from Pope Leo before winning playoff opener

EarthBeat

Supreme Court hears key climate change lawsuit, but procedural question remains

In the first case of its new term Oct. 5, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit from officials in Boulder, Colorado, against two major oil companies over climate change.

Jeffie Hardin teaches gardening and farming techniques at a North Carolina Title I school. She and her husband, Chris Hardin, moved from the suburbs to a farm that eventually became both a source of food and a kind of informal classroom. (Courtesy of Chris Hardin)

Farming, faith and 'real synodality': How this Catholic couple lives Laudato Si'

Chris and Jeffie Hardin, who live in North Carolina, will visit the Vatican's Borgo Laudato Si' to learn more about how to live and teach ways that honor creation. 

ByCamillo Barone
Sr. Fidelia Viban, mother general of the Dominican contemplative nuns at the Monastery of St. Dominic in Bambui, Cameroon, stands on the monastery farm. The sisters grow crops to support their community and help people in need, including families displaced by the Anglophone conflict. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)

For nuns in war-torn Cameroon, conflict threatens hard-won climate solutions

As COP31 approaches, Catholic sisters' struggling biogas initiatives at the Monastery of St. Dominic in Cameroon reveal the fragility of grassroots climate action in communities strained by war and poverty.

ByDoreen Ajiambo
A bronze sculpture of St. Francis of Assisi looks out over the medieval Italian town outside the Church of San Damiano on Oct. 4, 2025. (NCR photo/Brian Roewe)

In and around Assisi, pilgrims retrace St. Francis' footsteps to kinship with creation

Working with the Franciscans who steward the shrines marking the major events of St. Francis' life, Terra Laudato Si' aims to connect the saint's embrace of creation with modern-day calls for ecological conversion.

ByBrian Roewe

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Celebrating the Season of Creation as a trans Catholic living on a farm

Data center boom puts water, power costs and Catholic concerns on the ballot

How nuns are marking the Season of Creation and honoring 'our common home'

Culture

JoAnn Falletta, music director for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, will conduct "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes" Oct. 10 and 11. The oratorio brings together music composed by Richard Danielpour and a Fransiscan-inspired libretto by Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney. (Steve J. Sherman)

St. Francis' messages shared through music at oratorio debut

Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney wrote the libretto for "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes." Performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra are set for Oct. 10 and 11.

Brandi Carlile (right) performs with Monique Ross (far left) and Chauntee Ross of SistaStrings during the 55th annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in New York. (AP/Invision/Evan Agostini)

Finding communion at a Brandi Carlile concert

After a Brandi Carlile concert, and with her own son learning an instrument, one mother reflects on the holiness of sharing a collective experience with other human beings.

ByBritt Luby
A crowd gathers in the square in front of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris on Aug. 26, 1944, awaiting the arrival of Gen. Charles de Gaulle after Paris was liberated from the Germans. (Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain/Préfecture de Police)

As Pope Leo heads to Notre Dame, a brief history of the cathedral's cultural relevance

When the pope visits the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris this week, he'll see a church that has stood as a religious and cultural French landmark for nearly 900 years. 

ByVanessa R. Corcoran
Publications featuring the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen are displayed among other artifacts and memorabilia at the Sheen Museum on July 15, 2026, in Peoria, Ill. (AP/Jessie Wardarski)

How Fulton Sheen paved the way for American acceptance of Catholics

Without Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, would there have been a President John F. Kennedy? In a country historically skeptical of Catholicism, Sheen's TV homilies showed that Catholics were just as American as anyone else.

ByJoseph Connor

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Book Reviews

Stephanie Sy-Quia's debut novel paints forbidden love against Vatican II backdrop

'Sister Act' and the gift of Blackness in the church

With 19 Emmy nods, 'Widow's Bay' gets the link between terror and togetherness

Nuns carry a cross during a silent march during Good Friday celebrations in Durban, South Africa, March 25, 2016. (CNS/Reuters/Rogan Ward)
Voices of Sisters

A vision for spiritual renewal of women religious in Africa

The flourishing of religious life in Africa depends on caring for the inner lives of those who serve.

Students of Chirag Vidyalaya in Rajgir, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, eat lunch in Chetanalaya Hostel Hall, just opposite the school building. Overseeing the lunch distribution are Nazareth Srs. Rose Plathottam (left) and Jyoti Kerketta. (Jose Kalapura)

Nazareth nuns in India brave bandits to educate low caste community

In Rajgir, India, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth have helped hundreds of girls from the Musahar community finish school and escape poverty.

By
LCWR president-elect Sr. Betsy Pawlicki, a Sinsinawa Dominican, is seen Aug. 14, 2026, at the group’s annual assembly in Orlando. (GSR photo/Dan Stockman)

Q&A with president-elect of LCWR Sr. Betsy Pawlicki on navigating change

"The days of building buildings and institutions is gone, but that only happened because it was responding to a need," said Sr. Betsy Pawlicki. "What is the need now?"

ByDan Stockman
Voices of Sisters

The gardener's plea: What a barren fig tree taught me about second chances

Nearly half of Zimbabwe's youth are out of school. Behind that statistic are individuals, each one a fig tree someone was ready to give up on. But I keep working the soil even when the tree shows no obvious signs of life.

By

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Sisters accompany Nigerian elders through final stage of life

Finding strength in their calling, Indonesian sisters care for kids with disabilities

Sr. Gail Grimes leaves lasting legacy of justice and community in Central Florida