Story - August 19, 2021 - Launched Aug. 16, the Archdiocese of Washington’s action plan to promote “an integral ecology” includes practical ways that parishes, Catholic schools and institutions, and individuals and families can care for creation, drawing on environmental science and inspired by Catholic social teaching. After Pope Francis issued his landmark 2015 encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’, on…

Story - June 28, 2021 - Plenty of people respect their mothers. Karen’s kids so revere her that they call her Wonder Woman. “They buy me t-shirts, mugs — I’ve got every trinket that’s Wonder Woman-themed,” she laughed. “It’s the most endearing term they could ever use for me. I guess they see me as their hero because I battled the…

Story - May 10, 2021 - The work of Georgetown University and the Jesuits in reckoning with the history of owning and selling enslaved people may hold lessons for the rest of the Catholic Church and American society, said several panelists at an April 29 discussion at the university. Joseph M. Stewart, the acting president of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation…

Story - April 9, 2021 - Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) helps people, with special concern for those who are poor and vulnerable, like the many people currently crossing the Mexican border and seeking asylum in the Untied States. Helping, caring, loving: This is the mission. The staff and volunteers of CCRGV make every effort to live by…

Story - March 24, 2021 - When a person decides to enroll in community college, he or she embarks on a journey— one that often ends prematurely due to non-academic obstacles that make the goal of graduation an ever-distant dream. The fact is only 39% of students receive some degree or certificate within six years of enrolling in community college. There…

Story - March 24, 2021 - Kristina Holt was already having a tough time before the COVID-19 outbreak. A single mother of four children, Kristina moved into a new apartment early last year with plans to split household costs with a roommate. But the roommate quit paying her share, and Kristina soon fell behind on the rent, utilities and other bills.…

Story - March 19, 2021 - The St. Francis Dining Hall building in Southeast Portland is closed because of coronavirus. But the venerable feeding ministry for people who are homeless continues and now includes additional elements and big dreams. “We wanted to build on what parishioners have done for decades,” said Rick Birkel, executive director of Catholic Charities of Oregon. “The…

Story - March 3, 2021 - When Antoinette Fallon accepted a part-time, temporary job at Catholic Charities’ Rachel’s Women’s Center in downtown San Diego, she was new to the organization but she was not new to the work. Relocated from New York with decades of experience in social services, she figured 30-days at Rachel’s would put her experience to good use…

Story - March 4, 2021 - Injured and denied disability benefits, this former goldmine worker spent five years homeless in Calexico. The only homeless shelter in the area that helped him get back on his feet. “There’s a lot of gold back in those hills,” says Robert, a native of Westmorland, California, in the Imperial Valley. In 1990, a few years…

Story - February 19, 2021 - At the Gateway International Bridge that links Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Mexico, a group of volunteers and Catholic sisters pull portable carts with diapers, tents, food and supplies. They cross the border into Mexico on foot, a small caravan of about 10-20 people. Their destination is the migrant camp on the other side, where asylum-seekers…

Story - February 4, 2021 - Policy watchers expect an immigrant-friendly path forward from U.S. President Joe Biden, who signed a trio of executive orders Feb. 2, mostly reviewing immigration directives from his predecessor for possible reversal. But what that path forward will look like still is not clear. Biden’s team seems to be laying out the groundwork for short-term and…

Story - January 25, 2021 - Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri, Inc. seeks to rebuild homes and repair lives through its Purpose Home Repair and Plumbing social enterprise program. The primary initiatives of the program are to a) develop a home repair and construction social enterprise to help low-income, unemployed and underemployed people, with significant barriers to employment, gain marketable job…