OSV News

Mercy Sr. Arlene Semesky was killed in a two-vehicle crash July 16 in Pennsylvania that also involved three other congregation members.

Sr. Josephine Garrett describes her new podcast, "Hope Stories with Black Catholics" as "making a space to gather a bunch of Black Catholics to shine light on their stories." 

Catholics in Portugal hope World Youth Day in Lisbon Aug. 1-6 will help spread devotion to Sr. Lucia dos Santos, who was one of the three little shepherd children who witnessed the apparitions of Mary in Fátima in 1917.

July 6 is the 50th anniversary of the miraculous events from Mary now known as "Our Lady of Akita" and her messages to a Japanese novice, Sr. Agnes Sasagawa of the Handmaids of the Eucharist.

On June 30, Texas judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Carmelite nuns against Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson. That same day, police announced they had closed their investigation without recommending criminal charges.

Cyclone Yaku's path through Peru's northern region in March was so destructive that its direct effects — such as the destruction of homes by floods and landslides — and indirect effects — especially an unprecedented outbreak of dengue fever — are still being felt today.

The Holy See has declared Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth to be "pontifical commissary" of the Monastery of Saint Joseph of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns, according to a decree from the dicastery for religious life, dated May 31, 2023 and published on the website of the Diocese of Fort Worth. Olson "will assume his office upon communication" of the decree, it said.

During an April 28 exhumation, the body of Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster — foundress of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles — was shown to be little changed since her May 2019 death at age 95.

Michelle Hillaert, an author and motivational speaker who has spent more than 25 years working in technology and communications fields, has been named executive director of the GIVEN Institute.

A native of the ancient city of Mukachevo in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia region, Sr. Teodora Kopyn arrived in the United States in 2013 to join her fellow Basilians at their Jesus, Lover of Humanity Province in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.

"I stand on the shoulders of giants. ... Vocations grow; they don't just happen," said Sr. Mary Francis Bard, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Family, in an April 23 reflection for the National Day of Prayer for Black Vocations.

The Christophers, a New York-based nonprofit Catholic communications organization, recently announced the appointment to its board of directors of Pauline Sr. Nancy Usselmann. Usselmann currently heads her order's Center for Media Studies in Los Angeles.

On April 19, the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, a fight started out of desperation in the district of the German-occupied Polish capital where Nazis forced the Jewish population to live in unlivable conditions.

"We've been on the journey of healing for so long, but now this healing is going to take a different dimension, which will be even richer. What many of our people have been longing for is for the universal Catholic Church to recognize the wrong that was done."

When Sr. Michaela Rak opened the first hospice in Lithuania in 2009, she didn't know she would open a whole new world for palliative care patients in this European country that used to be part of the Soviet bloc.

Mercy Sr. Rosemary Connelly, former executive director of Misericordia and lifelong advocate for individuals with developmental disabilities, will receive the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics.

The canonization cause of Mother Mary Lange, founder of the world's first sustained women's religious community for Black women, has taken a step forward.

When Sr. Suellen Tennyson was abducted in April 2022 from her Burkina Faso convent, she was beginning a five-month journey into the inscrutable hands of God.

Gathered for a pregame huddle in Ross Hall at their motherhouse, a spirited group of Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth enthusiastically shared advice and encouragement in advance of the big Super Bowl.

Philadelphia Eagles fans are turning to prayer, preaching and the city's iconic soft pretzels to support their team in Super Bowl LVII.