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As the school year sets at St. Thomas More Academy in southeastern Washington, D.C., students spring into action for a day of tree-tending. Eighth graders at the Catholic elementary school swap books and computers for shovels, rakes, and hoses and head outside to tend to the more than six dozen growing trees around their campus. They remove old mulch, add some new, and water each of the trees.
In a country with the weakest parental leave standards of all its economic peers, church policy to support new parents is rarely more generous than what one might get from a public school, an architecture firm, or a dentist’s office. In many cases there is no set policy, and ordained and lay staff are sometimes treated differently.
A Filipino priest is touring top European banks to demand they curtail ties with companies behind new fossil fuel projects in a region of his home country that is rich in fish and coral. But he is leaving his meetings with bankers feeling frustrated.
As a crowd gathered outside the white-brick Orthodox church in the village of Karyshkiv in western Ukraine, raised voices quickly turned to shouting. Soon old women were crying. The villagers were quarrelling over the affiliation of their parish church, which belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) that the government in Kyiv accuses of being under the influence of Moscow.
On Mother’s Day in many congregations across the U.S., churches will hand out flowers, host breakfast and tea, or offer applause for women in attendance. While the goal is to honor women and mothers, Elizabeth Hagan, a minister at Georgia’s First Christian Church Athens and author of Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility, told Sojourners that the celebrations can cause discomfort, pain, or even disillusionment for many in the pews.
Sexual abusers are disgusting “enemies” who deserve to be condemned and punished — but also deserve Christian love and pastoral care because they too are children of God, Pope Francis said.
Already this legislative session, the Texas Senate has approved bills that would require the Ten Commandments to be posted in all public school classrooms and allow unlicensed religious chaplains to supplant the role of school counselors. Meanwhile, there are numerous efforts to eliminate or weaken two state constitutional amendments that prohibit direct state support of religious schools and organizations, a key plank of the broader school-choice movement.
Pope Francis, in a historic move that could lead to more inclusiveness in decision-making in the Roman Catholic Church, will allow women to vote for the first time at a global meeting of bishops in October. In the past, women were allowed to attend the synods, a papal advisory body, as auditors but with no right to vote.

Representative Justin Jones marches with supporters to the Tennessee State Capitol the after being reinstated by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County with 36-0 votes, after the Republican majority Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Democratic members, representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, for their roles in a gun control demonstration on the statehouse floor, in Nashville, Tenn., April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Cheney Orr
Despite Republican colleagues expelling him from the Tennessee state legislature, Nashville’s Democratic Rep. Justin Jones still believes working for justice in the South means working on “sacred ground.”
Nearly 30 groups of Catholic nuns, totaling more than 6,000 people across 18 states, signed onto a statement celebrating Trans Day of Visibility and calling people to resist anti-transgender legislation in their states.

An Indigenous woman in traditional clothes in front of the Sainte-Anne Basilica. She unfurled, a few minutes earlier in the church, a banner calling for the rejection of the doctrine of discovery, during Pope Francis’ trip to Canada to apologize to Indigenous people for abuses in residential schools for children. Quebec, Canada, July 27th, 2022. David Himbert / Hans Lucas via Reuters
The Vatican on Thursday formally repudiated the colonial-era “doctrine of discovery,” used centuries ago to justify European conquests of Africa and the Americas, saying “it is not part of Catholic Church teaching.”
Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will need to spend “a few days” in hospital for treatment, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday
Manhattan’s District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, is best known these days for leading the probe of whether former president Donald Trump and his company broke state laws in 2016 to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about an alleged affair.
At least 39 migrants from Central and South America died after a fire broke out late on Monday at a migrant holding center in the Mexican northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, apparently caused by a protest over deportations, officials said on Tuesday.
Almost four years after Pope Francis issued tougher measures against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the Vatican announced on Saturday expanded and clearer rules
A shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., on Monday morning, left multiple victims before police "engaged" the gunman, leaving the suspect dead, local officials said.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has ordered the closure of the Vatican Embassy in Managua and that of the Nicaraguan Embassy to the Vatican in Rome, a senior Vatican source said on Sunday.
Pope Francis marks 10 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church on Monday celebrating Mass with cardinals in the chapel of the Vatican's Santa Marta hotel where he has lived since his election.
Over his career, Luther Williams has seen the impact of racist education standards and a lack of Black representation in science.

Maryuri, a recent migrant from Venezuela whose last name is withheld to protect her identity, speaks in front of the John A. Wilson Building in Washington, D.C., during a Feb. 22 press conference organized by Congregation Action Network to advocate for better migrant support services. Evan Robinson-Johnson/Sojourners.
Local faith leaders and asylum seekers gathered on Feb. 22 to demand that Washington, D.C., government allow asylum seekers to access resources available to the rest of the district’s unhoused population.