WASHINGTON (RNS) For much of its long history in the U.S., the Catholic Church was known as the champion of the working class, a community of immigrants whose leaders were steadfast in support of organized labor and economic justice – a faith-based agenda that helped provide a path to success for its largely working-class flock.
In recent decades, as those ethnic European Catholics assimilated and grew wealthier, and as the concerns of the American hierarchy shifted to battles over moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage, traditional pocketbook issues took a back seat.
Now, however, with the surprise election of Donald Trump and the Republican sweep of Congress signaling a new era of free-market and anti-immigration policies, the U.S. church and its bishops may be set to recalibrate their priorities. Continue reading
An ancient chivalric order led by a British former Guards officer has dismissed as “irrelevant” an investigation launched by Pope Francis into the dismissal of a senior knight, in an increasingly bitter row with the Vatican.
“Migrants are looking to be harbored by churches, hospitals, and schools to avoid potential deportation under Trump’s proposed immigration plans, according to 
ortion and the death penalty have long been cardinal beliefs for the Roman Catholic church, whose faithful make up about a quarter of all Americans. What if fighting climate change becomes an equally passionate issue in parishes nationwide? The foremost group of Catholic leaders in the U.S. is ramping up a campaign to do just that, urging priests and congregations from San Diego to Atlanta to think about global warming as a sanctity-of-life issue.” –
Fra’ Matthew Festing said the Order would follow the Pope at this ‘complex and difficult time’
“It’s going to be an important year in the church because it’s the 100th anniversary of Mary’s apparitions at Fatima and we’re going to be celebrating that particular event in the diocese along with the universal church,” said Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence.
“The New York Police Department is allowing Sikh officers to wear full turbans in place of the traditional police cap and grow beards up to a half-inch long as required by their religion. …It’s a major change in our uniform policy, so we had to go about it carefully. And now I have the opportunity to make the change, and I thought it was about time that we did that. O’Neill said the NYPD has about 160 Sikh officers. …Sikh advocates praised the NYPD’s decision to be more inclusive. If the NYPD’s new policy indeed allows for Sikhs to maintain unshorn beards and turbans, that sends a powerful message to the rest of America that Sikhs are an important part of our nation’s fabric,” Harsimran Kaur, legal director of The Sikh Coalition, told