WASHINGTON - Hours after the Trump administration announced on Sept. 5 an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, the president seemed to backtrack, just a bit, by saying that if Congress can't find a legislative solution to legalize the program's 800,000 beneficiaries in six months, he might step in.

Published in International

WASHINGTON – Mercy Sister Rita Parks stood near the large crowd in front of the White House that was almost silenced after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced shortly after 11 a.m. on Sept. 5 that the Trump administration was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

Published in International

WASHINGTON - As U.S. President Barack Obama offered a long-awaited plan to close the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, organizations advocating for the closure welcomed the news and called for an end of the policy of holding remaining detainees without charges.

Published in International

In an exclusive commentary for Religion News Service, President Barack Obama makes the case for religious freedom.

Published in International

CATONSVILLE, Md. - In times of rising Islamophobia, U.S. President Barack Obama made a plea for religious tolerance during his first presidential visit to an American mosque.

Published in International

In a blistering critique of what he describes as congressional kowtowing to the gun lobby, the Roman Catholic bishop of Dallas is praising President Obama’s new actions on gun control and ripping the “cowboy mentality” that allows open-carry laws like one that just went into effect in Texas.

Published in International

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama may have denied the permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Alberta to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, but Nebraskans Susan and Jim Dunavan aren't so sure the $8-billion project is dead yet.

Published in International

WASHINGTON - Pope Francis introduced himself to President Barack Obama and all people of the United States as a "son of an immigrant family" arriving in the United States for the first time to learn from others and to share from his own experience.

Published in Francis in America

Seventy supporters of religion-based hiring discrimination urged President Obama Thursday (Sept. 10) to continue to permit government-funded faith groups to employ people with like beliefs.

Published in International

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the U.S bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace said acts of torture outlined in a Senate Intelligence Committee report "violated the God-given human dignity inherent in all people and were unequivocally wrong."

Published in International

WASHINGTON - As millions of immigrants to the United States celebrate the possibility of protection from deportation under a new Obama administration plan, among those who cannot take advantage of it will be the 68,445 families and 68,541 unaccompanied minors who were apprehended at the border in the last fiscal year.

Published in International

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has filed a brief with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver indicating it plans to develop an alternative for Catholic and other religious nonprofit employers to opt out of providing federally mandated contraceptives they object to including in their employee health care coverage.

Published in International

JERUSALEM - U.S. President Barack Obama, visiting the West Bank city of Bethlehem, stopped twice to light candles for his family and himself: first at the Church of Nativity grotto, where Christian tradition holds that Jesus was born, then at the adjacent Catholic Church of St. Catherine.

Published in International

It’s rare that a bishop indicates publicly how he intends to vote. But recent events provoked just such a response in the United States.

President Barack Obama announced on Jan. 20 that his health care plan would require all employers to purchase health insurance for their employees which would cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. While churches with a moral objection would be exempt, universities and hospitals would not be. The upshot would be that Catholic institutions would be forced to purchase products directly contrary to the dictates of a conscience properly formed by the teaching of the Church.

Published in Fr. Raymond de Souza