Welcome to today’s OSV News Showcase!
As summer fades into fall, at least in Minnesota, I’ve been grateful for some Mediterranean vibes sent from Elizabeth Scalia, who left for Italy this week. No, she’s not covering the Synod on Synodality — although that would be a lot of fun, right? — but rather she’s basking only briefly in the “Ottobrata Romana” before heading southward along the coast. Regardless of Elizabeth’s Italian holiday, our eyes are on the Vatican with tomorrow’s cardinal-creating consistory and the opening of the Synod on Synodality next Wednesday, and that day’s release of “Laudate Deum,” Pope Francis’ follow-up to “Laudato Si’.” You’ll see our reporting on those major events in next week’s showcase.
This week, we have a new CARA study on the Eucharist that brings greater clarity to the 2019 Pew Research Center study that prompted the National Eucharistic Revival, Iraqis mourning more than 100 people killed in a fire during a wedding reception, Jen Fulwiler lifting the curtain on the comedy-making process while on a national tour, and the reflection from a Ukrainian iconographer (pictured above) on her son’s death after he was killed in 2022 by Russian mortar fire.
You can find more of our stories by following us on Facebook, X (aka Twitter) and Instagram, and I’m always happy to hear your story ideas messaged to us on those platforms. Have a great weekend.
Maria Wiering
Senior writer
U.S. bishops, advocacy groups caution against government shutdown
The federal government appears to be heading toward a shutdown at the end of September, as congressional lawmakers are running out of time to pass legislation funding the government after Sept. 30.
CARA study shows positive signs of Catholic belief in Eucharist, but underscores need for revival
The study revealed a high correlation between belief in the Eucharist and Catholics who attend Mass weekly or at least monthly, 95% and 80%, respectively. Bishop Cozzens said the data shows many people have not had “a real encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist” and need not just catechesis, but an invitation into a living relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist “so that their lives can be changed.”
Synod on Synodality faces task of helping Catholics evangelize effectively, say experts
In short, the baptized are called not to be simply passive members of a parish. However, the synod faces the task of effectively mapping out how to form and deploy clergy and faithful to be energetic disciples in the church’s mission fields all around them.
‘Hard work’ of standup comedy a labor of love, faith for Jen Fulwiler
“I am talking about mom stuff and all that, but I think it is from a little bit different perspective,” the bestselling author, wife and mother of six told OSV News amid her 2023 “Maternal Instinct” comedy tour.
‘Not soldiers but knights’: Catholic mother mourns son and ‘brilliant’ generation slain in Ukraine
The death of her son, a graduate of Ukrainian Catholic University, who was killed by Russian mortar fire in June 2022 during a battle in Ukraine’s south, has placed her firmly at the foot of the cross, said renowned Ukrainian iconographer and artist Ivanka Krypyakevych-Dymyd.
Fire in packed hall turns wedding joy into tragedy in northern Iraq, killing more than 100
Upon hearing about the tragedy, Chaldean Catholic Cardinal Louis Sako traveled to the destroyed hall to minister to traumatized survivors. Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire. Flares may have set alight cladding, or a chandelier, initial reports said, leaving the building ablaze within two minutes.
French bishops launch project to save the country’s crumbling religious heritage
The majority of France’s 100,000 places of worship are Catholic. Those built after 1905 belong to the church. But over 40,000 depend on public administration, under the 1905 law on church-state separation. Between 4,000 and 5,000 religious buildings in France are currently in serious disrepair.
Biden makes history joining striking auto workers on picket line
Clayton Sinyai, executive director of the Catholic Labor Network, told OSV News that seeing “the president taking the side of workers in a dispute with their employer” is unprecedented. Catholic teaching since Leo XIII affirms the rights of workers both to organize into unions and to resort to labor strikes in order to obtain economic justice.
ANALYSIS: Is the U.S. church’s Hispanic Catholic hope slipping away?
If you want to get a sense of who the typical Hispanic Catholic is in the U.S., think of a 24-year-old young person, a child of immigrants, born or raised in the U.S., looking for a better job, and perhaps deciding whether to get married or postpone this important decision to a later moment in life, although open to welcoming children.
COMMENTARY: Dissatisfied with your medical care? There are lots of reasons for that!
Dr. Kathleen Berchelmann, a Catholic pediatrician, mother of seven and founder of My Catholic Doctor, talks with Charlie Camosy about the numerous (and sometimes repellent) challenges doctors face, even when they want very much to treat the whole patient before them.
