Catherine M. Odell

The upcoming U.S. election is "very much about the future of democracy," Gerard Powers of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies told an Indiana parish in his talk about voting from a Catholic perspective.

At his inauguration as Notre Dame's 18th president, Holy Cross Fr. Robert Dowd said the university "will go loan-free and need-blind for all undergraduates, including both domestic and international students."

Though campus conversations about food are often students griping about dining hall meals, an April 9 panel discussion at St. Mary's College in Indiana explored the issues of food waste and the future of food.

About 40 people from around South Bend, Indiana, gathered at St. Thérèse, Little Flower Catholic Church for a March 9 workshop on composting, which was discussed as an environmentally smart way to deal with discarded food.

Synodality is an issue that everyone in the church needs to understand and embrace, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, told an audience at the University of Notre Dame.

Jesuit Fr. Tim McCabe's ministry in Detroit taught him that many homeless people needed much more than a drop-in center for a meal or shower. He hopes the new Bridge Housing Campus will fill some gaps. 

A vacant Knights Inn in South Bend, Indiana, has been renovated as "Motels4Now," a project to offer immediate housing to persons experiencing homelessness. "It's only from a place of stability that you can work on other issues," its director said.

Directors of three food banks connected to Catholic dioceses — in the states of New York, Indiana and Louisiana — recently shared with NCR about the challenges they are navigating in 2023.

"I got into the field of journalism because I understood how powerful journalism is if we are to have a democracy," Nikole Hannah-Jones told the audience during her "homecoming" to the University of Notre Dame.

When Kabul collapsed quickly this fall, friends of Marquette University's Center for Peacemaking wanted to help Afghanis trying to restart their lives after fleeing their country. "We realized that for so many resettled refugees, education was a ticket to improve their lives," said Patrick Kennelly, the center's director.

Phil Sakimoto, astrophysicist and director of Notre Dame's sustainability minor program, works on and off campus to address climate issues with Catholics. The former NASA officer shifted his gaze from the stars to the ground, focusing on Earth's needs.

"We would like any man who wants to be included in the physical defense of the parish to be present to discuss and go over tactics for possible situations at St. Stanislaus that would require the use of firearms," wrote the pastor in an email.

In 2016, the University of Notre Dame adopted a comprehensive sustainability strategy, and last year, after analysing how much food was being thrown out, it started capturing that waste and sending it to be converted into power.

Patricia Hackett, attorney and Democratic congressional candidate, refuted the U.S. attorney general's controversial address on religious freedom, in the same space where he spoke about a month earlier.

Two Indianapolis high schools caught in summer controversy with Archbishop Charles Thompson about firing — or not firing — gay teachers start up the school year with a new status quo.

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is the youngest of the Democratic presidential candidates. According to his pastor, "The person you see on TV is the same person I know. … He is who he appears to be."

Dignity was founded in 1969 in San Diego by Fr. Patrick Nidorf, an Augustinian priest and psychologist who felt that the pastoral needs of his city's gay Catholic community were being ignored.

More than 60,000 people gathered for the beatification of beloved Capuchin friar Fr. Solanus Casey Nov. 18 in Detroit, moving him a step closer to canonization.