Katie Collins Scott

After the news that the pope reportedly used a slur to refer to gay men, Fr. Bryan Massingale and Fr. Greg Greiten described their thoughts and emotions about it — and about the gifts and pain of being openly gay priests.

 Amid debates about transgender rights, two conservative Catholic groups have played a consequential but often undisclosed role. NCR looks at the Person and Identity Project and The Cardinal Newman Society.

NCR asked three Catholic theologians how they view the Vatican's new doctrinal document, which condemns gender-affirming surgery for transgender people. 

More than a dozen U.S. bishops gathered at St. Louis University to listen to trans people and their families. Participants told NCR the aim of the meeting was to help bishops understand trans people's experience.

The average apartment in San Jose runs $2,400 a month, But Claire McManmon, a Catholic school teacher, pays $1,000 a month for communal housing in a renovated convent across the street from where she works. 

Outreach, a news, opinion and resource site for LGBTQ Catholics that is affiliated with the Jesuit-run America magazine, has named former Boston Globe and America reporter Michael O'Loughlin as its first executive director.

Mary Jo Tully, the first laywoman chancellor of a U.S. diocese, also contributed to the creation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Colleagues remembered her candor, talents, and fierce love of the church.

Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, has barred priests from celebrating Mass for what was possibly the only Catholic-Lutheran ecumenical community of its kind in the United States.

FutureChurch, an Ohio-based Catholic reform group, announced that its director, Deborah Rose-Milavec, is retiring. Colleagues told NCR that she led her group with persistence, collaboration, creativity and passion.

Permanent supportive housing is a key part of addressing chronic homelessness, but programs need more funding and support from the federal government and local communities, advocates and homelessness experts told NCR.

As chronic homelessness escalates nationwide, advocates tell NCR a big part of the solution are programs to create permanent supportive housing. 

Nearly four months after Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, closed his Department of Catholic Schools, the prelate announced he has established an education office focused on evangelization.

Trinity Health Michigan, part of the third largest Catholic health care system in the U.S., faces accusations of bold anti-union tactics as its workers demand higher wages. The system called the allegations "baseless." 

In a departure from many diocesan policies on the topic, a new document from the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, stresses the first response to LGBTQ individuals should be "one of welcome, love, and respect." 

Black, Latino, Indigenous, and Asian and Pacific Islander survivors of clergy sexual abuse often face additional barriers to reporting abuse. One survivor said coming forward "felt like I was completely assaulted again." 

Stories of Catholic clergy abuse survivors of color are largely untold, and church authorities rarely collect victims' racial and ethnic data. One scholar said that leads to disparities that are "just another level of abuse." 

Fr. Iván Montelongo, a priest from the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, is one of six non-bishop voting members from the U.S. who will participate in October's Synod of Bishops at the Vatican. He told NCR he is not coming with an agenda. "I want to listen to the people, and I want to be open to the Spirit," he said.

A new partnership between the Archdiocese of Newark and the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, backed by Cardinal Joseph Tobin, aims to assist those struggling with various forms of addiction.

The Portland Archdiocese is asserting that the unexpected decision to close its Catholic schools office is not connected to backlash over Archbishop Alexander Sample's new gender identity document for young people.